Recent Vets In The News
VFW Magazine — September 2012
Media Perceptions Can Deny Job Opportunities
Why is it that Afghanistan and Iraq War veterans are having a hard time finding work? Negative stereotypes play a part.
Media reports, public opinion polls and academic analyses have all bemoaned the misperceptions and stereotypes. Yet virtually none have probed the source of the problem, or asked the most important question. And that is, where do these damaging myths originate? Who perpetuates them?
Perhaps that is because those most responsible are doing the reporting. Except for the relatively rare instances where a personal connection exists, the ordinary American forms his or her views on veterans based on newspaper/magazine/Internet stories and/or TV shows and Hollywood movies.
Both venues have dished out a steady diet of PTSD, TBI, suicide and homeless horror stories for years. Often, they are linked to violent crime and family tragedy. The unhinged vet is again becoming a staple of TV crime dramas. Under a constant barrage of downbeat statistics, how could employers ever be expected to have informed views?
Read at:
http://digitaledition.qwinc.com/display_article.php?id=1135066
They did the same to returning/returned Vietnam Vets.