Many War Veterans Having Difficulty Finding Work

Study shows  job prospects for Iraq War veterans are slim as many struggle to relate their unique war experience to well-paying jobs
by Andrea Zelinski

Tyler Carroll uses what he learned in the military every day.

Carroll, a 27-year-old Afghanistan veteran from Rock Island, spent five months carrying out missions like taking control of airfields and capturing top terrorist lieutenants.

Now he’s securing crime scenes and arresting troublemakers as a police officer in Burlington, Iowa.

Carroll came home from Afghanistan in 2002 knowing exactly where he wanted to take his career. But many veterans aren’t immediately following through after they come home from war, according to a report the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs published in September.

Those who try often have trouble finding quality work…

• 18 percent of recently separated servicemen and women are unemployed.
• One in four who land a job make less than $10.50 an hour or $21,840 a year.
• Those with four-year college degrees earned $9,500 less than their civilian counterparts.

Amidst the already grim look of the U.S. and state economy, job prospects for Iraq War veterans are slimming as many struggle to relate their unique war experience to well-paying jobs, according to the study.

Those numbers don’t surprise most vets, like Carroll, who said they typically need time to decompress after their service, end up going back to school or take on low-paying part-time jobs in the meantime.

But the study says employers are part of the problem because they have trouble translating military experience into civilian work.

"They second-guess military people because they don’t understand everything that we’ve been through," said Tammy Duckworth, director of the Illinois Department of Veteran Affairs, an Iraq War veteran who lost her legs in 2004 when a rocket-propelled grenade struck the Black Hawk helicopter she was co-piloting.

"I can tell an employer that I was an infantry squad leader and that would mean absolutely nothing to them," she said.

But when you put it in terms they can understand — like "I was a team leader," "I had 15 guys that I was in charge of," "I was a manager," "I can manage a position" — veterans are a little easier to read, she said.

While the Defense Department offers job-training classes that teach new veterans how to assemble a resume or approach a job interview, less than one-third take the class, the report said.

About two in three said they didn’t begin looking for a job until after they left the service, according to the report.

Even after they do start hunting, the report said veteran job seekers don’t seem to understand the culture and expectations of the business environment and aren’t career ready.

Those who attended school on the GI Bill aren’t necessarily landing great jobs either, according to the report. Those receiving the GI bill tend to work jobs with less responsibility, lower pay and fewer hours.

But veterans typically want to translate their military skills into the civilian sector, said Keith Wilson, director of education services for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

Some jobs are more appealing to them, like being a police officer, firefighter, air traffic controller or paramedic, he said. Others just want to work outdoors or with their hands.

Such was the case for Carroll, who wanted a job that gave him the same feeling he had in the military.

But applying for a job he thought would be a no-brainer proved more difficult than he thought.

Carroll applied to several police departments straight out of school with a bachelor’s degree in law enforcement from Western Illinois University’s Quad-Cities campus. He looked like a top-notch candidate until he took the mandatory psychiatric evaluation interview.

He failed the test at one department.

Then a second.

"It just makes you wonder what he may have gone through that he doesn’t talk about," said his grandfather Denny Jacobs, a former state senator. "There’s a lot of things that I don’t know and he won’t talk about what went on in Afghanistan. It makes you wonder, has he had to take someone’s life hand-to-hand and what kind of effect does that have?"

Carroll found out examiners thought he was overconfident for the job. It wasn’t until he mentioned his military experience that everything fell into place, landing him the spot in Iowa.

With almost 3,000 Illinois veterans expected home the next year alone, vets and employers can expect more situations like this where they’ll have to realize the difference between their typical job candidate and members of the military.

"We have been places and seen things," Carroll said. Then "you’ve got the 19-year-old who hasn’t really done anything."

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