Welcome Home Iraq Veterans

“Around 800,000 veterans are jobless, 1.4m live below the poverty line, and one in every three homeless adult men in America is a veteran. Though the overall unemployment rate among America’s 21m veterans in November (7.4%) was lower than the national rate (8.6%), for veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan it was 11.1%. And for veterans between the ages of 18 and 24, it was a staggering 37.9%, up from 30.4% just a month earlier.”

“Whatever the cause, this bleak trend is occurring as the last American troops leave Iraq at the end of this year, and as more than 1m new veterans are expected to join the civilian labour force over the next four years.”

–”A hard homecoming,” The Economist

Related: USA Leaves Iraq?

___________________

Short Link: http://wp.me/p6sb6-bVk

Image: WWI poster. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit NotionsCapital.com

Comments are welcome if they are on-topic, substantive, concise, and not boring or obscene. Comments may be edited for clarity and length.

Add to: Facebook | Digg | Del.icio.us | Stumbleupon | Reddit | Blinklist | Twitter | Technorati | Yahoo Buzz | Newsvine

The Last Doughboy

Frank Buckles died last Sunday at the age of 110. Mr. Buckles drove an Army ambulance in France in 1918 and was the last U.S. veteran of World War I. 

“Frank Buckles, Last World War I Doughboy, Is Dead at 110,” Richard Goldstein, New York Times

Learn more at FrankBuckles.org and the Veteran’s History Project.

 

Image by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

Comments are welcome if they are on-topic, substantive, concise, and not boring or obscene. Comments may be edited for clarity and length.

Add to: Facebook | Digg | Del.icio.us | Stumbleupon | Reddit | Blinklist | Twitter | Technorati | Yahoo Buzz | Newsvine

Veteran’s Day 2009

This is Veterans Day in the United States. It was once called Armistice Day, marking the time the guns stopped in The Great War, at the eleventh hour on the eleventh day of the eleventh month of 1918. When that failed to be The War to End All Wars, the observance was renamed Veterans Day in 1954.

This year the holiday is marked by the launch of a new web site for vets, Today’s G.I. Bill, a guide to education benefits for post-9/11 veterans that is more user-friendly than the Department of Veterans Affairs or active-duty military sites. The project is supported by the Lumina Foundation and the American Council on Education.

While implementation of the education benefit is not without problems, it has been more successful than other vet programs. 131,000 U.S. veterans will be homeless tonight. 5.5 million vets are living with a disability. Up to 35% of Iraq veterans experience Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). You can help. Look here to find out how.

 

Hat tip: Inside Higher Ed

Hear and read the stories of veterans in their own words at the website of Veterans History Project of the American Folklife Center.

Image: Lumina Foundation.

Comments are welcome if they are on-topic, substantive, concise, and not obscene. Comments may be edited for clarity and length.