via Philly.com
After a 30-year military career in which he earned three graduate degrees, rose to the rank of colonel, and served as an aide to Pentagon brass, Robert Freniere can guess what people might say when they learn he's unemployed and lives out of his van:Read it all here.
Why doesn't this guy get a job as a janitor?
Freniere answers his own question: "Well, I've tried that."
Freniere, 59, says that his plea for help, to a janitor he once praised when the man was mopping the floors of his Washington office, went unfulfilled. So have dozens of job applications, he says, the ones he has filled out six hours a day, day after day, on public library computers.
So Freniere, a man who braved multiple combat zones and was hailed as "a leading light" by an admiral, is now fighting a new battle: homelessness.
"You stay calm. That's what we were trained for when I went through survival training," he said recently in King of Prussia, where he had parked his blue minivan, the one crammed with all his possessions and held together with duct tape.
As of January 2012, more than 60,000 veterans were homeless, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs. Reducing that number has been a priority for the Obama administration - and the number of homeless veterans dropped 24 percent nationwide from 2009 to 2013. In Pennsylvania, however, it jumped 46 percent, to more than 1,400.
Joblessness among returning service members is even more common. Freniere describes a monthly lunch he has attended in Washington, a hushed tradition that he says attracts about 200 veterans. After they eat, the men and women who are unemployed stand up one by one to recite their service records, hoping someone else in the room will hire them.
Many, he says, are highly accomplished.
Sol,
ReplyDeleteI wonder if he was a reservist and not eligible for retirement pay yet. If he was an active duty O-6 with thirty years of uninterupted service he should be getting about $6500 a month retirment pay or $78000 a year before taxes.
that's why this story vexes me. did you read the part where he's paying for his kids college and that he suffered a divorce? those two expenses alone can drive you to the poor house. i just don't know. if he's a reservist then the reporter should make that clear. again. i just don't know.
DeleteGuys, you can find a crappy mobile home in a rural area for about 100 dollars a month if you look hard enough. if this guy is choosing to forego that luxury to spend his money on 2 college educations and a divorce settlement, its not a veterans affairs issue.
ReplyDeleteI'm not saying veteran affairs issues don't exist, just that this is a bad example. There are guys that don't have a pension, that have PTSD.
Then if we're gonna be fuzzy, theres the countless underemployed veterans in poverty, and nonveterans in america, the retired colonel has income, just sayin.
I agree. Shit happens, and then you either cope with it or give up (not a real option). One also finds out, if one didn't know it already, that there are more important things in life than money and 'status.'
DeleteWhat happened to his pensions?
ReplyDeleteCould be that half of it goes to his ex-wife, plus the house, etc.
DeleteIt makes you wonder why we have all the Active duty bases that are closed due to BRAC doing nothing. We could have simply converted them into Retirement homes for Military personnel who have No place to go. That way VETS have a home to go to and a place they can stay. Even the French Foreign legion has a home for legionnaires who don't have a home to go to after their service. Here's the link http://www.maison-legionnaire.com/
ReplyDeleteWhat are his son's doing to help him?
ReplyDeleteThey're in school. What could they do?
DeleteHe's got to make it on his own. Nobody can do it for him.
And he can't do what he's always done, chances are.
He's got to plow a new furrow. Re-invent himself. And stop complaining.
I read this story and thought the same thing where is his retirement check and that's not even counting his TSP money or other savings,IRA's if he is living in a van it's because he wants to.
ReplyDeletein the Congressional Record he’s a reservist who was been promoted to Colonel in 2002 (Google his name --- Congressional Record, V. 148, PT. 1, January 23, 2002 to February 13, 2002)...so if he's getting any pension at 59, it's on the basis of becoming 'disabled' while on temporary active duty. Scammer.
ReplyDeleteWould anyone really care about the Colonel's situation if he hadn't served? How many others are in similar or dire circumstances and with no pension to boot? Then again how does one excel in the armed services but fails so miserably as a civilian ....?
ReplyDeletehttp://scallywagandvagabond.com/2014/01/colonel-robert-freniere-went-high-brass-homeless/