Effort Aims To Help Returning Veterans

Quontay Williams has served three tours in Iraq and one in Afghanistan as a soldier in the Army reserves. And fortunately for him, he knew his job as a security guard at Stella Maris in Towson would be waiting for him when he got back. But, he said, there are plenty of others who weren’t as lucky.

“Coming back home, all you know is what you used to do. And if that job is not there any more or they closed down or anything, it’s hard to find something else to do.”

Michael Oglesby, who served on active duty as an aviation supply clerk in the U.S. Marines and then in the National Guard, said he thought the job market would be open to him when he got home.

“But when I came home, there was a shortage of jobs, they weren’t necessarily enthused that I was a veteran. To me, it was I was just another person. So, it was a lot harder for me to get a job coming home. And I wasn’t expecting that.”

He managed to land a job in the laundry department at Arlington West Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in West Baltimore. But he says he wouldn’t have if he hadn’t had some connections.

Joe DeMattos, president of the coalition, known as HFAM, said yesterday it’s a problem he came to understand as he traveled to nursing and rehabilitation homes throughout the state, talking to veterans. And he said it is one he thought his group could help with.

“From former military medics providing direct care to supply clerks to help manage inventory of medications to security forces to insure safety for our patients and to staff and families safe, and for a variety of positions there is an endless need to employ our veterans in Maryland’s skilled nursing and rehab centers.”

He unveiled the effort, Health Care Hiring our Heroes, at a news conference in the State House with the help of Lt. Governor Anthony Brown, a colonel in the Army Reserves, who has been active in coordinating state programs for veterans.

Brown said there is some good news that Maryland’s unemployment rate is 20 percent below the national average and that the state has recovered nearly half the jobs lost in the recession.

“But the bad news is there are still far too many heads of household who are unemployed; there are far too many heads of household who are either in foreclosure or facing foreclosure and unfortunately, there’s far too many veterans that are among those who are facing unemployment or foreclosure.”

In fact, the unemployment rate for veterans is nearly double that for the population of Maryland as a whole and more than four times higher for younger veterans who has served since 2001.

Brown said there is no other job in this country where a soldier planning to take his pregnant wife for a sonogram at 9 a.m. could get a call at 3 a.m. ordering him on a mission. Or where, if you stay in 20 years there’s a good chance your family will have moved six times before your children graduate from high school.

“It is incumbent upon us as a community as a state and a country to step up on behalf of our veterans.”

Steve Pazulski, administrator at Cherry Lane Nursing Center in Laurel, is an Air Force Major who set up hospitals at Ramstein Air Base in Germany and Andrews Air Force Base in Prince George’s County to bring wounded soldiers home. He said the airmen and soldiers he met showed tremendous dedication and commitment.

“And as I think about employing people in the future those are the kinds of people that I would like to represent Cherry Lane in terms of what we provide to our residents and our patients.”

DeMatos said there are 36-thousand employees in the nursing home field in Maryland and the pledge could lead to jobs for hundreds of returning veterans.

I’m Joel McCord, reporting in Annapolis for 88.1, WYPR.