• Stray anti-military vibes reverberate as thousands of veterans head to college

    By Bill Briggs, NBC News contributor

    The insult expressed in the Rutgers University class was aimed at the nearly 1 million veterans enrolled at U.S. schools under the GI Bill. And Scott Hakim, barely a year removed from combat, took the slam personally.


    “Why should we pay for these guys to go to college?” Hakim said he recalls a female student asking during a discussion on the nation’s responsibility to service members returning from war.  “Everybody who goes into the military is stupid – that’s why they joined the military instead of going to college.”

    John Agnello Photography

    Scott Hakim, a Marine infantryman in combat, now attends Rutgers University. The school has a military-friendly reputation. But even there, Hakim says he heard another student bash enrolled veterans. Hakim at a recent wedding with girlfriend Emma Valenti.

    Hakim – a Marine infantryman in Iraq and Afghanistan – immediately vowed to out-study every classmate on the midterm exam and said he ultimately posted the highest mark: 98 out of 100. Later, he said, he overheard that same female student reveal her grade: F. 

    “I guess I proved her wrong,” Hakim said. “It wasn't a me-versus-her thing, more like: Maybe now she realizes how idiotic her statement was.”

    Anti-veteran sentiments – though sporadic and scattered – are nonetheless emerging at some American colleges just as thousands of veterans enroll with their tuition fees fully covered by the post-9/11 GI Bill. In student gatherings or via anonymous posts in online forums, some university students are expressing open disdain for former service members now massing in academia.

    Student Veterans of America, a support network with more than 500 campus chapters, acknowledges the presence of some unwelcoming vibes. “It exists,” said Michael Dakduk, executive director of SVA. “But, by and large, college students respect the sacrifices made by those who have served in the military.”

    At Columbia University in New York City, a wounded Iraq War veteran was heckled and booed in February by fellow students as he argued for the return to that school of the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps, or ROTC, during a campus meeting. That reaction angered the national commander of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, who openly questioned the school’s leadership.

    At the University of North Carolina, Wilmington, student veteran Jason Thigpen said he has “personally experienced what seems to be ‘anti-veteran’ sentiment on more than a few occasions.”

    Courtesy of Scott Hakim

    Scott Hakim served with the U.S. Marines in Iraq and again in Afghanistan, where he was wounded by an IED in 2010.

    “I had a History 101 professor in 2011 actually refer to how much better he was than military service members,” said Thigpen, an Army National Guard member who served in Iraq through January 2010. The UNC “system seems to disregard us in such a widespread manner, most student veterans no longer bother to even admit their time in-service, which is just sad.”

    UNC, Wilmington spokeswoman Janine Iamunno responded: "UNC Wilmington proudly offers veterans, active-duty members of the military, and their families several programs and resources to support their unique educational needs. This is an extension of our commitment to  the journey of learning, and to the premium we place on an open dialogue between faculty and students about the opportunities and challenges we face individually and as a community."

    At Rutgers, meanwhile, there is irony attached to the unfriendly dig uttered in one of Hakim’s classes. That sort of behavior is well out of the norm, he said: “Other than that one time, Rutgers has been absolutely amazing.” In Afghanistan, Hakim’s vehicles ran over and detonated five IEDs. On a sixth occasion, he stepped on an IED, sustaining a traumatic brain injury. “If I have to miss a class (due to the injury), my professors are accommodating. The whole school itself is great with veterans.”

    "Rutgers, like the rest of the country, has successfully been able to separate the warrior from the war," said Steve Abel, a retired Army colonel and director of the office of veteran military programs and services at Rutgers.

    More on military topics at NBCNews.com

    "I was on a college campus around the time of (the) Kent State (shootings). I'm a product of the Vietnam era. So when I was driving here (a couple of years ago to start the job), I wondered: What is Rutgers going to be like from a staff and student body perspective, being a big and liberal university?" Abel said. "Any apprehension I had about that relationship absolutely dissolved when I got here. They could not have been more welcoming to me, my team and to the student veterans here."

    In fact, Rutgers was rated a “military friendly” school in the 2013 “G.I. Jobs” list of colleges where veterans feel appreciated and have an array of academic and social help available.

    Last month, when NBC News reported on the latest list of “military friendly” schools, several readers offered comments via newsvine.com that derided the nation's newest veterans.

