earlier on the Hospital Subcommittee hearings and gave us very meaningful testimony and we appreciate your appearance here this morning. Chairman DORN. Thank you very much. Mr. Saylor came in. Would you like to make a comment? Mr. SAYLOR. Thank you, no comment. Sorry to be late. Chairman DORN. Thank you, Mr. DeGeorge, and thank those with you. Mr. DEGEORGE. Thank you, Mr. Dorn, and thank you to the committee again. Chairman DORN. After consultation with the other distinguished groups here, our time has about run out. I think from what I learned from the veterans of World War I and the blinded veterans, they would prefer to appear on another date when they would not be cramped for time, as they would at this time. If that is agreeable to them, we will work it out mutually on an agreed upon date, because we do want to hear them and we want them to have plenty of time. We will have a call in the House in a few minutes and that is not fair to the World War I veterans or to the Blinded Veterans Association to be limited in the time and not have time to present their statement. Without objection, I will place in the record at this point a letter and other data provided the committee by the American Indochina Veterans Legion. [The data referred to follow:] Hon. WILLIAM J. B. DORN, AMERICAN INDO-CHINA VETERANS LEGION, NATIONAL HEADQUARTERS, Washington, D.C., February 8, 1973. Chairman, Veterans Committee, U.S. House of Representatives, Rayburn Build · ing, Washington, D.C. DEAR MR. CHAIRMAN: Our National Executive Committee unanimously approved, February 7, 1973, the enclosed outline, and commentary, the base of which we believe could be enacted into legislation to assist the honorably discharged Indo-China veteran. Augmenting our enclosed proposal concept for federal legislation that would develop a subsidy or pay-supplement to Indo-China veterans whose employment pay scale is below the suggested standard floor, are two currently published articles delineating the plight of the least trained and educated, yet able bodied, and eager to work, Indo-China veterans, i.e., James Canberry's Wall Street Journal January 15, 1973 article, and William Raspberry's Washington Post February 7, 1973 article. These articles touch on the realistic and substantive analysis of (a) the total absence of "Employment Now" at decent wages, or (b) the dodges and distortions the "Employment Now” objective poses; the objective is elusive, and expanding. We shall be very pleased to meet with you, and your Committee, at a convenient time, to explore the means of developing our Indo-China Veterans subsidy, supplemental-pay, plan into viable legislation. Sincerely, STUART W. REICHSTEIN, AMERICAN INDO-CHINA VETERANS LEGION The Indo-China Veterans' acute need for employment opportunities, decent jobs, paying today's inflation ridden dollar wages, is one of the major challenges of the Federal Government, commerce and industry. There is the necessity to place Indo-China Veterans into producing economic roles where they could then make a contribution to the gross national product— and, also, create for themselves a sense of social responsibility and good citizenship. It has been shown over and over again, the World War II program will pay back $8 for every $1 invested, just in the form of income taxes paid during the life of a veteran with a GI bill education. The practical implication of not accomplishing sensible and long range job opportunities, as basic objeectives, would inevitably embrace a wide spectrum of subsidiary expenses that the taxpayers would be saddled with, on an openend basis, were these objectives not promptly and energetically implemented. Some likely burdens to the taxpayer could include: 1. Waste of time and money on training or retraining Indo-China Veterans not interested in schools, but-rather-employment now, with (OJT) on-the-job training as an adjunct. 2. More and bigger welfare outlays. 3. Larger police force expenditures to cope with the link between unemployment, idleness, and crime. 4. The related increase in costs to operate courts to handle the expanded numbers of criminal cases, and built-in outlays for bigger prisons. 