Mr. HYSON. Yes. I am going to school at night now. I plan to go to school full time and want somebody who will work for me. I don't plan to work for anybody forever. I will only work for myself and that is it.

The worst part about it is the Navy put me through so many changes, like standing in lines and getting the run-around and I don't care for standing in lines and getting the run-around.

The reason I didn't come to the VA after I first got out was I knew it would happen. Amazing enough I got tired of doing it on my own, running to Virginia, and running to Baltimore and running to places that were 50,000 miles away from my home, if I took the job it would actually break up my whole home because I would never be there. That was the worst thing in the Navy. I was never home and I have two children that are small and I love them very much. I want to be around them as much as I can, and working in Alexandria, Va., and I live in Hyattsville and I take the Beltway and it takes me an hour to get to work and an hour to get home and I go to school 4 nights a week, and when I get home the best thing I could do was watch TV.

My wife is too busy to give me any love either because she has to work for support. The main thing I am going to make a note on the drug thing when he said they look at you like you have been on drugs.

In the first four interviews they said: "How does it feel to be out of the Navy or on the outside?" Next, "Were you in Vietnam?” At first I thought maybe they were hopped up about sea stories about Vietnam, so I would tell them "no" and they wouldn't mention it. again. But now I talk to some more veterans on the outside, some friends of mine, and they tell me the first thing they think is you are a drug addict, and I don't care for that at all.

In my profession I couldn't use drugs or I can't become a drug addict. One little thing on your record you use drugs and the AMA wouldn't let you in. Why would they ask me that anyway? They know I am in this type of profession and this is what I want to pursue. I have a lot of friends that were hired in the California area. They work for the doctor, whoever he is, and go to school, get their degree and most of them have associates with that doctor and things work out. I am willing to bet there has never been a bad experience with a dental technician because you don't have problems like boyfriend problems and things like that.

I am not in Womens Lib, but I am complaining. Do you see? They don't want to pay you for what you do. That was one of the main objections about the Navy. They worked my tail off in the Navy and I went through maybe 20 people a day, 40, 50 as a dental technician at a VA hospital but that is not good enough for the outside either. I have all of that right in here telling you how good I am as a dental technician, and they tell you, when you talk to them, "You have some very nice things said about you and we will call you." And I said, "I have to take home $100 a week to support my wife and two children." They can't understand it. They can't pay me that much. "We have never had any experience with a male technician." I am assuming they can't pay me what I am asking for, but they don't know what they are getting when they get me but doctors overcharge us as it is. That is the way it is.

In the Navy we do the work, and you get it for free, but you step on the outside and you break a Navy filling and it will cost you half your check to get it fixed, and you already have half a filling there already.

But the man can't pay me to assist him. Doctors don't like to clean up behind themselves. In the Navy you are nothing but a janitor but you do have knowledge and if you get your knowledge together with the doctor, and he feels you know what you are doing then you become less of a janitor. You get to do some work rather than cleaning up behind him. He lets you do certain things and other things you are required to do.

I set up programs in the Navy. I have it all down here, you know, and I even trained Montgomery Junior College girls to be dental technicians when I was at Bethesda Naval, but that is not good enough. You have to be a female, and I am not putting on a skirt for anybody.

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The CHAIRMAN. Well, it is one of the common assumptions and haps a false one, in all the employment fields I have been told repeatedly in which a person can draw his or her own ticket is the health services field. That is the greatest field of undersupply and yet you haven't been able to get a job as a dental technician. Is it solely because you are being male rather than female?

Mr. HYSON. Not necessarily that but the money I am asking. They will pay a female $85 a week on a full-time basis. The CHAIRMAN. I thought dental technicians could draw down

more.

Mr. HYSON. Don't get that impression. Doctors pay you what they want to pay you.

The CHAIRMAN. In my area in St. Louis there is a desperate shortage of dental technicians.

Mr. HYSON. There is until they start putting up the money where people want to go into it and work. There is always going to be a shortage of dental technicians. When I get in school and I am ready to graduate, I will hire my dental technician before I get out to make sure I have one when I get out, but do you think they will hire a male dental technician? $100 a week to take home. I said you add tax on that. All I want is $100 in my pocket to take home The CHAIRMAN. Have you had a job offer with a dentist for less every week. than $100 a week that you turned down?