    “This post-9/11 love affair with the military is disgusting. Paying people to illegally invade other countries and kill innocent men, women and children is immoral. Screw the military,” wrote a reader who calls herself OVUgirl.

    “I have to agree with OVUgirl. Seeing the immoral military glorified on campus is disgusting,” wrote another reader who uses the newsvine handle Gandhi Fan.

    Through newsvine, NBC News asked both of those readers to elaborate on their comments for this story. Neither responded.

    “I don’t think you’ll see (those types of feelings expressed) as overtly on the ground at college campuses,” said SVA leader Dakduk. “But ... you can say things anonymously online – you can say pretty much everything – so that’s where you’ll see it most.”

    Another leading veterans group suspects that some student veterans who blatantly grab GI Bill money with no plans to actually sit in a college classroom are further fueling that ill will.

    Under the post-9/11 GI Bill, the federal government directly reimburses colleges for a veteran’s tuition fees. In addition, each student veteran receives a housing allowance that, depending on the university’s zip code, can run as high as $2,040 per month if the veteran has dependents. They also each get $1,000 annually for books and supplies.

    “What happens is that too many of the people get the GI Bill and don’t go to class. They spend the money elsewhere and the college has to cut them loose,” said John E. Pickens III, executive director of VeteransPlus, a nonprofit that has offered financial counseling to more than 150,000 current and former service members. 

    “That’s one of the issues that kind of took us by surprise,” he added. “When we go to these colleges and ask: How can we help? That’s one of the things we hear from the student advisers: ‘Look, I’ve got kids who come here and enroll to get their GI Bill and they end up not going to school.' 

    “Unfortunately," Pickens said, "you have some folks who game the system." 

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  • How big debt is threatening security clearances for thousands of troops

    Denis Poroy / AP file

    A sign offers military financing at a used car lot in Oceanside, Calif. on Oct. 12, 2006. The lot is one of many businesses in downtown Oceanside that offer credit to Marines from nearby Camp Pendleton.

    By Bill Briggs, NBC News contributor

    Nearly 36,000 active-military members who hold security clearances have recently sought urgent financial advice or aid because heavy debts and delinquent bills threatened to void their classified status, according to a nonprofit that helps troops and veterans solve money problems.


    “You can lose that security clearance if you have credit or debt issues,” said John E. Pickens III, executive director of VeteransPlus. “If you lose that clearance, you can become un-promotable or you can be taken from your assignment. And, ultimately, you can even receive a bad-conduct discharge.

    “If you’re going to be entrusted with national security,” he added, “the military figures you’ve got to at least be able to pay your bills on time.”

    Pickens’ nonprofit has offered financial counseling to more than 150,000 current and former service members. Among that crowd of clients, more than half are active duty, National Guard members or reservists. And out of that portion, he said, 46 percent have expressed worries about their security clearances.

    Approximately half of America's 2.4 million active duty, National Guard and reserve troops hold some level of security clearance, said Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col. James Gregory. Most of those 1.19 million service members possess the second-highest security rating - "secret" - while the next largest portion hold a higher status: TS/SCI, (Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information), he added. The sensitive nature of certain military jobs typically dictate the security classifications. 

    “All military members know they are required by the Uniform Code of Military Justice to pay their debts,” Pickens said. “But right now, the Department of Defense says excessive and delinquent indebtedness is the No. 1 cause for denying or revoking security clearances.”

    Asked to confirm that massive debt and late payments are, indeed, the leading factors in security-clearance terminations, Gregory said: “One reason (for concern) is that a person with big debts is more likely to accept money in exchange for revealing secrets.  So that's why financial things are one of the biggest reasons that a clearance would not be granted or be revoked.

    “That said,” Gregory added, “the military takes a ‘whole person’ approach. Finance is only one factor to be considered among many others when it comes to security clearances. The U.S. military pays close attention to debt and other financial issues when it comes to screening applicants for security clearance to handle sensitive information.”

    Based on the financial counseling sessions provided by VeteransPlus, statistics show that service members and veterans who approach the nonprofit have an average debt-to-income ratio of 46.5 percent, Pickens said. According to “The Ultimate Credit Handbook,” by Gerri Detweiler, a debt load of 36 percent or less is healthy for most people to carry, but a ratio of 43 percent to 49 percent means that dire financial difficulties are probably imminent unless immediate action is taken.

