WASHINGTON — President Obama’s push to hire military veterans for jobs across the government is fueling resentment in federal offices, as longtime civil servants and former troops on the other side of the cubicle increasingly question each other’s competence and qualifications.

With veterans moving to the head of the hiring queue in the biggest numbers in a generation, there’s growing bitterness on both sides, according to dozens of interviews with federal employees.

Those who did not serve in the military bristle at times at the preferential hiring of veterans and accuse them of a blind deference to authority. The veterans chafe at what they say is a condescending view of their skills and experience and accuse many non-veterans of lacking a work ethic and sense of mission.

At the Government Printing Office, six of eight electricians who have joined the electrical shop in recent years are former military members. But Robert Chaney, the shop’s senior mechanic and a non-veteran, said some arrived without electrician’s licenses. One was hired over the phone from Michigan, he said, then quit soon after starting.

“It’s hard to tell until they get here,” he said. “Then you realize this guy doesn’t know common electric components that a one- or two-year electrician should know.”

Obama began accelerating the hiring of veterans five years ago in response to the bleak employment prospects many service members faced after coming home from Afghanistan and Iraq.

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Last year, veterans made up 46 percent of full-time hires, the Office of Personnel Management said. They now represent a third of the federal workforce, holding positions well beyond the Defense and Veterans Affairs departments.

Their colleagues in the civil service say that while veterans work hard, they rarely display independent thinking.

“You’re getting a very conservative worker that’s very narrow-minded,” said Bob O’Brien, a technology specialist for the Office of Personnel Management. About 90 of the 100 computer experts in his office in suburban Maryland are veterans, he said.

“In meetings, you can’t question anything,” O’Brien complained. The veterans’ attitude to their supervisors, he said, is: “You’re my boss. You could be a complete lunatic, but I won’t question you.”


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