"NORTH CHICAGO, Ill. — In four deployments as an Army combat medic to some of the most dangerous corners of Iraq and Afghanistan, Joe Carney had seen the worst of war — bullet wounds, severed limbs, shrapnel.
He saved lives amid bombs and gunfire, his emergency room often a patch of dirt in the desert or a rocky mountainside.None of that mattered when he left the Army three years ago.
“I think the services should do a better job because at the end of the day, your last day in the Army, the last day in the Navy, you’re out, no one cares about you,” he said. “What I tell people who are planning to get out is, you have to have a plan.”
Like many medics and Navy corpsmen, the U.S. military’s front-line medical professionals, Carney’s skills translated to almost nothing in the civilian world.
...But despite his extensive training, he lacked state licensing certificates and he struggled to find a job at his skill level.
He settled on a job as an emergency room technician, where he was allowed to do little beyond administer oxygen and take blood pressure readings..."
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