    The nonprofit’s counselors also see an average unsecured debt (such as credit cards) of $9,700 and an average secured debt (such as a home) of $16,500.

    How much is too much?

    “I wish I knew that number,” Pickens said. “But if you’re not paying your bills and your debt-to-income ratio is what the military would consider to be excessive, they look at you as a risk.

    “Military folks are susceptible to the same kinds of pressures and economic things as everybody else,” Pickens adds. “Their spouses get laid off. They have foreclosures. The fact that they have to move around frequently means they’re often upside down on their houses when they have to sell.”

    In April 1990, Derek Staden, then 19, learned he was about to be deployed from his Air Force base in Wichita, Kan., to the Middle East as the U.S. military launched Operation Desert Storm. Then a senior airman whose duties included refueling aircraft, Staden’s mailbox suddenly was flooded with offers for credit cards and high-interest loans.

    “Just out of nowhere – all from creditors locally,” Staden said. “I guess they knew our base was deploying. All we had to do was endorse the checks and they would cash them for us. I was a young man and I’d never seen anything like that before. I didn’t know how the interest payments worked so I took them and took advantage of them. I bought some things I needed and things I didn’t need.”

    When Staden returned to his base later in 1990, those same creditors demanded that he repay the loans or balances or they would report him to his commanding officer. He knew his security clearance would be at risk if his superiors learned of his unpaid bills. He had earned that classified status during basic training. He needed the clearance because he was involved in secret, Cold War practice drills during which he refueled aircraft.

    “I had to keep those payments up to speed because the military frowns on having debt issues like that,” Staden said. “It wasn’t an option to call my parents and ask for help because they taught me growing up how to be responsible for your obligations. I didn’t want to call them to tell them I’d been duped by creditors.

    “I just had to scale back, spend all my weekends in the dorms (on base). Those were some lean times for me. I was so embarrassed.”

    Staden, who left the service in 1995 and now lives in New Orleans and is trying to get into the music-production business, estimates that his debt ultimately reached in the low $20,000 range.

    "I felt like I didn’t have anywhere to go for help – outside of my parents. I figured if I went to the adjutant on base I would get myself in trouble,” he said. “It made me second-guess a lot of things. I thought I was more prepared for living on my own. That was probably part of the reason I didn’t re-enlist. It was very stressful.”

     

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  • From combat to corporate -- and the new stigma blocking some veterans

    Courtesy of Chris Perkins

    Chris Perkins is a former U.S. Marine who served in Iraq until 2006. His battalion suffered heavy casualties.

    By Bill Briggs, NBC News contributor

    At job fairs this summer from Denver to Colorado Springs, retired Army sergeant Thomas Maretich always bumps into the usual suspects and an all-too-familiar gaze of frustration — as if he’s staring into a mirror.


    “I keep seeing the same people — mostly veterans — and I’m talking about captains, people with college degrees. They’ve been all over the world, have all kinds of experience. But it’s just the same guys over and over,” said Maretich, who in June earned a medical retirement from the Army.

    “There are just a handful of jobs and thousands of veterans lined up for them. How are you supposed to get a job?” asked Maretich, a Colorado Springs resident with more than 20 years of Army experience. “Our veteran numbers are growing and jobs aren’t growing fast enough. It’s a real problem.”

    Yet amid the listless hiring rates of a slack economy, men and women with combat experience are being purposely ignored by some employers who fear they may have the symptoms of  post-traumatic stress disorder, thus making them — in their view — risky candidates, said John E. Pickens III, executive director of VeteransPlus.

    “While it’s good that employers and general public understand (PTSD) issues, there may be some employers who know just enough to be reluctant, and who say: I want to hire this guy but I don’t want this guy having his war experiences affect his work,” Pickens said. His nonprofit has offered financial counseling to more than 150,000 current and former service members. 

    “Some of the folks we talk to say they feel a little bit conspicuous. Employers are even reluctant to talk to them about their military experiences,” added Pickens, a former combat medic. “While eventually transitioning (into corporate jobs), their co-workers become aware that this is a veteran, and the veteran feels scrutinized to the point where it's like: ‘Are you OK?’ "

    Through his consultations with veterans over myriad money issues, Pickens said he has learned that some have opted not to seek treatment for PTSD symptoms at Veterans Affairs hospitals exactly because “they don’t want to be labeled or stigmatized” in their civilian jobs — or while trying to land one.

