Need skilled workers? Hire veterans!
Revised Thanksgiving Day, 2021
American taxpayers spend hundreds of millions of dollars to train the individual members of our armed forces in a variety of skills other than using weapons in mortal combat. Many of those skills are easily transferable to civilian occupations, but federal and state bureaucracy stands in the way and prevent employers from utilizing the members of this the highly-skilled veterans’ workforce to grow the American economy.
Combat medics and Hospital Corpsmen and women
Saving lives and treating injuries and illnesses requires the same training in the military as in the civilian sector. That training should be recognized, respected, and utilized by hospitals and healthcare practices throughout the United States. Veteran medics can be and should be immediately integrated into the American healthcare system without further delay.
Any combat medic is by training and unfortunately by experience a qualified advanced EMT (Emergency Medical Technician) ready to ride an ambulance or emergency service vehicle anywhere in the United States and provide the highest level of life support for people who have been injured. Nevertheless, there are between 30,000 and 50,000 former medics and corpsmen who have been unable to obtain employment commensurate with their training, skills, and experience
According to NPR (National Public Radio) Morning Edition, every military medic and hospital corpsman gets more than $100,000 worth of training and then acquires years of experience treating everything from dehydration to blast wounds. Yet, when they return to civilian life they are denied the opportunity to continue their lifesaving work because many states do not recognize the extent of their education and training in the military nor do they respect the service they have performed as combat medics. In many States and municipalities they can’t even ride in the back of an ambulance. Many states make these highly trained medics start school all over again and only six states make it easy for combat medics to even become EMTs, much less Emergency Room Nurses, Nurse Practitioners, and Physicians’ Assistants.
Congress should insist that any combat medic be certified upon discharge as a qualified advanced EMT and that every state should be required to honor that certification and permit those veterans to continue their saving work as EMTs in any of the United States.
Truck drivers and heavy equipment operators
If your Military Occupational Specialty MOS indicates you are qualified to drive a truck in Iraq or Afghanistan, nothing should stand in the way of driving a commercial vehicle on the Interstate. Driving a truck in a war zone like Baghdad or Kabul should certainly qualify a veteran to drive a truck in any American city.
The same is true of operating heavy equipment. Operating a backhoe or a bulldozer or a crane in a military uniform is no different from operating the same equipment in civilian work clothes.
The MOS system and transferrable skills
Every member of the Armed Forces has an MOS (military occupational specialty). It provides much more information about the actual skills a veteran possesses than can be obtained from a conventional resume or even a curriculum vitae, and certainly more than can be ascertained from a college diploma or college transcript.
It should be no problem for HR managers in any modern business organization or government agency to immediately find one or more MOS classifications in the modern military which would qualify a veteran to fill an outstanding job opening.
Immediate action which should be taken
The short-term solution is for the President of the United States to direct the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Department of Labor to immediately establish a formal directory and classification of transferable skills which “map” military occupation specialties to job titles recognized by the United States Department of Labor as existing in the national economy today.
The Department of Defense, should establish a certification program and before a veteran is discharged they should be given the necessary special training to obtain a certificate in those civilian fields commensurate with their MOS. Congress should promulgate legislation prohibiting any state from denying a license or certificate to a veteran who has obtained the appropriate certificate prior to discharge.
What stands in the way of immediate action?
Unfortunately, the obvious solution to both the current labor shortage and unemployment among returning veterans is all but impossible with the current bureaucracy managing both the Department of Defense, the individual armed services, the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Veterans Administration. It is time to roll the Department of Veterans Affairs into the Department of Defense so that any member of the Armed Forces will remain part of America’s military family from the time they enter the service and for the remainder of their lives as veterans.