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Not enlisted, and not employed

Finding a new mission as a civilian is becoming a bigger challenge for people returning to real life after stints in the service.

By BRADY DENNIS
Published July 16, 2006

TAMPA - Not long ago, he was Army Spc. Kevin Mauga, a soldier in Iraq with clear-cut orders:

Drive a 5,000-gallon fuel truck back and forth between Ramadi and Habbaniya. Dodge roadside bombs. Skirt small arms fire. Collect more than $900 a week in combat pay.

These days, he's Kevin Mauga, Army veteran, bunk mate with his 14-year-old brother in their childhood home on Coolidge Avenue in Tampa.

He has half a tank of gas in his Chevy Impala, less than $50 in the bank and a stack of resumes few employers seem to want.

"They say that they're hiring," the 23-year-old says of his job search, which has stretched into its third month, "but they don't call you back."

He's not alone.

Thousands of young men have returned from Baghdad and Balad and Bagram, from Najaf and Nasiriyah, from Kabul and Kirkuk and Kandahar.

Like Mauga, they have found themselves back home, unemployed and unsure of their futures, more intimidated by the civilian world than they ever were by military life.

Last year, the unemployment rate for young veterans between 20 and 24 rose to 15.6 percent, nearly twice the rate for nonveterans in the same age range.

Mauga doesn't ponder the statistics.

All he knows is, he's broke. And the mail man keeps bringing bills - $239 for the car payment, $25 a month for his fiancee's engagement ring, another chunk for insurance and gas.

He goes to bed. He gets up.

Another bill to pay. Another jobless morning on Coolidge Avenue.

Souvenirs of his efforts surround him.

Help wanted ads, ripped from the newspaper and tacked to the refrigerator. The list of Internet job sites, which he visits night after night. The brochures from a recent job fair. His mother drove him there in her minivan so he could save gas. The stack of recent job applications - airport security screener, cashier for Hillsborough County, grocery store deli worker.

Add that to other applications he has filled out for Home Depot, Lowe's, Radio Shack, clothing retailers, dollar stores, video game stores, a dozen other disappointments come and gone.

Who's looking for an employee trained in hand-to-hand combat? Who needs a man talented at firing an M-16?

He landed one job interview, at a credit service company in St. Petersburg. He confused the interviewer with his military jargon.

"She kept asking me, 'What's that? What's that? What's that?' " said Mauga, a 2002 Robinson High School graduate. "Being in the military so long, you're just not used to the civilian talk."

He got an e-mail a few days later. The company didn't have a spot for him, it said.

His commander tried to tell him. Before Mauga left the Army, the two men had a talk. Re-enlist, the officer urged. It's hard out there in the civilian world.

"I told him, 'I'll take my chances,' " Mauga said.

And so he spends his days surfing Monster.com, filling out job applications that rarely get answered and making calls that rarely get returned.

The thought of going back to war scares him, but so does the idea of having his car repossessed and putting his wedding on hold indefinitely.

So the other night, after another day of waiting for calls that didn't come, he spilled out his frustrations to Jennifer, his fiancee.

"I told her, 'If I can't find a job anytime soon, I might have to go back in,' " he said.

Back in the military.

But not just yet.

First, he's going to check out a career in law enforcement. The Tampa Police Department seemed interested at that job fair. Maybe they'll pay as well as the Army.

Or maybe, he thinks, he'll call the Florida Highway Patrol. Maybe they're hiring.

Maybe.

Brady Dennis can be reached at 813-226-3386 or dennis@sptimes.com.

[Last modified July 16, 2006, 01:52:57]