I am a veteran of the war in Iraq. All total I spent about fifteen years in the US Army, and did quite a bit of living and traveling in that time. As a matter of fact, it is my military service that I credit for why I became a liberal in the first place. There is something about being directly exposed to different cultures and different people from across the country. Now that I am out of the military, I work for the state of Louisiana helping other disabled veterans find housing, find employment, and access their educational benefits.
This is where the problem begins. I have contact with numerous employers, from tiny small businesses to large corporations. When I talk directly to their HR departments, they are quick to claim they love to hire veterans. This is directly at odds with what happens in reality. According to the BLS, veterans have a fairly high unemployment rate of about 9.0 percent.?When I talk to employers and talk to veterans, what I usually find is that employers love to hire veterans because the employer gets a ten thousand dollar tax exemption for every veteran they hire. However, employers want the veterans to be just like everyone else. Very little if any accommodations are made, and many will not hire veterans if they think they may have issues with PTSD. More veterans are coming home from the current war disabled (nearly 30 percent) and these disability issues cause many veterans to be passed over for employment. Granted, we are covered by the ADA, but good luck proving you were not hired because of a disability.
The final knife in the back of the Conservative ?We support the troops!? motto is that Republicans have tried on more than one occasion to cut veteran benefits, and in some instances have quietly succeeded. The Post 9/11 GI Bill, probably one of the best reforms to veteran’s benefits in decades, was cut because politicians deemed it was too generous. Our VA hospital system is getting much better, but knee jerk restrictions put on the agency by politicians has resulted in numerous scandals, which in turn makes conservatives salivate at the thought of getting the huge number of veterans into various coupon or privatization schemes. In short, we veterans are largely a political tool, convenient props to prove how much one loves America more than another politician?.but ultimately, it is veterans that suffer. We are not a political football.
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