From Deployment to Employment: Service Members with Disabilities Need Jobs

As a person who is blind, I often talk about the value of hiring people with disabilities. That is because they are uniquely equipped to confront challenges and solve problems, and they possess the skills that modern businesses require. Unfortunately, most people with disabilities face a challenging employment picture. October is National Disability Employment Awareness Month, and I can't help but note the bleak reality that the people who make up a large percentage of those without jobs are veterans with disabilities who have come home after serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The men and women who serve our country are leaving the military with a range of physical and emotional disabilities. The signature traumas of the current conflicts abroad are post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury, and it is predicted that as many as 60 percent or more will return home with invisible disabilities such as these. The transition to civilian life, difficult at best, is compounded when these disabilities are left untreated, which means many who are affected will turn to drugs and alcohol, have difficulty finding and maintaining employment, and some may even lose their homes.

Existing supports and infrastructure are not adequate to provide the resources that returning service members need and have earned. Concern over the national debt and deficit will likely deter policymakers from allocating adequate federal dollars for veteran support. Policymakers should ensure that employment for veterans with disabilities is a priority and eliminate policies that inhibit veterans from going to work.

The facts are clear. We have a challenge in our country in terms of people with disabilities, including veterans, and my hope is that they will all be able to find dignity through the power of work. Let's rally together in order to lessen the challenges they face and create employment opportunities for people with disabilities. As employers, let's open up our minds. When given the opportunity to work, people with disabilities consistently prove to be assets to the workforce.

Veterans: Know that we believe in you and that the resources offered by Goodwill and a variety of other support organizations can assist you as you return to civilian life. These organizations can help you provide for yourselves and your families and, ultimately, can help you feel the dignity that you deserve.

 

Follow Jim Gibbons on Twitter: www.twitter.com/jdgibbons

Comments

[Stand Up for your Belief]

11:53 AM on 10/09/2011

No one is hiring veterans and college grduates. So sad.

[JessCostello]

12:12 AM on 10/09/2011

Teach them the skills needed to get a middle class job and they'll find their own.

[Alton Cason]

10:39 PM on 10/08/2011

When i saw a message from the secratary where I worked, asking to see my disability papers granting me a handicapped parking permit, even though it was given to me by the Department of Veterans Affairs and it was at a US Army base, I knew that what is said and what is done for disabled People IS two different things. And I knew that no matter about 'the law' I would be terminated for one reason or another, So even with outstanding evals, I put in for and received a disability retirement. And I was right. Two years later in a far away place the Veterans employment officer said with my KSAs and experience inconus and outconus, he could get me a job as a GS-14. This is loopy if you ask me but still the way I see it, disabled people don't have ANY advantage, in the hiring or firing, even if they are vets. And I still have the paper from the Army stating "Veterans are not given Preference in the hiring Process". [e-mail]

[rumple4skin]

05:56 PM on 10/08/2011

Because of many elected an unqualified American to lead this country to bounty, Bush lied U.S. into wars that have proved expensive and will cost us all to repair.

We have damaged vets that we owe "big time". We owe them lifelong maintenance and if that means raising my taxes to cover it ... let it be. There is no excuse to put these men and women at further risk. They represented us in spite of the bogus mission they were given.

[MaryfromIL]

08:32 PM on 10/08/2011

Obama greatly increased help to the VA financially.

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/obameter/rulings/promise-kept/?page=2

[rumple4skin]

01:12 AM on 10/09/2011

We should applause his effort. Sadly, it's not enough and within the current political climate any talk of increasing current levels of support will be met with a, "We're Broke".