Elisabeth Bandea, a Marine Corps veteran who spent seven months in Iraq in 2007 searching women at checkpoints for bombs and weapons, faced a different, but still psychologically demanding task when she returned home — finding a job.
“I had five interviews in two years,” Bandea said. After spending four years in the Marines, Bandea believed she had a job lined up after leaving the military in 2008. Instead, she was on the brink of being homeless, she said, and she moved back in with her mother in Fairfield.
The frustration of Bandea, who was one of the estimated thousands of unemployed or underemployed area veterans, came spilling out during an August 2010 job interview.
“I just poured my heart out,” she said. “I told them there will always be someone more qualified than me, but I’m not any more or less deserving than anyone else and I’d felt like I’d been put on a back burner because I’d been in the military.”
Local veterans service and job agencies say they believe similar jobless statistics are true in Ohio and Butler County, although they don’t keep hard numbers .
“Veterans can face additional barriers when making a transition to the civilian work force,” said Benjamin Johnson, deputy director for the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services. “Many are uncertain where their skill set translates to the civilian work force.”
Jargon that exists for work in the military can be radically different from the words used to describe skills to a civilian employer, even though they are describing the exact same thing, Johnson said. Nearly every county in Ohio has a Work Force One office geared toward helping individuals find jobs, and each of those offices is equipped with a person specifically assigned to helping veterans, he said.
A provision of President Barack Obama’s jobs package, which has already passed through the Senate, is to give tax credits to companies that hire unemployed veterans.
Bandea said the perceived bias in hiring veterans stems from misunderstandings and stereotypes .
“They think we’re just some PTSD victims who will flip out at any moment,” Bandea said.
Curtis McPherson, director of the Butler County Veteran Service Commission, said many veterans find civilian jobs that were supposed to be held for them while they served their country have vanished upon their return, either due to downsizing or a company reclassifying a position to circumvent laws. A lot of veterans leaving the military are also simply caught up in the perils of anyone attempting to transition between jobs in a poor economy.
“A lot of vets I see are on the verge of giving up,” McPherson said. “I have to try and get through to them to not give up. Any job is better then no job. I try to tell them to start with a lower job and they can climb faster because of the knowledge they possess from the military.”
McPherson said he is concerned the problem will become greater in January, when the U.S. withdraws from Iraq, bringing a new wave of veterans home.
Bandea said she was “lucky” to find a job last year with an insurance company. During her job search, Bandea started a support and education network on Facebook called Give Veterans a Voice. Today, the page has nearly 700 members .
Unlike veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan, Chuck Weber of West Chester Twp. had gainful employment for more than 30 years after serving seven months in Vietnam. Weber said at the time of his return in 1972, he did not find employers who had any bias against veterans.
“I don’t equate my situation at all with people coming home from Iraq and Afghanistan,” Weber said. “I think they deserve a crack right away.”
Weber worked in trucking management and lived all over the country while maintaining a home and family in West Chester Twp. He lost his job in February when the Fed Ex plant he was working at closed and he opted not to relocate .
“I’m not at all bitter,” Weber said. “I see it was a reality of today’s environment. There’s just not many jobs in today’s environment for people with my skills.”
Weber said he is currently using the VA’s Vocation Rehabilitation program to take MBA courses and is still searching for future employment, possibly in a consulting capacity. He also has “readjusted priorities a bit” to focus on politics and heading the local American Legion post.
Contact this reporter at (513) 696-4544 or justin.mcclelland@coxinc.com.
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