"How I felt after my husband died"HIRE A VET & WIDOWS of VIETNAM VETERANS
By Sharon L. Perry, Founder of AO Legacy
It is certainly disconcerting to find out from the article below that despite the efforts of President Obama:
27 percent of veterans in their early 20s were unemployed in February, while 9 percent of veterans overall are without jobs.
Where does that leave us widows? Left behind when our husband's succumb to their illnesses caused by Agent Orange and PTSD. I have been out of work since 1999. I hold a Master's degree in Public Administration and had a career in town management when I had to quit working to care for my husband. My career cut short at a critical time in my life.
I cared for my husband for six years prior to his death in 2005. Shortly thereafter, I got deathly ill with a lung infection which required an operation. It has taken years to re-cooperate in an effort to become a functional member of society once again. While I was re-cooperating I found out I no longer had enough quarters to qualify for Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI). So despite having worked and despite having cared for my ailing veteran I only qualified for Supplemental Security Income (SSI).
Even if I had not have gotten deathly ill after my husband's death, I was burned-out and devastated to the point where I was incapable of returning to work any how.
Despite all of the above I know there are widows who have and have had much worse circumstances than myself. The reason I say this is because at least the VA found my husband's death to be service connected and therefore approved my Dependency and Indemnity Compensation (DIC). If the DIC had not have been approved I would have been on the street and homeless. Since I hadn't worked in six years, got deathly ill and was burned out and devastated by my husband's death; I did lose the 2 houses we had owned, everything we had worked for our whole lives.
As a widow receiving DIC I also retain my husband's veteran's preference. I think we have to include the widows and maybe other family members, who have been devastated by agent orange and the illnesses, that have taken our loved one, whether the veteran was your husband, father, brother, grandfather.
The caregiver, especially the widow, needs help getting back in the workforce. The widows, including myself, are now in their 50s and 60s which makes it much harder to return to the workforce. I'm sad to say that the family or caregiver of our ailing veterans are often over-looked or forgotten.
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