Jeremy Jachelski and his little brother were making jokes in the back of their family minivan when his older brother, who was driving, veered off the road and down a cliff into a tree while on the way to a lake in West Virginia. 

The crash killed Jachelski’s two brothers and his parents. Jachelski, then 14, and his sister survived, though he was hospitalized for a punctured lung, fractured rib and broken back.

Following the accident, Jachelski lived with his aunt and joined the U.S. Army while in high school. His father often talked with pride about U.S. soldiers, Jachelski said. For him, the Army was a way out of an unstable upbringing filled with drugs, alcohol and financial struggles.

In the Army, Jachelski bonded with a soldier who gave him pillows, sheets, a meal at Jack in the Box and a friendly face in an unfamiliar place where he had little. They served in the same platoon and lived in the same apartment complex. When Jachelski was selected for air assault school, his friend helped train him, packed his truck for the drive, accompanied him to the campus and helped familiarize him with the area. 

“We were really good friends,” Jachelski said. “We were more than friends for sure. We were brothers.”

Injuries in air assault school prevented Jachelski from being deployed while his friend went to Iraq. Jachelski would later find out that his friend — the brother he found in the Army — took his own life overseas. He struggled and needed help, Jachelski said. 

After graduating from air assault school, Jachelski continued to train with aspirations of attending Special Forces Assessment and Selection. But injuries changed the course of his military career. He finished out his contract after three years and returned home, but soon left again with his partner for Chowchilla. When that relationship dissolved, he ended up in Fresno.

Jachelski was battling alcoholism and substance abuse — something he was trying to escape as a teenager — when he met a woman who was on a sobriety journey. She took him to his first Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, Jachelski said. Then he checked into a substance abuse treatment center. When he graduated from that program, he enrolled in a mental health treatment facility where he met a counselor who told him about Fresno State’s Veteran’s Education Program. 

“I knew I wanted to go to school, but I never really thought I was good enough or I was smart enough or that it was even in reach for me,” Jachelski said. “It felt like a dream, like maybe one day I’d like to, but like not in this life, you know?”

The Fresno State Veteran’s Program, through the Division of Continuing and Global Education, provides returning veterans with an admission pathway to Fresno State. The student veterans take required coursework as a small cohort over nine months to gain admission to the university as a degree-seeking student.

They attend classes twice a week and receive step-by-step guidance from faculty and leadership to help them build academic confidence and integrate into university life. 

Jachelski worked on writing, public speaking and classroom debates. He completed projects that required exploring campus resources and engaged with the community to build a sense of belonging on campus. He made connections through the program that led to a job as a student assistant in the Office of Community and Economic Development at Fresno State, and he became an online instructor for a health and wellness course for the Rising Initiative for Success in Education program. 

“Jeremy Jachelski was an attentive and engaged presence in class, listening closely and readily contributing to our discussions,” said Fresno State English lecturer Brandon Daher. “I appreciated his willingness to share his perspective and engage in conversation with classmates.” 

Jachelski graduated from the program in spring 2026.

“[The Veteran’s Education Program] made me feel like I belonged,” Jachelski said, “that I do have goals that I can reach and it’s possible for me to make something out of the mess that I made myself into.”

He started as a full-time student at Fresno State this fall majoring in pre-health to become a nurse — a full circle journey that started after the accident that took his family’s life. 

“I remember hearing the paramedics say I might not make it, and later hearing the doctors and nurses tell me I might never walk again. I was 14 years old, had just lost everyone I loved, and felt completely numb and alone,” Jachelski said. “But what has stayed with me all these years is how the nurses treated me. They nurtured me, encouraged me, supported me and made me feel like I mattered when I felt like I had nothing left. The doctors saved my life, but the nurses made me want to live.”

Jachelski has carried that experience with him every day since the accident, and it’s a huge part of why he’s pursuing nursing today, he said. 

“I want to be able to give someone else that same compassion, reassurance, and hope that those nurses gave me,” Jachelski said. “If I can have even a fraction of the impact on someone’s life that they had on mine, I’ll know I’m doing something meaningful.”

Visit the Veteran’s Education Program for more information.