It’s better than it used be, but Woodstock resident Manse Towery, a twice-wounded Marine, still gets angry and sometimes finds it hard to suffer civilians and what he considers their insipid griping.
Sean Newman holds an interesting hospital job in Augusta. But he has yet to find anything in civilian life that affords him the same rush he felt when his combat hospital was suddenly inundated with wounded.
And Decatur native Rafael Bryan, despite a college degree, experience as a legal specialist and a strong sense of duty instilled by the Marine Corps, is struggling to find a job.
The three Georgia men are among America’s newest war vets, part of the 2.3 million servicemen and women who have served in the ongoing conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq. With the rest of the country watching, but not really paying attention, they have become their own generation, 10 years at war, among the longest periods of conflict that the nation has ever gone through.
Hundreds of thousands of soldiers, guardsmen and reservists each year are dropping back into the civilian life that war interrupted. While many are experiencing the same difficulty transitioning back to society as veterans of other wars, this generation is also finding some unique challenges, including returning to a workforce during a historic recession. Statistics show they have more than a 2 percent higher unemployment rate than others. And more than one in 10 may be dealing with ongoing injuries like traumatic brain injury, called the “signature wound” of the current wars, often the result of roadside bombs.
A recent Pew Research poll more than four in 10 of those new vets are experiencing problems readjusting to civilian life. And one-third say “neither conflict has been worth the costs.”
Tom Tarantino, a former Army captain who served in Iraq, said those 2.3 million vets make up a small footprint of American society, just .7 percent.
“They are a small but engaged population of new leadership,” said Tarantino, who lobbies for the advocacy group Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America. “They chose the most elite form of public service — serving in a time of war. Now they are ready to make their next contribution.”
But to make their mark, those vets must convince civilians their skills, often forged in the crucible of battle, translate to the office world.
“I was a captain in charge of an organization with 400 employees with a budget in the millions and they’d ask, ‘Can you be in charge of people?’” Tarantino said. “People don’t really know a lot of vets in America today.”
Newman was a 26-year-old construction manager in Florida when the planes hit on 9/11. He enlisted in the Army and found a niche in medical technology. While at war, Newman became a “trauma junkie,” throwing himself into every emergency he could. The skills he forged got him a civilian hospital job after he mustered out in 2008. Those skills let him to handle anything thrown at him.
“You see civilian people get flustered and panic and I say, ‘Really?’ I’ve seen 18 people come in at once to the E.R., some of them blown apart,” said Newman. “I’d go back in a minute to Afghanistan. The brotherhood you share cannot be duplicated. That was one of the great years of my life.”
But returning to war would raise eyebrows at home. Newman and his wife, who is pregnant with twins, have daughters ages 7 and 4.
Towery is also growing into family life, after getting married last year and adopting his wife’s two daughters. They recently moved into a five-bedroom home in Woodstock, but the journey to a comfortable life has been arduous for the ex-Marine.
Sgt. Towery was shot in Afghanistan and the ricocheting bullet knocked out 14 of his teeth. In Iraq, he was wounded in the leg by rocket shrapnel. The ordeals left him partially disabled and suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, causing him to avoid crowds, jump at loud noises and grow angry at perceived slights.
He returned home in 2004 and got a job managing at a QuikTrip. “It was customer service, but at the time, I wasn’t customer-service oriented,” he said.
Towery, who is 33, then followed his entrepreneurial side and got into real estate. He found himself selling north suburban property at a torrid pace until the market crashed.
He had ignored his episodes of PTSD but one day he chewed out one of his daughters. He knew he needed to get help. “The fear in her eyes made me realize I needed help,” he said.
He now works for an AT&T company in technical support and, he added with a laugh, customer service.
Former Marine Lance Cpl. Rafael Bryan, who was in Iraq, has hit the job fairs and worked the phones for nearly a year. Bryan was a legal specialist in the Corps but has had a hard time replicating that position in civilian life.
“Most of the people doing the hiring are not vets, and people who are not vets don’t know what you can do with your skills, how you can translate them,” said Bryan, who lives near Dunwoody. “I’m all about commitment. I’m going to be at work on time. I’ll stay late. I’m all about mission complement.”
“In the military, I saw a sense of camaraderie I have yet to see outside,” he said. “Outside? Very simply, they don’t care. They don’t understand.”
Bryan, who is 31, got his bachelors degree in the military and a master’s after getting out. Asked about the focus of his job search, he said, “Truthfully, I’ll take anything. I’m wide open.”
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