Survey: Many Veterans Feel Short-Changed

Dissatisfaction with the job market, benefits and treatment by the federal government is found

After leaving the Army in 2010 following a 13-year career, Armand Andrews has held several different jobs, giving up the most recent one in customer service this year after what he regarded as unfair treatment partly connected to his background as a veteran.

flag fold is performed during the Veterans Day observance 

on Thursday at Kettle Moraine Lutheran High School in 

Jackson, Wis. AP

“It’s the job sector,” said Mr. Andrews, a veteran of the Bosnian intervention, who stands ramrod straight and never breaks eye contact, after walking from table to table and picking up brochures at a veterans’ job fair. “There’s a stigmatization on veterans.”

He is far from alone, according to a new survey set to be released Tuesday by Disabled American Veterans, one of the best-known advocacy groups for vets in the nation. It found that while a majority of veterans said they valued their service and would do it again, most don’t feel they have received adequate support after taking off their uniform and returning to civilian life.

CAPTION

Only 48% of veterans feel that the promises made to them by the military and society as a whole have been kept, according to the survey. Only 22% feel the federal government treats them well, and only 18% feel they have gotten the benefits they were promised. The survey polled 1,701 vets and was compiled by German firm GfK, with a margin of error of plus or minus 2.9 percentage points.

Nearly two-thirds of veterans from recent wars said their qualifications don’t translate well to the civilian job market, and 59% said civilians don’t understand what vets are dealing with when coming home from war, a number higher than the 45% of Vietnam-era vets who said the same thing.

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