Veterans' Unemployment: Gross Punitive Betrayal

Can't the VA get anything right?

Homeless Veteran in New York City Courtesy: Unite to End Homelessness

(MOLALLA, Ore.) - I just heard on TV news today that 21% of Vets were unemployed (read unemployable!). Although the Armed Services propagandize that they offer training in about 200 fields of work this is a big sham. What few learning experiences and jobs do they purport to be training for?

My uncle was a Chief Warrant Officer for Food Supply to the Pacific Submarine Fleet in WWII. When he got out all he could get was a job as a bank guard! I was a Combat Infantryman. Somewhere in my records it said I would be a GOOD polar bear hunter and I decided to pass.

The news also states that 200,000 Vets are homeless. We do have about 5 million Vets of all wars. The complaints of these Vets, whether from abysmally poor care in service hospitals or even worse, the criminally inadequate care in the VA system gives a sickening opening to the gross punitive betrayal of Veterans, and I am one of them. The promises of the VA System are the worst kinds of “pillowtalk”. Very, very few Vets are satisfied with the consideration and care they provide for Veterans regardless of the Veterans' problems.

Just for the halibut, I punched up VETERANS UNEMPLOYMENT on my computer. Up jumped 726 articles. Yes, Vets are concerned and even belligerent about their gross mistreatment in all fields by the institution which is presumed to be taking care of us – SCANDAL AND SHAME!!!

One of the articles I read on my computer was by an author who wrote a Ph.D. thesis on the subject, written from Vets' interviews concluding that the main cause of Veterans' problems was CULTURE SHOCK of the difference between Armed Service life and civilian realities. This was broken down into 4 categories:

1. Lack of transferable skills (Amen)
2. Culture Shock itself
3. lack of employability and
4. financial disasters caused by the previous three. I would also add
5. lack of or refused for adequate realistic medical care especially for PTSD.

The VA has mistreated and literally wrecked probably more than 1,000,000 Vets, and the number is escalating by the day. If you don’t think so, think of the dying alcoholics, nicotine fiends and suicides among veterans. If you don’t know about that it will be horrific for your mortal soul to find out.

The young Vets, 20 – 24, are the worst hit. The services want to get them young and brainwash them into real Soldiers, Sailors and Marines - but when they get out they have minimal marketable skills, and most are just north of menial/entry-level labor skills. While those who stayed home are usually in supervisory or administrative jobs which one would think the services would have trained them for.

Believe it or not, congress has passed two bills purported to help Vets:

1. Uniformed Services Employment and Re-employment Rights Act (SERRA) and
2. National Committee for Support of Guardsmen and Reserve. (NCSGR)

So far they are colossally failing boondoggles!

WHERE IS THE GLORY OF FIGHTING

FOR ONE’S COUNTRY???

Before any of that, Phil Leveque was a Combat Infantryman in the U.S. Army in WWII. He suffers from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder more than 60 years after the war, and specialized in treating Veterans with PTSD during his years as a doctor in Molalla, Oregon. Do you have a question, comment or story to share with Dr. Leveque?
Email him: ASK DR. LEVEQUE
More information on the history of Dr. Leveque can be found in his book, General Patton's Dogface Soldier of WWII about his own experiences "from a foxhole". Order the book by mail by following this link: DOGFACE SOLDIER OF WWII If you are a World War II history buff, you don't want to miss it.