Job Programs

In 1966 and ’67 I attended classes under the Manpower Training and Development program for licensed vocational nurse training. This program had been proposed by President Lyndon B. Johnson.

We were paid a weekly “salary” and were furnished uniforms, shoes, stockings, a wristwatch as well as textbooks, notebooks, pens and paper items as needed.

This was shortly after the Watts riot and the majority of the students were black young women from South-Central Los Angeles. I am white and was 52 when I finished training.

After graduation I worked at a major Los Angeles hospital for 15 years until my retirement. I get a monthly pension from the hospital and an adequate Social Security pension. I don’t like to think what my life would be like today if I hadn’t been given this education opportunity by the liberal Democrats in 1966.

George Bush should wake up to the fact that it makes better sense and costs a lot less to educate people than it does to rebuild ruined cities.

KATHERINE LANIN, Los Angeles