5. Expanded public welfare medical and hospital care for cases of non-serviceconnected illness or accidents. How best do we plan to go about providing the Indo-China veteran this basic chance to establish himself as a responsible citizen in his community, with a job that will be more than a pittance in today's real world of inflation-as well as providing some prospects of permanency? Similarly there must be no stigma attached to the veterans' job, that it would take on the dubious look of a "make work" or "hand-out" kind of employment, in the derogatory context. The American Indo-China Veterans Legion proposes a form of subsidy through legislation that would guarantee the Indo-China veteran a supplemental sum, to his pay, in a job which could be construed as sub-national average in pay scale. This government supplement would augment the job's pay, or wage earnings, for the working month time period, up to the total money he would have received while on active duty in the armed forces, with the added feature of escalating the supplement to equal that armed forces pay were he to have one step-up in grade from the date on which he was discharged. To this an evaluation of the net worth of armed forces medical, dental, hospitalization, and lower PX price purchases, would have to be formulated, and then, translated into dollars, added to the supplemental federal contribution to the veterans' wage earnings. An example would be an Indo-China veteran discharged as an E-2, and married: Base Army pay- Total $342.30 45.00 105.00 492. 30 This veteran, without special skills, in private employment, would find it difficult, indeed, to come into a starting job at $3 per hour-the closest figure to his former Army pay, along with quarters and ration allowances. Thus, a one-step up grade increase would yield an E-3's base pay of $355.80, or an additional $13.50 per month, totalling $505.80. From this figure would be subtracted the private employed wages, with the difference being the supplement provided by the Federal Government. To this total there must be added the formula sum to compensate for medical, dental, hospitalization, and PX lower cost purchases. A fair sum should not exceed $15 per month. Using a $2 per hour rule of thumb as the average pay to young unskilled IndoChina veterans, his monthly gross pay without deductions, on a 40-hour week, would equal $320. The American Indo-China Veterans Legion program for Indo-China veterans' supplemental income to employment wages, would then provide the veteran with the difference or $200.80 per month for a period of time to be determined. Opposition to this subsidy, or supplemental Government contribution, to the Indo-China Veterans, will try to underscore the exploitation of Indo-China Vet erans by unscrupulous employers seeking out lower I.Q.'s for jobs which theoretically would be below going market pay scales. This possibility does exist, however, it would be the responsibility of an appropriate Government agency, such as the Veterans Administration, to surveil and monitor this program for infractions. From a U.S. Government payroll standpoint-there wouldn't seem to be the need for more V.A. personnel to execute on this program. From a pure budgetary point-there primarily can be no legitimate argument advanced that would deny these men who fought gallantly for their country, the right to a decent job, and a decent paying job-whatever that total sum should finally be. From the good citizenship-social side, the cost to the Federal Government to implement this program would be insignificantly to the benefits that would accrue to the Nation-just in savings that unemployment, idleness, and crime would cost. [From the Washington Post, Wednesday, Feb. 7, 1973] COMING HOME TO WHAT? (By William Raspberry) "Every time I see something in the paper about a killing, I look to see if it was done by a Vietnam veteran." That's SFC Jerome R. Johns, U.S.A. (ret.), and he's very very serious about what he is saying. He is convinced that if they don't get substantially better breaks than they have been getting, a lot of Vietnam veterans will be doing a lot of Stateside killing. For the sake of perspective, let me point out that Johns isn't trying to blackmail anybody into anything. I was interviewing him, in fact, because he had wanted to talk about the prospective loss of funding for his Urban Rodent and Insect Control Project in East Orange, N.J. Johns, 35, is director of the program, which is funded largely through federal grants and which stands to be wiped out under the new Nixon budget. He was in town last week to plead for its salvation. But I found myself far more fascinated by the things he was saying after the interview. Johns, an ex-career man, former paratrooper and all-around tough soldier, used to train young infantrymen as they arrived in Vietnam. "Our specific purpose was to take these 17- and 18-year-olds and train them to kill. I mean, they weren't doing it back at Fort Dix and wherever else they were supposed to be doing it, so that that was our job. My job. "I used to tell them, 'the more you kill, the quicker you go home and live in luxury.' It was as simple as that. I was programming these young men to kill. "But nobody's unprogramming