Vet concerned about economy's impacts

by Nick Delgado

Guam - President Barack Obama released the details of the Veterans Jobs Corps today - something he promised during his State of the Union Address. While the effort hopes to bring thousands of vets back to the workforce, at least one local veteran is concerned that the poor economy will result in a less attractive outcome.

The President revealed the details of his administration's new Veteran Employment Initiative, which strives to put veterans back to work on a range of projects that leverage skills developed in the military.  Obama announced a $166 million Cops Grant and $320 million Safer Grant that will be given to communities to recruit post-9/11 vets to serve as police officers and firefighters. He will also include in his Fiscal Year 2013 budget the $4 billion in cops funding to spur police officer hiring this year.

The commander-in-chief proposes 20,000 veterans be put back to work over the next five years to work in preserving and restoring America's land and resources. He also proposes an expansion in entrepreneurship training opportunities for separating service members and vets.

Guam Veterans Affairs Office administrator John Unpingco said, "We look forward to implementation, if there's grants how do we apply for them and if there is incentives how do our veterans take advantage of them?"

But while Unpingco says Obama's plan is the stimulus needed for our vets, local veteran Tom Devlin feels otherwise about the proposal, telling KUAM News, "The issue is going to be are the jobs there? You could give them priority of federal jobs, state jobs and local jobs but if these municipalities and states aren't hiring then the veterans are not going to get those jobs. As we've learned in the past when veterans are discharged from the service when these conflicts are over, they get discharged and then the V.A. has got pick up the ball and they don't have the funds for that. Sometimes we just don't seem to learn from past mistakes."