JANUARY 6, 2012
R E U T E R S /L U C A S J A C K S O N
A soldier from the 3rd Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division carries his bag to begin his trip back to the United States at Camp Virginia, Kuw ait
Soldiers return from the battlefields to do combat against unemployment,
health care needs, and the looming specter of poverty a n d hom elessness
BY SARAH EDMONDS
remember pulling to the side of the road
at all.”
yan McNabb was a medic in the
McNabb tells people his story readily, if
Marine Corps for six years. He
not comfortably, because most of the
deployed twice to Iraq and worked
people who hear it are veterans of combat
on the front lines, experiencing, he says,
duty like himself. McNabb is the outreach
what you’d expect to experience on a
coordinator for the Portland Vet Center,
battlefield. He returned home in February one of five branch offices of the
Department of Veterans Affairs that work
2006.
A few months later, he got in a fight
specifically with people who have faced
combat. He helps returning vets navigate
and assaulted two police officers. He
chalked it up to normal drunken sailor
a world far removed from a combat
stuff - just blowing off steam.
soldier’s reality. The center works with
When he blacked out in rage, while
about 650 veterans, most of them
driving 65 miles per hour with his wife
Vietnam veterans, but McNabb was hired
three years ago for outreach specifically
and five-month old son in the back seat,
to the returning soldiers who have served
he realized it wasn’t normal any more.
“I know I’m an intelligent human being. in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Tens of thousands of Western troops
I know why babies cry, and they’re trying
are scheduled to leave those countries
to inform me of something,” McNabb
and make the journey home over the next
said. “But with PTSD, I don’t like large
sharp sounds. It reminds me of gunshots
couple of years. Those who leave the
and explosions. My son had wet himself.
military will face an even more perilous
journey - the road back into civilian
He started to cry. I was driving. While
society, where weak economic growth has
he’s screaming at the back of my head,
made it increasingly difficult to get work.
he’s screaming at my soul, which set me
off. So I start screaming at my wife, while
This is a road that has already led to
poverty and even to homelessness for
going 65 miles per hour down the
thousands of veterans who travelled it in
freeway. She shouts back at me. I rip the
better economic times. Those who will
rearview mirror off and threw it at the
now follow in their footsteps will be
floorboard. I grabbed the GPS and threw
entering the mainstream amid increased
it at the windshield and it spiderwebbed
risk of recession in Europe and the
going 65 mph with my wife and child in
United States, and stubbornly high
back seat. I blacked out in rage. I don’t
C O N T R IB U T IN G W R IT E R
R
M ark White
The City Council
candidate takes his
supporting role to a
larger arena
Page 3
unemployment.
Government agencies in the United
States, Britain, Canada and other nations
that support those who have served are
braced for the expected influx of new
veterans. Officials are implementing new
programs to help ease the transition from
the military to civilian life. The great
unknown, though, is how the economy
will fare in months ahead.
Dr. Susan Angell, executive director of
the Veterans Homeless Initiative at the
U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, said
the VA will be keeping a concerned eye
on those returning from Iraq and
Afghanistan, given trends already evident
in the job market.
“That population, that young
population, has the highest
unemployment rate of any of our veteran
populations, and it’s much higher than
the overall unemployment rate. So we’re
very concerned about this group,” she
said. According to Angell, joblessness
among these younger veterans is running
around 11.5 percent - higher still among
female vets.
Jobs are crucial since officials and
homeless experts agree that while a
variety of factors make some veterans
more vulnerable to personal crisis than
the wider populace, the main reason they
A troubling trend,
worldwide
n the past year, street papers across
Europe and America reported on the
struggle ex-soldiers face when they return to
civilian life. Following service in Iraq and
Afghanistan, both post-traumatic stress and
the global recession increase the risk of
veterans ending up on the streets. With
support from Reuters journalist Sarah
Edmonds, The Street News Service and its
participating street papers produced this
Special Report.
A survey conducted by the international
Network of Street Papers in June 2011
showed that a quarter of street papers in the
network have seen an increase in the
number of homeless war veterans in their
I
cities in the last two years.
At some street papers, more than 30
percent of vendors report prior military
service. The numbers are highest in the
United States and Canada, but street papers
across Western Europe also work with
vendors who served in the army. The legacy
of war in the Balkans accounts for many
homeless veterans in Eastern Europe, some
of whom now work as street paper vendors
in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland,
Croatia, Slovenia and Ukraine.
South Korea’s street paper registered 74
veterans as vendors in the past two years
alone.
See V E T E R A N S , page 8
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