ELLENSBURG -- With one snip of a ribbon, Central Washington University unveiled its new Veteran Services Center. The celebration even brought Washington's first gentlemen Mike Gregoire to Ellensburg.

"I'm so honored to be here," Gregoire told the crowd.

CWU already had a services for veterans, but this is the first centralized department dedicated to helping vets.

"For those like myself who came back and had to go to so many different places, it was hard to make that connection," says Keith James, a CWU student and National Guard member. "You had to tell your story again and again."

James served in Iraq and is also student body president. He says he didn't take full advantage of veteran services when he came back from war.

"There are really great benefits for veterans, but they're almost like tax breaks, you'd never really know about them until you have someone invested in really going through and doing the research on it," he says. "That's what the veteran center will do."

CWU now has almost 300 veterans, and many more students, like ROTC member Jack Barry, who will eventually deploy.

"What about credit card bills, what about rent," he says. "I'm sure the professionals at the center will be aware of all that."

Older veterans say they could only wish for something like this when they came back from Vietnam. Don Morris attended Central almost three decades ago.

"It would've been a wonder," says Morris. "When I came to Central they had one person that worked in the veterans affairs office."

He says the reception for troops back then was very different, and that even the Veterans Affairs agency was almost impossible to navigate.

"We felt betrayed," he says.

Morris says he's now dedicated to make sure that never happens again.