he battle is far from over for Army veteran Steve Kraft.
An ex-paratrooper, Kraft was in a constant state of vigilance
when he faced regular gunfire in enemy raids in Iraq during 2003 and 2004. Friends
were killed, and the fear of getting shot or blown up was unrelenting. But when
he returned in 2005 to his former employer, MTV Networks, new conflicts arose.
Unable to hold open his job as benefits administrator in human
resources, the network created a new position especially for the 34-year-old New
Yorker: booking conference rooms and tracking people who signed up for in-house
training. It wasn’t much of a challenge for the former soldier, and a culture clash
arose with his immediate supervisor, who dismissed his military experience as irrelevant
to the job and told him she didn’t want to hear about Iraq.
"It didn’t exactly make me feel valued as an employee," Kraft
says.
About seven months later, he was fired in a round of corporate
restructuring. He’s still searching for full-time employment. MTV Networks says
its policy is to hire and support veterans.
At least 21,500 troops will return from Iraq by July 2008,
according to a speech given by President Bush in September. Thousands more have
already cycled through their tours of duty and are looking for civilian jobs.
The transition can be tougher than boot camp training. GIs,
reservists and National Guard members getting back to the daily grind bump up against
common misperceptions from employers, who either discount these workers’ battlefield
experience or expect them to ramp up as if they never left. At best, many say the
return to the workplace feels like landing on the moon as symptoms of post-traumatic
stress can leave them feeling jumpy and unfocused for months. Physical injuries
create even more challenges.
"Some employers just don’t get it," says Al Giordano, deputy
executive director of nonprofit the
Wounded Warrior
Project. "They try to do the right thing, but they discount some of the
severe trauma a soldier has been through, whether it’s physical or emotional."
Long haul
But that’s for those vets fortunate enough to find the employment they need to make
them feel whole again. Plenty of former soldiers struggle to find work well over
a year after their return. The youngest GIs, with the least work experience, find
it most difficult to fit into the workplace. The jobless rate among vets ages 20
to 24 was more than 10 percent in 2006, at least twice the national average for
all adults, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. Nonprofit organizations that
work with veterans say the jobless rate is much higher.
"Veteran underemployment is very deep and unmeasured," says
Wes Poriotis, founder of the
Center for Military and Private Sector
Initiatives, which promotes the hiring
of veterans.
|
THE STATS |
|
Number of newly discharged veterans
claiming unemployment insurance as of September: |
22,073 |
|
Source:
U.S. Department of Labor |
|
| |
|
|
Percentage of disabled Iraq and
Afghanistan veterans who are unemployed: |
About 35 percent |
|
Source:
Veterans Across America |
|
Even older vets with plenty of translatable job skills get
overlooked. They find themselves fighting unflattering preconceptions about the
military and the kind of training they receive.
"The civilian world just wants to put you in a box," says
Ray Lopes, a former Marine Corps helicopter pilot who found this out firsthand.
With 13 years’ experience in the military, the 45-year-old
ex-officer left the service in 1998 to start his own construction company, but was
called up as a reserve for two tours of active duty in 2003 and 2005. On his second
tour with the 3rd Battalion, which has had a famously high casualty rate in this
conflict, Lopes was shot by a sniper in his right hip and permanently disabled.
After a year of recovery from a hip replacement and multiple complications, he found
he was physically incapable of construction work and began applying to MBA programs.
Disappointing offer
For several months now, Lopes has also been looking for work in a more corporate
setting. Thinking his leadership training would open doors for a management position,
the college graduate with a degree in marketing used a contact in the Marines to
set up a meeting with HBO. But Lopes, who oversaw the reconstruction of Nasiriyah,
Iraq, and managed hundreds of men, was told the only position for him at the network
was security guard.
"I was floored," he says. "I guess some employers have no
idea what the military can offer."
HBO expressed shock at Lopes’ experience.
"If somebody, in fact, said this, they certainly weren’t speaking
on behalf of the company," a spokeswoman said. In fact, the network says it has
several veterans in management positions, including the CEO.
Indeed, many employers make outsized efforts to retain positions
for their workers who go to war. Orthopedic surgeon Jose Rodriguez, 40, was one
of the lucky ones who had a job to come home to. He has no complaints about colleagues
at Lenox Hill Hospital, who welcomed him back with open arms after two stints as
an Army Reserve medical officer in Iraq.
But even the smoothest transition back to civilian roles can
hit rough patches. Performing triage and amputations for horribly wounded soldiers,
often while under fire, left Rodriguez feeling fraught. He was jumpy and quick to
raise his voice. He became rankled when well-meaning colleagues told him they understood
what he went through, and felt as if he was in a fog for about six months after
his first tour.
"I remember walking around the hospital thinking, `What is
this place?’ " Rodriguez says. "I felt like an alien."
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