Recent veterans entering the job market or going to college are often stigmatized as likely to have emotional or mental problems, a myth that is holding them back from success in both arenas, two veterans said during an online discussion Monday titled “veterans as strategic assets.”
During the discussion, sponsored by the Medill National Security Journalism Initiative, Alexander Deitchman, president of the Northwestern University Veterans Association, and Paul Knudtson, director of Armed Services Relations at National Louis University, said that the national narrative on veterans needs to be rewritten.
Knudtson pointed out that, due in large part to news reports, the national narrative on veterans seems to highlight physical or emotional disabilities sustained during combat.
“For veterans who go back to school and look to enter the job market, these veterans must be viewed as strategic assets to the academic and working communities,” Knudtson said.
The speakers noted that while tens of thousands of veterans do suffer from the negative effects of war, like post-traumatic stress disorder, the numbers have been distorted.
Only 12 percent of veterans suffer from PTSD, but many Americans believe the number to be much higher, Knudtson said.
Deitchman, who works with Northwestern veterans’ services, said the first step to shedding the negative image and seeing veterans as strategic assets is to acknowledge that they are part of the community, not just people who walk in parades on Veterans’ Day.
“Nowadays, there’s this sense that veterans are a very different type of person,” said Deitchman. “And frankly that needs to change.”
Deitchman is working to make Northwestern a “veteran friendly” school and help the 200 veteran students on campus transition into an academic life, with the ultimate goal of bringing in companies that are willing to hire veterans.
Nationally, more than 1 million veterans have enrolled in U.S. colleges and universities as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan wind down, according to the Student Veterans of America. These students are older than most college students — around 85 percent are 24 years or older, according SVA.
Deitchman stressed the importance of transition services. The key is developing public and private business partnerships. Chicago companies such as Fifth Third Bank and The Edelman Group have shown initiative in hiring veterans.
While more than 300 nonprofit organizations in Illinois are registered to help veterans, like the Veterans Foundation of Illinois, many vets simply don’t know about these resources, Deitchman said.
The unemployment rate for post-9/11 veterans was 10 percent in August 2013, a 2 percent increase from just less than 8 percent in July, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Compared with the rest of the population, the overall national unemployment rate dropped only slightly.
Deitchman said that making veterans aware of the training and job-placement resources available is the first step to increasing their numbers in the workplace.
“They are uniquely positioned to add a perspective that ultimately adds value that, frankly, 99.9 percent of the population doesn’t have because less than 1 percent has served in a war,” Knudtson said.
Both speakers called hiring vets a sound investment because of their problem-solving and critical thinking skills.
“We need to start to create systems that enable the country, whether its companies, business or universities, to leverage these strategic assets, bring them into their corporation and reap the benefits and the return on investment,” Knudtson said.
