War at Home: Fighting for Employment

WASHINGTON, April 16, 2011 -- In the military, Eric Smith led a four-man ICU team, performing procedures that only the most experienced civilian nurses were trained to perform, but more than three years after leaving the Marines he hasn't even been able to get a job "changing bed pans."

Smith, 26, is in the same situation as many veterans, whose military training and experience gave them skills that should be in high demand in the civilian job market, but have struggled to find work because they do not have certification in their field.

The former Navy corpsman and member of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America testified Wednesday at a Congressional hearing led by Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., on reducing unemployment among veterans.

He described how he found himself standing in front of his local 7-11 for work when he came home from his second tour in Iraq in August 2008.

"I'd walk there in the early mornings, maybe around five or so, and I'd walk from my house to that 7-11 and wait out there for work -- that's how bad it got," Smith said in an interview with ABC News earlier this week.

Young male veterans returning from the fight overseas are encountering another one at home -- with unemployment. According to recently released Department of Labor statistics, in 2010 the jobless rate among all veterans who have served since 2001 is 11.5 percent -- 2 percent higher than for non-veterans, at 9.4 percent. Young male veterans between the ages of 18 to 24 had an unemployment rate of 21.9 percent in 2010.

"That is over one in five of our nation's heroes who cannot find a job to support their family, do not have an income that provides stability, and do not have work that provides them with the self-esteem and pride that is so critical to their transition home," said Murray said at the hearing on Wednesday.

A major problem for veterans is not having certification showing that skills learned in the military is directly applicable to the civilian workforce.

For the first two years of his enlistment, Smith worked at the Balboa Hospital's intensive care unit in San Diego, leading a four-man team for an ICU with more than 20 beds.

As a Navy corpsman in Iraq, Smith treated Iraqi civilians, Iraqi soldiers and Marines on the battlefield.

"The classic war wounds," he said. "A lot of blast injuries, shrapnel injuries, things of that sort. It was IED [hell] basically."

Upon returning home from his second deployment in 2008, Smith first applied to work as a certified nursing assistant at a local hospital in Maryland. He said the interview went well, but he never received a call, and is convinced the reason is because he did not have a certificate saying he could do the things he said he had done in the military.

"I never got a call back afterwards, even though I thought I was going to, the reason being, I think, and I'm pretty sure, I'm 99 percent positive, is the fact that I did not have those civilian certifications that said I was able to do that," Smith said. "So basically everything on that resume was hearsay."

Smith joined the Navy at 17, wanting to follow in the footsteps of his grandfather, father and older brother. He graduated from the Naval Hospital Corps school. Yet without certifications accepted by the civilian workforce, he essentially has to rely on his General Educational Development (GED) certificate, the equivalent of a high school diploma.

Smith said he's also frustrated by the lack of a uniform process for acquiring these civilian certifications while in the military.

According to Smith, the Navy offers some opportunities to gain these certifications, but the systems are not standardized. For example, certification is easily attainable for a corpsman who is assigned to a small command in an outpatient clinic with rigid 9-to-5 hours. He or she can then leave work to attend certification courses. However, a corpsman who works 12-hour night shifts at a hospital ward or who is preoccupied with back-to-back combat deployments cannot.