them, and that's why I'm not surprised to read of Mark Essex and other ex-servicemen who are blowing people away. "And that's why every time I read about these killings and snipings, I read to see if they are Vietnam veterans." Johns is not by any stretch some wildman militant with notions about offing "pigs" and white folk. But he understands the danger of training a man to solve his problems by pulling a trigger, especially when you bring him back home to problems that he shouldn't have to face. The big problem, of course, is employment. Despite the programs that are springing up here and there, Vietnam veterans aren't getting that much of a break in the job market. "Hire the handicapped" sounds good," says Johns, who was retired with 14 years service after he was hit in the knee. "But when the employer is looking at a man who's in perfect physical shape and I'm standing there with one arm and one leg... No, Johns himself isn't missing any limbs, but he knows the despair of a lot of his fellow veterans who are. In fact, he went through a lot of the employment song-and-dance himself before he landed his soon-to-be abolished job in East Orange. He used his GI benefits to enroll in a drafting course after he saw newspaper ads that promised salaries of nine to ten thousand a year for draftsmen. After a nine-month course, in which (according to his instructors) he did excellent work, he went job hunting. One personnel man at a big company doubted that Johns knew what he was doing until he challenged the GI to do a schematic of the telephone on the personnel man's desk. "I did a beautiful job, if I must say so," Johns said, "and the dude was impressed-asked me when I could start. Then he told me the salary, sixty-some dollars a week, Man, I could have cried." Johns say a lot of his fellow ex-GIs are going through the same thing, or taking open-ended training courses that don't lead to anything, or being passed along like so much defective merchandise. “Man, I can see it so plain: Some of these people that I programmed are going to be turned down by some rich employer, and he's going to kill him on the spot." How do you prevent it? "Just as I program you to kill, I-or somebody like me-will have to program you not to kill. I'm not talking about running from psychologist to psychiatrist and back. I'm talking about something real, like: "What were you? Oh, a tank driver. Well, can you handle a heavy truck? Good, I'll phone X Company and see if they can't put you to work right away.' "If that doesn't happen, a lot of people are going to get hurt. The big shorts are going to say, 'It must be that Vietnam dope.' Uh, uh. It's that Jerome Johns who taught these dudes how to kill, and nobody's giving them a chance to learn anything else." [From the Wall Street Journal, Monday, Jan. 15, 1973] HOME FROM THE WAR-VIETNAM VETS ESPECIALLY BLACKS, FIND THAT LIFE AS CIVILIANS IS ROUGH COMPLAINTS INCLUDE SCARCITY OF JOBS, LOW GI BENEFITS; SOME ENCOUNTER HOSTILITY; STUFFING THEM INTO COLLEGE (By James Carberry) Private First Class Timothy Vermette returned home from Vietnam in November 1970, glad to be out of the war but afraid of discharge, “I just knew I wasn't going to find a job, or one that amounted to anything," he says. He was right. Since his discharge, he has drifted from town, from menial dead-end job to menial dead-end job; washing dishes in Virginia Beach, Va., for $10 a day, clerking in a Milwaukee store at $1.60 an hour, short-order cooking in an Ohio restaurant for $1.25 an hour. In between jobs, he has had to depend on the charity of friends or on social service agencies, a dependence that has angered and humiliated him. He tried to reenlist, figuring that this time, maybe, the Army would teach him a skill he could use. He was rejected because he had originally been mustered out on a general discharge for a medical condition after he suffered a nervous breakdown following about a year's duty with a reconnaissance unit of the 11th Armored Cavalry. Timothy recently enrolled in a government-financed training program for male beauticians, but decided to drop out. He hopes to get into a different training program which will land him a different job with a future. But he knows from experience that finding one will be tough. So do many other veterans. BITTERNESS AND FRUSTRATION (True, a quick look at the statistics alone would indicate that government and private programs to assimilate the veteran have been successful; from 8.4% a year ago, the vets' unemployment rate has dropped to 5.5% now (the overall rate is 5.2% nationwide). But the figures don't begin to tell the story. Talks with scores of veterans, counselors and others reveal a deep bitterness and