Mr. HYSON. One fellow wanted me to work for him. He was an oral surgery doctor. You have to know what you are doing before you put a set of gloves on even to assist him. You have to have certain training to be an oral surgeon technician, and I had it and he wanted to pay me $80 a week.

The CHAIRMAN. For full-time work?

Mr. HYSON. Wait a minute. Let me tell you how full time this was. This started at 8 in the morning and you got off at 6 sometimes and you worked from Monday through Saturday.

The CHAIRMAN. $80 a week?

Mr. HYSON. $80 a week and the thing they were laying on me was we are looking for somebody that is first-time employment and hasn't been at it so long. How is that doctor going to get any work done if you have someone in there you have to tell every 5 minutes what to do. What he is looking for is a sucker.

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In the Navy they paid me little or no money and I was perfectly happy because I thought this is going to be a wasted 4 years anyway, and when I get out of the service I found out it is. I can't use what they are giving me.

The basic complaint was you weren't being paid and I thought when I get out of service they will have to pay me for what I know.

I like working with children and I have a lot of friends in D.C. Recreation Department, and I could have a job with the D.C. Recreation Department but it is not going to help me when I have to take physics, zoology, and botany. That may take a little time away from my own kids, so what I plan to do is stay in the dental field until I get a dental job.

I am drawing unemployment, yet, but Government owes me that much. I would have drawn unemployment anyway because I would have been back up there today for all the work I did."

The CHAIRMAN. Was there certification of dental technicians in Maryland? Do you take a State exam and get a certificate?

Mr. HYSON. When you go to school-yes. You can be hired without that. There are only certain things you can do, like they have a machine for giving people oral prophylaxis, called catotron. I could use catotron with both hands and half drunk, really because there is nothing to do it, but you have to go to school for 6 years before they write on the paper you can use catotron because that limits the people who don't know what they are doing. Here, I have it all in my record. I have done this and had much more experience, 10 years experience. They may have seen 10,000 people and I may have seen 5,000 people in 8 months because we have people constantly coming in there. Three years experience doesn't mean you have a limited amount of experience.

The CHAIRMAN. Those were busy 3 years.

Mr. HYSON. That is right. You worked those 3 years and you didn't go in there and sit down all day, and listen to music and drink a cup of coffee.

The CHAIRMAN. What is the starting salary of certified, accredited dental technicians in Maryland? Who has all the education?

Mr. HYSON. A dental technician will probably start off at about $125 per week and take home maybe $80 a week.

The CHAIRMAN. You can't shoot for that because you don't have that certificate in Maryland. You can't even shoot for $125.

Mr. HYSON. That is right because of the certificate holding me back. But doctors know what they are getting when they get a brandnew technician out of school. They know she don't know nothing but all she knows is what is taught here out of books and what little bit of experience she may have had at a dental clinic here and a dental clinic there, and hour here 3 days a week. When she comes out of school she doesn't know what she is doing, so he has to tell her what this is and 90 percent of the things she learns in her first year of schooling she can't remember anyway.

The CHAIRMAN. Have you talked to any of the people in Maryland who run the certification business of technicians? Can you translate the 3 years you have had in the service doing this kind of work? Does it count for anything in Maryland in terms of working toward the certificate?

Mr. Hyson. I don't know. I have only been out of the Navy since

May. I don't know how most guys are but I know how I was. I don't want to be bothered by anybody. I want to find out what it is to really come down to the city for a while and it took 2 weeks to do. I will take 2 weeks and not do anything but lay on my duff, which is what I did. After 2 weeks I started to get interested and I found out I had to get a job because things weren't working out. Even if I went to school full time the GI bill wouldn't pay to support my family. My wife does most of it now.

The CHAIRMAN. Your wife is working.

Mr. HYSON. Yes. She works for the Bureau of the Personnel Secretary at the Mint. She makes money but it is not enough to support our needs. I can't just say I am going to go to school.

The CHAIRMAN. Are you drawing unemployment now?

Mr. HYSON. Yes.

The CHAIRMAN. How many weeks have you been on?
Mr. HYSON. Four.

The CHAIRMAN. $65 a week?

