I have filled out 868 job applications, received 4 interviews, and had 0 offers since January of 2026. There are 32,000 homeless US military Veterans in the United States. The unemployment rate for Veterans is 2.9%. Whereas non-veteran labor participation has increased slightly, veteran labor participation has been increasing.
What makes America special is that it is a country that has an all volunteer military force made up of its own citizens and through this volunteer force it expresses certain values. Most of which it has never lived up to. We’re living in a post-conflict period in which we have to grapple with living through a period of 20 year unpopular war. We don’t have very many actual value symbols in the US and a lot of our organizations don’t create a lot of meaning outside of their interaction with their own members. For a lot of Americans what the military does is tangible and can be felt. It has ethical effects on what it means to be American. Dropping bombs on a foreign country has moral implications for the populace at large. How can we be okay with an entire corps of people that sign up to voluntarily kill abroad? How can we trust people that, under the current conditions of the USA, vountarily choose to enlist? I won’t answer these questions. A majority of the people enlisting or commissioning into the armed forces are not doing so because they have a desire to kill abroad. Most aren’t joining because of some sense of patriotism or desire to serve some vaguely defined greater good. We’ve been trying to challenge conceptions of military service since world war 2 allowed us to critique modern takes on virtuous service to a nation. Millions died. That’s not a thing you sign up for. There are no great men. There are no genius generals behind a desk making masterful chess moves. It’s gambits stacked on top of gambits, cons on cons, with luck as prime agent.
The military is different. For decades we have seen the effects it has on domestic life, the planet, and other nations. Just about everyone knows someone or has a cousin or an uncle who served at some point. The military feels more real for the average American than say, the treasury department. We don’t make movies and video games about the department of public health or whatever. There’s no Census industrial complex (maybe).
I can only filter the journey of unemployment through my own personal experience. According to many normal civilians I have a multiple year “gap” on my resume people don’t know what to do with. Most people don’t know how to or care about translating military skills to civilian occupations. Moreover, there are people out there who, through bias or some other predilection, actively seek to prevent Veterans from being able to successfully work their way back into society. I’ve met these people. They work at colleges, hospitals, and places of employment. They believe that Vets, having performed some awful sin don’t deserve any advantages that they themselves don’t have. Some say you have no professional experience; your military job wasn’t a real job. Your military skills are not translatable in the modern career market. You have no way to brand yourself. “Vet” is not an identity we understand. You attend networking sessions. Human advertising. It’s all designed to optimize marketing. You go to information sessions for prospective employers. Employers don’t have jobs for you but they love doing info sessions about the jobs they don’t have for you. They love asking you questions. You were in the Navy? Have you thought of an exciting commissions based job in insurance? How does a former career in combat operations prepare you for a fulfilling life in sales? Leadership? Well their MBA says that isn’t a skill that can be taught. Can you please interview 4 times with all of our teams so we can determine if you’re a good fit for our growing company? 800 applications, wow, that’s a lot. You’re so dedicated and resilient. Have you ever had to perform a task under stress? Have you ever had to work as part of a team? Have you ever been in a situation where you’ve had to make a decision with a deadline? I bet the Air Force doesn’t make you do too much public speaking, have you ever had to make a report or write anything ever? Have you ever killed anyone? You were infantry in the Army, we don’t have Infantry positions here at the firm. Have you ever killed anyone? You went to college? That’s great, why can’t you find a job you’re so qualified, you have so many skills you have so many qualifications and skills why can’t you find a job? I was so close to joining when I was younger oh man I almost signed up I would have gone. Have you ever killed anyone? The average wait time to hear back about your application is 6 to 8 months. You have so many qualifications, why hasn’t anyone hired you? We’d hire you but we have no positions. You have so many qualifications. You’re so smart why’d you even enlist?
I am acutely aware that our government, at its highest levels, is run by malignant narcissists and psychopaths. Men and women aligned with them who would happily start a war elsewhere and send American citizens to die just so they could turn a profit. It is the logical conclusion of warnings about the military industrial complex. The people who send people to fight and die for interests of capital have never served themselves and have spent their entire lives attempting to stay away from any life-threatening danger. In fact they love to visit your base every year just to tell you how great you’re all doing and how loved you are and how what you’re doing is vitally important for what the US is as a whole and when you get out, by god, there’s gonna be a party and you’re going to be so hired you won’t know what to do with yourself. Any company would be lucky to have you. Obviously these people lie because it is beneficial to them to do so. There is nothing waiting for you outside of service except for the return to mundanity and misery that is civilian life. For some it’s pretty good. Some Vets wanna sell insurance and buy a boat for summers on the lake. I don’t know any of these people. For myself and for most Vets I interact with it’s nonstop hunting. Hunting jobs, tracking benefits, trying to deal with any one of the six or seven disabilities you picked up while wearing boots. Some can’t pass a psychological evaluation (like me) for all the cool stuff that’s similar to what they did before. The civilian conception of psychologically fit is very different from the military conception of psychologically fit. A PTSD diagnosis isn’t an automatic fail but it is why you failed. They just can’t say that. The professional world doesn’t care about honesty, they prefer liars. When you take the psych exam no you have never had a nightmare, you have never been diagnosed with a mental issue, you have never spent time in a psychiatric facility, you have positive stress coping mechanisms, you have a fantastic social support group with many friends and allies, no you don’t abuse meds recreationally or otherwise. Say these things. They can’t verify it anyway. You want the job right?
Vets don’t want any kind of special treatment but they do want an acknowledgment that their difference in experience differs from that of an otherwise normal person. A lot of this normalization gap can be addressed with transition assistance. Organizational efforts at reintegration and education. I at one time wanted to pursue graduate studies in addressing the ongoing concerns around military veteran transition and whether such a thing could be done better. The institution I was at told me this was a waste of time as a thesis and that it was basically settled science. Mind you, this school did not have any sort of veterans resource program at the time and no one to represent the veteran student body. We still haven’t gotten the whole transition thing right. Not since the Civil War really. Most transition studies post-Vietnam were levied at addressing the stigma of service. Trying to eliminate the idea that all Vets are just powder kegs waiting to explode in the workplace when they have a flashback or Janet microwaves fish in the break room one too many times. Although the research shows this was hardly ever the case, people carried that idea well into the War on Terror era of which I served. There was a lingering fear that someone who served might in some way be inherent vice, an asset that is degrading over time because of what it is, doomed to at some point disappear from work one day and never return save for a few cryptic text messages sent that no one can really understand. This lingering wariness extended into current with our political climate doing the part of associating anyone serving with the current administration or at least being aligned with its values and goals. You work at Taco Bell because you love Taco Bell, right? I understand it and in some ways I think that it’s valid to assume. I believe that if we are to ever one day abolish the concept of military service and international conflict through warfare, we should at least be skittish about serving willfully.
So here we are, another Veterans day. No Smedley Butler quotes this time. What I think needs to happen is a comprehensive look at how we treat all public servants in the United States. Generally, in periods of political upheaval and great change, public servants are usually the first to be targeted for removal and/or sanction. This includes teachers, laborers, etc. I would at some point like to launch further research into exactly how our times are affecting what it means to serve and how we can best assist people who choose to so long as this system exists. Because it matters. But until then go watch Restrepo or something.