frustration, a feeling that the veteran has been ill-served by the country he fought for. A closer look at the quality of the statistics lends some weight to these feelings and shows that the returning veteran still presents a social and economic problem that may not be solved soon. 93-546-73- -9 For one thing, the plight of the black veteran has been submerged in the overall figures. The latest figure for the unemployment rate among black vets-the thirdquarter figure-in 14.5%, virtually unchanged from a year ago. One young veteran in Watts, a predominantly black section of Los Angeles that was the scene of massive rioting in 1965, has spent the past year filling out literally hundreds of job applications; a high school graduate with an honorable discharge, he could find nothing. Outraged that he and his wife and four children were forced to try to live on welfare, he says he began shoplifting to put food on the table and was briefly jailed for it-a blot on his record that will only make his continuing job hunt more difficult, "I gave three years to my country," he says bitterly. "Why can't my country help me now? I'm not asking for a handout. I'm asking for a job." NO PICNIC THIS TIME Some counselors warn that embittered black veterans may in time turn to violence. "We thought Watts (the 1965 riot) was bad," says one black counselor who works there trying to get vets squared away. "But now we've got guys there who are mad, really mad, and they know demolition and how to use grenades and mines. They get into that stuff, and the 1965 thing is going to look like a kid's picnic." Black vets also complain that the Veterans Administration doesn't have nearly enough local centers in or even near the ghetto neighborhoods where so many of them live. The VA, however, doesn't see any crying need for such facilities. "That would discriminate against the veteran who lives in the suburbs," reason Morris Nooner, director of VA's education and rehabilitation services. Veterans, black and white, who have had trouble getting decent jobs feel that widespread publicity about heavy drug use by soldiers in Vietnam has hurt them in their job hunt. "There's a cruelly false image of the veterans," says Joe Garcia, director of the Seattle Veterans Action Center, a service organization for vets. "The man who served in Vietnam has been stereotyped as a hopheaded killer." No employer will admit this, of course, but a number of veterans interviewed feel that they are being given the fast shuffle because of it. Ben Bejarano, a Los Angeles area veteran, kept getting a chilly reception during his job hunt when he said he was a veteran. "So I quit doing that," he says, "and told them I was a student. Some employers think of veterans as irresponsible dopers who won't work, but a student looks to them like he's trying to get ahead." Mr. Bejarano quickly got a job as a warehouseman and subsequently got a better one as a community aide for a public service agency. THE PSYCHIC SCARS The government statistics on veterans' unemployment are also misleading in that they don't include in the sampling veterans who are not considered actively seeking work; a survey for the VA in 1971 by pollster Louis Harris found that about 25% of all the unemployed vets at that time were out of the job market and thus weren't included in the statistics at all. They thus represent an unseen "overhang" in the job market when and if they decide to seek work. Many veterans are not seeking work because they are still trying to recover from the psychic scars of the war. Says one veteran: "I was with the Montagnards and we'd go on patrol with them, and they'd give us a bracelet for every gook we killed. I used to wear those bracelets and think I was hot stuff. When I got out I looked at those pictures of me wearing the bracelets and I thought, 'Man, how could I have believed that? How could I have done that?' The war turns you into an animal. When you go home you have to find out how to be a human being again. You sit in your room and think. Sometimes you sit there for months." Other veterans hide out in college, though they often have no intention of finishing, in order to collect the $220 a month that the VA pays students (vets who enter various apprenticeship and training programs are paid only $160 to $170 a month). "Listen," says one veterans counselor in Los Angeles, "I just stuff people into the colleges. I tell them that's the best way to get the most money for the longest time, and they and I both know that's why they're therethe money." Many veterans feel that the current level of VA benefits is just further proof that their country is indifferent to them. After World War II, veterans attending |