Post by Anonymous Vet on Nov 30, 2003 13:03:56 GMT -5
Problems For Returning Veterans
Robert Sanchez came home . from Vietnam last July (1970) with two Purple Hearts and a sense of well-being. For a month, Sanchez, 24, who had served as an infantryman with the 100st Airborne Division, was perfectly content to sit at home in Compton, Calif., 'Just grooving on the good living here and all the friends I had missed out there."
Because he was young, Sanchez figured he would have little trouble landing a job and one day he casually dropped by a gas station to see about getting work as a mechanic. Says Sanchez: "This guy I knew there for years said, 'Sorry Bob, no jobs around here." That didn't worry me too much. The next day I went out to some other stations, and the answer was 'no.' Then I really began sweating. I tried everything, but no one wanted me - no dishwashers, no bus boys, no mechanics, no baker's helpers - nothing."
Today, Sanchez is still unemployed - and bitter. "It makes you damn mad," he says. "I volunteered for the Army right out of high school because I figured my country needed me. For four years, my job was killing for the red, white and blue, and I reckon I done my part. But if I tell that to anybody here they just laugh at me. Now I don't try it any more. I forget about Vietnam and all that. I forgot about trying to get a job or going to school. The fact that jobs are not there is bad enough.
But there's something more that we veterans have to face. It's the fact that no one gives a damn." Newsweek
Robert Sanchez came home . from Vietnam last July (1970) with two Purple Hearts and a sense of well-being. For a month, Sanchez, 24, who had served as an infantryman with the 100st Airborne Division, was perfectly content to sit at home in Compton, Calif., 'Just grooving on the good living here and all the friends I had missed out there."
Because he was young, Sanchez figured he would have little trouble landing a job and one day he casually dropped by a gas station to see about getting work as a mechanic. Says Sanchez: "This guy I knew there for years said, 'Sorry Bob, no jobs around here." That didn't worry me too much. The next day I went out to some other stations, and the answer was 'no.' Then I really began sweating. I tried everything, but no one wanted me - no dishwashers, no bus boys, no mechanics, no baker's helpers - nothing."
Today, Sanchez is still unemployed - and bitter. "It makes you damn mad," he says. "I volunteered for the Army right out of high school because I figured my country needed me. For four years, my job was killing for the red, white and blue, and I reckon I done my part. But if I tell that to anybody here they just laugh at me. Now I don't try it any more. I forget about Vietnam and all that. I forgot about trying to get a job or going to school. The fact that jobs are not there is bad enough.
But there's something more that we veterans have to face. It's the fact that no one gives a damn." Newsweek