Senator Eliot Shapleigh - El Paso, Texas

Spc. Ronald Jackson lists his skills during a Transition Assistance Program class Tuesday at Fort Hood.

FORT HOOD — About 100 soldiers sit rigidly in their chairs, contemplating life after the military. They are fresh off tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, where they survived roadside bombs and dodged sniper fire.

Their reward? In a matter of weeks or months, they will enter the most brutal job market in a generation.

They're students now, sitting in a three-day employment preparation class, one of the ways Fort Hood tries to help soldiers transition to the civilian world. Outside of the huge fort, these veterans face a number of barriers to landing a job.

Many, especially those who joined the military out of high school, are writing résumés and going to job interviews for the first time. Others struggle to translate their military duties into civilian qualifications. And veterans advocates say they could face discrimination from employers who worry they might be riddled with mental disorders and too risky to hire.

"It's going to be very important for employers to understand" veterans, said Paul Sullivan, head of the Austin-based advocacy group Veterans for Common Sense. "They have endured the most dangerous working conditions imaginable. We have sent them off in our name, and we have a responsibility to understand the challenges they face when they come home."

As military service members return from America's twin wars, a flow accelerated by President Barack Obama's troop reductions in Iraq, they are swelling the ranks of the jobless. According to the Department of Labor, the unemployment rate for veterans younger than 24 was 14.1 percent in 2008, outpacing the general population's rate of 11.6 percent for the same age group. According the department's unpublished, non-seasonally adjusted numbers for the second quarter of 2009, veterans younger than 24 had a 26.8 percent unemployment rate, compared to 16.8 percent for nonveterans. The unemployment rate for all veterans who served since 9-11 was 10.3 percent, compared to 8.9 percent for nonveterans.

And returning veterans who do find jobs earn an average of $5,736 less a year than their civilian counterparts, according to the Veterans Administration. The disparity is even greater for veterans with college degrees: They earn $9,526 less a year.

The tough job market is enough to make veterans such as Tasha McCoy, 23, wish they were still in the military. McCoy, a South Carolina native stationed at Fort Hood, left the Army last year after five years and two tours in Iraq, where she drove trucks. In Killeen, McCoy faced a string of rejections from employers and had to apply for unemployment benefits. She soon realized that while she was in the Army, her peers were learning job-seeking skills and developing networks.

Several months after she left the Army, she landed a job as a security guard but hopes to find something better.

"I was thinking I wasn't going to make it," she said. "If I could do it all over again, I would have stayed in the Army. It's hard for someone like me, without college."

Veterans already received preference in hiring for some federal jobs, and now the Obama administration's stimulus package includes $2,400 tax credits for employers who hire veterans.

Texas, with its large veteran population — 240,000 Texas veterans saw combat duty in Iraq or Afghanistan, 12 percent of the national total — has worked to help veterans get jobs. Last year, the Texas Veterans Commission helped nearly 44,000 veterans find employment, 16 percent of the national total, while receiving 7.5 percent of federal money distributed nationally by the Department of Labor's Veterans' Employment and Training Services.

Federal money also helps staff 90 offices with 185 veterans employment representatives throughout the state, and the Texas Legislature recently approved about $250,000 for three new positions as the state agency girds for an expected flood of service members leaving the military.

Officials say that employers who take a chance on veterans often see benefits. "What employers tell us is that once they hire one GI, they want more, no matter what the economy is," said Bob Oakes, head of the transition program at Fort Hood. "And it's because of the job ethic. They don't have the entitlement attitude."

But as the recession grinds on, there are fewer opportunities. Fort Hood's semi-annual job fair in June attracted far fewer employers than it did in past years, Oakes said.

Specialist Ciara Hall, 23, frets about leaving the Army during a recession. The Fort Hood soldier hopes to pursue a degree in food science. Hall could face a particularly tough road: She is receiving a medical discharge after developing post-traumatic stress disorder during her 12-month tour in Iraq.

"The way the job market, the economy is right now, it's definitely something I'm worried about," she said. "I would have rather stayed in."

Aaron Mickens, a Texas Veterans Commission employment representative who teaches job preparation classes at For Hood, said that a PTSD diagnosis can make it harder to find work. Veterans "know as they go outside that sometimes they have to deal with discrimination," he said. "The reason some employers are worried is that they really don't understand."

Veterans advocates say more needs to be done to reduce the stigma some employers attach to PTSD and other mental illnesses. The U.S. government has embarked on a campaign to educate employers, pointing out that veterans with PTSD have symptoms that will decrease over time and can be managed with relatively simple steps such as scheduling rest breaks and adjusting the lighting in the workplace.

Those advocates are quick to point out that though an estimated 30 percent of combat veterans will develop mental problems related to their service, most return without those lingering issues.

"Some employers may think every veteran is affected by these problems," said John House, spokesman for the Texas Veterans Commission.

Counselors say the key to finding work is translating a veteran's military experience to the civilian world. Though veterans often return having skills such as leadership, cultural sensitivity and punctuality, they might struggle to explain them on a résumé.

"You have a disconnect as far as the veteran coming out and not realizing they were so proficient in things and being up to speed," said Payton Porter, a veteran employment representative in Austin. "And employers not realizing the veteran has so many technical and tactical proficiencies."

Richard Graham, 44, who left 20 years of active service in the Army in 2005 after he was injured in Afghanistan, said he is hoping to find a career in the personal finance world after working at Denny's in Killeen as a cook and trainer. "I feel I'm going brain dead sometimes flipping pancakes," he said.

At Fort Hood, which has the Army's largest employment assistance program, Mickens asks the soldiers to write down the skills they have that would be transferable to the civilian work force. The soldiers struggle to express themselves.

"A lot of you have problems with this exercise because you don't know how to brag about yourselves," Mickens tells the class. "You're used to having someone else speak for you. You're going to have to learn to brag about yourselves."

It's a learning process that doesn't come easy for some former soldiers such as Graham.

"I'm stepping out of my comfort zone," Graham said. "It's like starting all over and learning a new language."