Rex Huppke: Chicago company employs only veterans, shows how work is a mission

[EC]

CHICAGO — Mark Doyle saw a problem that made him mad.

Veterans who had served in Iraq and Afghanistan were returning home and not finding jobs. Some were homeless, some just barely making ends meet.

Doyle, a Chicago businessman who has worked for President Bill Clinton and Vice President Joe Biden, had been in Afghanistan as a private contractor doing forensic accounting work for a U.S. anti-corruption task force. He lived in tents alongside soldiers and saw how hard they worked under the worst of conditions.

“When I came back home, I saw the unemployment rate and the suicide rate among veterans,” Doyle said. “I was driving home one day and I said, ‘I’m going to start a company.’”

Having admittedly no idea what he was doing, Doyle launched a silk-screening business called Rags of Honor, a company that would be staffed entirely by veterans. Using his own money and relying on equipment donations from a Chicago-area manufacturer, he rented a space and then went to a shelter for homeless veterans and rounded up people looking for work.

They didn’t know anything about silk-screening, and neither did Doyle. But they all figured it out. That was in 2012.

Now Rags of Honor employs seven veterans full time and two part time, with more to come this year. Most of them were homeless and struggling to find work.

Tamika Holyfield served six years in the Navy, two of those years in Afghanistan as a small arms weapons instructor. When she returned to Chicago, she had no job and no place to stay. She wound up living in her car for several months.

“I couldn’t find work and I didn’t have a stable place to live,” Holyfield said. “I was really depressed and I just didn’t know what to do.”

She met Doyle through an employment agency and he hired her immediately. She’s now director of customer service at Rags of Honor.

“There’s nothing like working around veterans who appreciate your hard work,” Holyfield said. “When Mr. Doyle offered me this job, it just changed everything.”

Read more: http://www.philly.com/philly/jobs/Rex_Huppke_Chicago_company_employs_only_veterans_shows_how_work_is_a_mission.html

[truth_seeker]

It is pretty amazing that WWII veterans were able to come home and rebuild the free world. That was the last major war which we won and kept won.

Ever since wars get left halfway won, leaving the door open for yet another perpetual conflict.

Little wonder the participants don't find purpose and closure.

I happen to believe in some societal expectations becoming self-fulfilling.  If society expects you to become depressed and homeless, the easiest path is to simply surrender. After all, not working or not even looking for work due to depression is an easy path.

In the lives of WWII vets, it was simply not accepted in our society, for them to give up. So few did.

Now it is just fine to give up, so many do just that.  Social workers in civilian and military sectors need clients, after all.