Senators want to streamline job help for vets - Getting out, military retirement, military to civilian transition - Navy Times

Senators want to streamline job help for vets

With the Pentagon touting a new Web site as a way to expand transition and employment help for separating service members, some lawmakers are questioning whether too many competing programs are trying to do the same thing — while no one really knows which ones are working.

“We must find a way to track how well these programs are serving veterans so that we can quickly identify any gaps in existing services,” said Sen. Larry Craig of Idaho, senior Republican on the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee.

Sen. Daniel Akaka, D-Hawaii, the committee chairman, said the differences among the services offered by the Defense, Labor and Veterans Affairs departments are hard for him to understand — and he suspects veterans seeking government help have the same problem.

Akaka is especially worried about overlap among federal programs aimed at helping disabled veterans find jobs, and said he hopes the three federal agencies could devise a “smooth, simple and effective process.”

The new transition program, called TurboTAP, is a “dynamic, automated Web-based system for delivery of transition assistance and related information,” said Michael Dominguez, principal deputy undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness.

It is aimed at National Guard and reserve members who often can’t attend transition courses when demobilizing from active duty. However, active-duty troops also may use the Web site, found at http://www.TurboTAP.org.

“TurboTAP will better meet the needs of the National Guard, reserve and active-component service members and their families because it gives them the tools to connect and access the information ... when they are ready,” Dominguez said.

He said officials expect that the new site will serve as a “21st-century approach to delivering individualized information and benefits to service members and families.”

The online system could help the Pentagon meet a Bush administration goal of having 85 percent of separating service members — active and reserve — attend transition courses.

The Senate committee heard about problems, however, from a disabled veteran, the spouse of a disabled veteran and a company trying to help veterans find work.

Disabled Iraq war veteran Corey McGee, hired to work at VA through the “Coming Home to Work” program, said he is thankful for the government’s help, but noted that he could not get hired or even seriously considered for jobs while he was in medical hold status, awaiting discharge from the Army.

“No government agency could hire me or guarantee me a position, since I was still technically employed by the military,” said McGee, a former specialist who was wounded by a sniper in Iraq.

Once he was discharged, McGee said, it took two months to get a job, which is “a long time when you support two children and live in ... an expensive city.”

Monique Rizer, the wife of an Army Reserve captain, said employment programs need to be expanded for families. Rizer, who now works for the National Military Family Association, said that when her husband was mobilized for service in Iraq, she had a number of employment problems that worsened when her husband was wounded by a roadside bomb in the first weeks of his deployment.

His deployment, and her taking care of him and their family, left a gap in her employment history that made it tough to get hired.

“It was, at times, discouraging,” she said. “I was not aware of resources for reserve or Guard spouses seeking professional employment, besides a career fair” that she attended at Fort Belvoir, Va.

She got one call in six months of searching. “It was frustrating to think that I, too, served my country while my husband was deployed, and it was more difficult looking for work now than before that service,” she said.

Representatives of Bradley-Morris, Inc., a company formed in 1991 that specializes in finding jobs for former service members, also told lawmakers of problems with some military bases.

They said some military officials do not want to help a for-profit company, even though their company does not charge any fees to job seekers but rather makes money from charging companies that do the hiring. They did not identify which bases or branches of service are reluctant to help.

Bradley-Morris officials, who claim to have placed 15,000 veterans in corporate jobs, said commanders need clear guidance that explains how helping a placement company benefits separating service members.

Senate committee member Patty Murray, D-Wash., suggested Congress can help by making it easier for returning troops to transfer military-learned skills into civilian jobs.

She said veterans have complained that while their jobs may appear to match up with a civilian skill, the military often has its own way of describing technical issues that leaves veterans and potential employers speaking different languages.

Ensuring that military education and training are transferable also would help, she said.