The National Network Opposing the Militarization of Youth (NNOMY)

November 13, 2011 - Bloomberg Business Week

Dan Beucke -

My post last Friday about the jobless picture for young veterans clearly struck a nerve. The commentary that followed ranges across issues of war, peace, hope, despair, skills training — and, yes, immigration.

Some readers recounted their own experiences coming back from war and their success or failure in finding work. Billy Mo wrote that he “easily” found good-paying work after leaving the Air Force, then got caught in a 2006 downsizing. He has received “zero offers” and wound up “losing my home, car, retirement account and most of my possessions.” He concludes: “No one really seems to care.”

One part of my reporting that was backed up in some of the comments was the suggestion that vets face a cultural barrier coming back to corporate America. “There is (a) great wall against War veterans from corporate America,” writes John A. Mele. But it works both ways, says K. Mark Northrup; he suggests part of the problem is the military style of problem solving:

How the No Child Left Behind Act allowed military recruiters to collect info on millions of unsuspecting teens.

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David Goodman /  September/October 2009 Issue - Mother Jones Magazine -  John Travers was striding purposefully into the Westfield mall in Wheaton, Maryland, for some back-to-school shopping before starting his junior year at Bowling Green State University. When I asked him whether he'd ever talked to a military recruiter, Travers, a 19-year-old African American with a buzz cut, a crisp white T-shirt, and a diamond stud in his left ear, smiled wryly. "To get to lunch in my high school, you had to pass recruiters," he said. "It was overwhelming." Then he added, "I thought the recruiters had too much information about me. They called me, but I never gave them my phone number."