Jobs are what returning veterans need most

SALT LAKE CITY — A decade at war has generated a stream of veterans transitioning to civilian life in numbers that will continue to increase, according to a Pentagon envoy.

And what those individuals need most to thrive at home is a job.

Today, estimates are that 5,000 Utah veterans are unemployed — a number that got a jolt one week ago when a deployment to Iraq involving 400 Utah National Guard members was abruptly scrubbed at the last minute. The cancellation left many in the battalion without a place to live, without a job or unable to register for college classes with fall schedules already under way.

"When you have 5,000 unemployed service members, they're not achieving their capacity for greatness," said Army Col. David Sutherland, a special assistant to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. "The power of humiliation when you can't find a job impacts your whole family when you're used to accomplishing missions in the battlefield."

Veterans are well trained and highly motivated, but they need an environment that understands them in order to thrive, Sutherland said. And for those with complications like post-traumatic stress disorder, the one thing they don't need is more stress — the stress of not having a job.

Developing a statewide network that better utilizes returning veterans is the objective of a of military representatives and civilian employers that Sutherland met with on Thursday.

Utah Gov. Gary Herbert, a Utah National Guard veteran, also addressed veterans' needs with the group, saying it's mostly up to the private sector to help returning veterans find work. "These people come back with tremendous skills. The military is a great training ground, an education in itself, that can be incorporated into our civilian lifestyle."

The recurring deployments of service members in the Reserve and National Guard are tough on employers.

"We're going to be coming to you and asking you to put 125 people to work," Maj. Gen Brian Tarbet told business leaders among the coalition. He was speaking specifically of the unemployed members of the 1-211th Attack Recon Battalion whose deployment was interrupted.

The Pentagon canceled the deployment just weeks before 400 battalion members were scheduled to leave Utah. Tarbet, the Utah National Guard's adjutant general, said that cancellation created the "worst case scenario" for service members whose civilian careers are the anchor of their livelihood, because neither they nor their employers could make transition plans.