    Related: Opera about Iraq war reaches out to veterans
    Related: Vets battle PTSD stigma -- even if they don't have it

    “It’s like nobody wants to hire anybody with PTSD,” Maretich said. “It’s ridiculous. The whole thing got a bad name.”

    On his final mission in Iraq on Aug. 27, 2009 — during his fourth tour in a war zone — sergeant first class Maretich was stationed as the gunner atop an Army vehicle. A car approached, driven by “a kid,” he recalled. After Maretich determined the vehicle was an imminent threat, he shot and killed the driver, he said. The car, loaded with an estimated 500 pounds of explosives, nonetheless detonated, causing Maretich to suffer a traumatic brain injury, sleep problems, chronic back pain and a knee that required replacement.

    Related: 'Got Your 6' campaign helps vets return to civilian life

    He also was diagnosed with PTSD — now, be believes, an unmentioned roadblock to his hopes for a corporate job due to its attached stigma.

    The irony, he added, is that his duties in Iraq — including in operational intelligence and serving as a combat advisor to Iraqi soldiers — make him an ideal contender for a stateside job.

    “I don’t think there is better job training anywhere,” he said. “I’m pretty sure that if I can get an Iraqi soldier to do what we’re training him to do — in a different language and a different culture — I can handle any kind of training job in America where the people speak the same language.”

    Some companies, including New York-based financial giant Citi, have recognized that service members who have weathered combat carry unique talents into the boardroom. Last year, Citi hired 700 veterans and this year the company plans to hire at least 1,000 more, said Citi spokesman David Roskin.

    Courtesy of Chris Perkins

    Former U.S. Marine Chris Perkins has successfully moved from the lethal streets of Iraq to the fierce ways of Wall Street.

    Former U.S. Marine Chris Perkins has maneuvered from lethal hot spots in Iraq to a high-pressure job on Wall Street. He exited the Marine Corps in 2006 and immediately recognized, he said, the same talents that fuel success in Manhattan’s hard-charging financial district are not dissimilar from the skills that helped Perkins thrive while serving in Ar Ramadi, the capital of the Al Anbar Province.

    Related: Mortgage woes afflict high rate of active troops, veterans

    “My job over there was to make very timely and accurate, quantitative decisions with the understanding of risk and risk managements,” said Perkins, now managing director and global head of OTC derivatives intermediation and clearing for Citi. He recalled one frightening moment — delivering bicycles to an Iraqi school then being pinned down by insurgent gunfire five minutes later and about one block away.

    Over time, 260 Marines were wounded within his battalion of 1,000 and 16 were killed in action.

    Courtesy of Citi

    Today, Perkins is an executive with Citi but also helping other veterans ease into the corporate workforce.

    “When I was able to navigate into the financial services sector, I asked: ‘Hey, you guys are traders, right? Isn’t that what you’re doing? Aren’t you making quantitative decisions all day long while understanding the risks you are taking?’

    "The successful traders said, ‘Yes, that’s exactly we’re doing.’ So I was able to transfer my skills into that job,” said Perkins, who later founded the Citi Military Veterans Network and played a leading role in working with fellow veterans within the financial services industry to co-found Veterans on Wall Street.

    Veterans who apply for corporate gigs should carry not a stigma, Perkins said, but a stamp of approval: they’re wired to work long hours with minimal sleep, start early, complete assigned tasks — all with a certain intensity and focus that only can be sharpened by battle experience.

    But maybe too many hiring managers and human resources honchos “have just seen too many ‘Rambo’ movies,” Maretich speculated. “Maybe they think we’re all going to come back and not be productive.

    “Believe me, man, if I could go out there and swing a hammer, I would. I can’t anymore. The one thing I can do is work in a corporate environment,” he added. “And the thing is, I’ve been really training to do that for years.

    “In the civilian world, it’s not life and death. You’re not working 12 hours a day 7 days a week. You’re not worried whether your next decision is going to get everybody killed when they go out there. The corporate world would actually be a lot easier.” 

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