Mr. HYSON. Yes. The whole thing in a nut shell is I can't see working all day for maybe $75 or $80 to take home every week and the Government will give me $65 for doing nothing. I don't have to do anything to get the $65 but fill out the paper and mail it in.

The CHAIRMAN. But that will run out.

Mr. HYSON. Eventually.

The CHAIRMAN. Then what do you think you will do?

Mr. HYSON. I can do what he did, sell drugs, but that is not the way. The way is to go out there and get it legitimately and honestly. What I want to do is go to school and become a doctor so I can help people. The CHAIRMAN. How are you going to be able to cut that? You have a half year of college. To be a dentist you need

Mr. HYSON. I am going to start a program at Howard University where you can take 90 hours of academic subjects and then we are admitted to the dental school and have a DDS in 4 years. It used to take 6 and before that it used to take 8.

The CHAIRMAN. Under a program at Howard you can get out in 4 years?

Mr. HYSON. Howard has one.

The CHAIRMAN. That is a full-time day student?

Mr. HYSON. Yes. That is right.

The CHAIRMAN. How are you going to cut it as a full-time day student? Your wife will continue working I presume. But how are you going to be able to live on what your wife earns?

Mr. HYSON. I intend to get a job

The CHAIRMAN. What type of job?

Mr. HYSON. Dental technician. A part-time dental technician that knows what he is doing can make a doctor more money than a fulltime technician right out of school.

The CHAIRMAN. I believe that but you haven't had a doctor or dentist that has offered you a decent paying part-time job.

Mr. HYSON. I had one doctor in Virginia. He was in the process of moving his office closer to the city. He lived in Alexandria where his office was and he was going to move it closer to National Airport. That is not bad. I could go there every day and come right back but he had four or five associates and they want an oral hygiene program set up for them.

I set up an oral hygiene program for a ship of 5,000 dudes, so 1 know I can set up this program for them. If I can set it up and get it so I can get somebody else to run it my job would be to keep it in check, to add to it and make it better, better, and better and plus do other things in the office like prosthetic work, taking impressions, any type of thing. I could work weekends and work nights.

The CHAIRMAN. You think this doctor is going to hire you to do this?

Mr. HYSON. No. After having so many experiences this was the first guy I went to.

The CHAIRMAN. Is he a white or black dentist?

Mr. HYSON. He was a white doctor.

The CHAIRMAN. Are most of the dentists you interviewed with been white?

Mr.HYSON. All of them.

The CHAIRMAN. Do you think if you were a white male your chances would be any better?

Mr. HYSON. I don't work on a racist

The CHAIRMAN. I am not saying you do but do they? These doctors have been white dentists. Do you think the problem has been that you are not female? What are your chances if you were a black female?

Mr. HYSON. I can't speculate on that because first of all I can't see a doctor being a racist anyway, you know, because he signs his name doctor.

That is what the Navy did to me. They took me away from society. I dealt with it in the Navy.

We started a black organization on my ship and I was one of the leaders of it. We held a conference out there on minority affairs in Oakland. We went to the conference and we couldn't get called on. What really happened they sat there and talked about the difference about a married man and single man. How the single man was making all the complaints because the married man was getting all the benefits. Do you think anything came down to minority affairs? Me and my friends got up and left the meeting 5 minutes before they left. I am sure in 5 minutes they couldn't cover what is happening in minority affairs in the Navy, without dealing with the whole Navy. We just dealt with the ship.

We have a lot of friends going through a whole lot of changes and the captain who took over when I left is not handling it right. You couldn't give me a million dollars to go back in the Navy but you couldn't give me a million dollars for the experience either.

Like I said I don't feel a doctor should be a racist because the simple reason he is out there to help people and it doesn't matter what color they are. They need help and the doctor takes an oath, and to have a racist doctor he should be put out of business because he is there to help everybody and he only wants money. Money comes along with the job. You get paid for what you are doing. You are a professional person. You get paid for what you do. You don't have to overcharge people. You get paid for your services. There is a set price.

The CHAIRMAN. You have gone to several dentists. They have either offered you low-paying jobs or no job at all.

Mr. HYSON. Most of them just offered me a telephone call. We will call you.

The CHAIRMAN. Which is a nice way of saying "Get lost."