Download PDF of this full issue: v14n1.pdf (8.3 MB)

Nam Vets: Jobs, Education, Problems

By Dave Curry

We Are Statistics

Surprise! Surprise! One big bennies from military service during the Vietnam-era isn't such a great bennie after all. A book on the U.S. high school class of '63 prepared by a prominent research institution shows that a year of education is actually work less to Vietnam and Vietnam-era veterans than the same year of education is worth to non-veterans.

Josefina Card in Lives After Vietnam: The Person Impact of Military Service shows that in terms of earning power for our time spent in getting an education, we were getting an education, we were getting short-changed. Just how much we've been short-changed can be, through the wonders of modern statistics, expressed in a measure that we all have learned to understand the hard way. According to the study, a year of education was worth an additional $2190 per year in salary for non-veterans. A similar year of schooling is worth only $1598 in yearly salary for Vietnam veterans and $906 in yearly salary for non-Vietnam veterans. While the author noted that these differences are all significant in statistical terms, it doesn't take a PhD to recognize the significance of those differences in dollar amounts for a family in terms of food, shelter and health care. Still, the study added that these differences can't be explained by pre-service social background, job seniority or psychological problems.

So we don't have to worry about psychological problems causing educations to be worth less. That doesn't mean we don't have to worry about the psychological problems. The study also showed that Vietnam veterans were much more likely to suffer from psychological and physical difficulties of all kinds. Vietnam veterans are especially more likely to suffer from the symptoms which psychologists have associated with post traumatic stress disorder. Additional findings in the study revealed that Vietnam veterans and non-Vietnam veterans were more likely than comparable non-veterans to have experienced at least one lengthy unemployment spell and they were more likely to have been convicted of a felony or a misdemeanor.

Still, there were some significantly positive outcomes in the realm of personal happiness for non-Vietnam veterans who demonstrated the highest ratings of any group on "interest in being with people," "sensitivity to the feelings of others," and "interest in cultural activities," and these men attributed their advantages in theses areas to their military experience. Unfortunately Vietnam veterans are the worst off the three groups on these same three items, and the Vietnam veterans score lowest of the groups on a number of other indicators of personal happiness.

Just to keep Vietnam vets from thinking all the social science research news is bad news for us: Dr George Know of the Safer Foundation of Chicago reported that a study of prison inmates in the state of Illinois (where Vietnam veterans are over-represented) revealed that veterans were more likely than other ex-offenders to benefit from readjustment programs for ex-offenders. The study also noted that, at least in Illinois the vets in prison were less likely to have committed a violent crime. Thank you, Dr Know.

Dave Curry, PhD
Fed. Prisoner #02470-003