(NAPSI)—If you or someone you care about is among America’s more than 20 million veterans, here are a few facts and figures you may find interesting:
• About one in 10 Americans is a veteran.
• About three-quarters of veterans have served during wartime.
• Gulf War−era veterans now account for the largest share of all U.S. veterans.
• More than a million veterans are legally blind or have low vision.
Employing Our Nation’s Veterans
National Industries for the Blind (NIB) and its network of associated nonprofit agencies employ more than 5,800 people who are blind, including nearly 600 of our nation’s veterans.
These dedicated men and women working in NIB’s network support our nation’s veterans by manufacturing products and providing essential services for the federal government and U.S. military, including the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). People who are blind also produce hundreds of products available to veterans and their families in military commissaries and exchanges.
One Vet’s Story
U.S. Navy veteran Antonio Arbelo is one of the 27 employees who are blind or visually impaired who work around the clock to make, pack and ship medicine bottles at Alphapointe. Headquartered in Kansas City, Missouri, Alphapointe has manufactured nearly 1 billion medicine bottles for the VA since the mid-1990s.
Arbelo enlisted in the U.S. Navy in 1985. After basic and advanced training, he was assigned to an Explosive Ordnance Disposal Unit. Wounded on a mission, he lost sight in one eye and was medically discharged in 1992.
After his discharge, Arbelo joined Alphapointe full-time as packer and machinist in the plastics department in support of the VA medicine bottles contract. “I’m pretty sure I’ve made a lot of the bottles in my medicine cabinet,” he says with a laugh.