This November 10 will be the 40th anniversary of my honorable discharge from the Air Force after flying in combat over North and South Vietnam and eastern Laos for more than two years. I have never held a job in the United States except for one year minus one day as a GS-14 research scientist for the U.S. Forest Service. The Forest Service was forced to hire me after two of its employees offered me $20,000 to withdraw from a federal civil service selection in Alaska. As a veteran, I was blocking the hiring list for the poorly qualified non-veteran the agency supervisors wanted to hire. Naturally, during the time I was working, I was subject to the usual reprisal for blowing the whistle on the bribe offer.

I have frequently taken my employment problems to the courts, and the U.S. Department of Justice and three states have spent over a million dollars in legal fees just to keep me from ever getting a job in this country. Every male I have dealt with in these agencies in my age class dodged the draft during the Vietnam War. Most are unqualified for their jobs in science because they lack a PhD and even a master’s degree. The agencies have found ways to circumvent veterans’ preference had hired a few dozen marginally qualified non-veterans, who scored lower than I did on the examinations.

My career as a scientist was made possible only because I left the United States and worked for universities in Europe and South America. Most veterans were not so lucky. They stayed in the United States to live in poverty, and many became homeless at one time or other during their lives. The Department of Labor classified only those jobs paying less than $25,000 per year as “suitable for veterans.”

Even if those veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan are able to finish college, it will do them no good. As long as they are required to identify themselves as veterans, they will be offered only the jobs nobody else wants.