Jobless Rate For Veterans Plunges

 Jobs, Military  Comments Off
Mar 162012
 

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — More veterans are coming back from war and getting back to work in the civilian job force, thanks to efforts by both employers and the government, as well as the improving economy.

The jobless rate for Iraq and Afghanistan veterans has fallen to 7.6%, well below the overall U.S. unemployment rate of 8.3%, and nearly five percentage points below the 12.5% rate for veterans a year ago. …

The Wounded Warrior tax credit is worth up to $4,800 for companies who hire disabled veterans. This credit was doubled in November for the long-term unemployed, giving a tax break of up to $9,600 to companies that hire disabled veterans who’ve been unemployed longer than six months.

There are other efforts in the works. President Obama has proposed the Veterans Job Corps initiative, which calls for $1 billion to hire 20,000 vets over the next five years to work in jobs related to environmental protection and maintaining roads and levees. …

He’s also proposed a $5 billion program to hire police officers and firefighters that would give priority to veterans.

CNN Money

At Military.com:

There’s been a lot of fanfare about the new tax credit for businesses who are hiring veterans (worth up to $9,600), but is it making a positive difference in veteran hiring? Some early evidence from the Star-Ledger in New Jersey suggests that it might be. At a recent job fair in Newark, numerous veterans were interviewed, and many cited the VOW to Hire Heroes Act of 2011, which was signed last November and included the new tax credit program, as helping them get more attention from prospective employers.

Army veteran Sharon Strand said in her interview, “For years I didn’t really talk about my time in the service. I didn’t realize the relevance of it, but now it has its advantages… A woman from a law firm called me for an interview this Friday and she wanted to make sure I had been in the military… I’m excited. I’m going to bring my dog tags and DD-214 form with me.”

Other job seekers such as National Guard veteran Farhaj Hassan have noted that conversations with employers have changed since institution the tax credit, with one employer calling him a “walking lottery ticket.”

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 Posted by at 12:48 am

Affordable Housing Veterans Actually Want to Live In

 Good Idea, Housing, Military, Urban Issues  Comments Off
Mar 162012
 

If anyone deserves our thanks, appreciation, and support, it has to be veterans of the armed forces, many of whom serve at great risk only to return to civilian life with limited income, housing, and social services. A shocking portion are homeless: veterans make up around 9 percent of our population but 23 percent of our homeless population. Veterans comprise fully a third of our homeless men. The federal Department of Veterans Affairs estimates that 107,000 veterans are homeless on any given night.

There are people doing something about it in Milwaukee, however, where the locally-based Center for Veterans Issues has teamed with local affordable housing builder Cardinal Capital Management to create a new, 52-unit apartment building just for veterans. Called Veterans Manor, the new homes have been designed to green standards in a walkable neighborhood (rated a “very walkable” 72 on Walk Score), with an east-west transit line right at the front door and a north-south line across the street.

Onsite counselors from CVI allow residents quick and easy access to support and guidance. In addition, the facility features a commercial kitchen cooking 22,000 meals weekly for local schools, according to Sam Newberg’s Joe Urban blog, while offering training for the veterans in the food service industry. The kitchen, which also cooks for residents, is operated by the nonprofit Milwaukee Center for Independence. The Center’s training program includes both classroom training and daily functional work activity. Soon to come is a bistro-style Troop Cafe that will offer meals to the community. …

A notice posted on the website of the Wisconsin Housing and Economic Development Authority says that financing for Veterans Manor was made possible by the Authority’s award of $1.1 million in Affordable Housing Tax Credits resulting in over $6.8 million of equity to assist in development efforts. The Center for Veterans Issues and Cardinal Capital also received a $1.8 million federal loan to address equity financing gaps for the tax credits.



The Atlantic Cities

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 Posted by at 12:45 am

Three Thousand Travel Jobs For Vets

 FLOTUS, Jobs, Military  Comments Off
Mar 012012
 

The travel industry is promising to create nearly 3,000 jobs for veterans and military spouses by 2014 as part of a program announced Wednesday by Michelle Obama.

The first lady’s office said the American Society of Travel Agents was creating a coalition to help veterans and military spouses get jobs in the travel industry and hang on to them as families are transferred to different military bases.

Mrs. Obama and Jill Biden, the wife of the vice president, are leading the Joining Forces campaign to encourage businesses, communities and others to support military families.

The travel industry coalition includes companies such as Orbitz Worldwide, American Express Consumer Travel network, Amadeus North America, and a number of leading rental car companies.

Associated Press

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 Posted by at 12:28 am

Welcome Home, SeaBees

 Military  Comments Off
Feb 122012
 

A pilot friend, GreatGrey, posted this moving report yesterday at The Fogbow:

We had 350 Navy SeaBees on the plane coming home after 18 month deployment to Afghanistan.

Stopped in Portsmouth, New Hampshire for fuel and immigration. The people in town, lots of them, a couple hundred, were in the airport as greeters. Everyone got a teddy bear, ice cream, lots of hugs and thank yous. They sang to the guys. They brought out their dogs for the guys to pet. Everyone got a star from flags that the greeters fly at home in honor of the troops, when the flags get worn out, they cut out the stars and give them out as reminders. It was really cool.

When we taxied out for takeoff, there was a bunch at the end of the runway waving goodbye to the guys and gals. At 3 o’clock in the morning.

The people in Portsmouth gave me an email address, they’ll send a CD with photos of the whole thing.

Got to our destination, Point Mugu Naval Station in California at 4 am, lotsa family and people there to meet them again. And a big yell went up when we finally touched down.

Well ya never know, like how many of those greeters would say that Obama is a Indonesian Muslim if ya asked em. But none of the guys on the plane would do that. They went and did their thing, none of em pulled a Lakin or Rhodes or Cook. Still what those greeters do for the troops was really touching.

 Posted by at 12:32 am

Obama Nominee Could Become Air Force’s First Female General

 Military  Comments Off
Feb 072012
 

WASHINGTON, Feb. 6, 2012 – President Barack Obama has nominated Lt. Gen. Janet C. Wolfenbarger to the rank of general, and as commander of Air Force Materiel Command at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta announced today.

The promotion would make Wolfenbarger the Air Force’s first female four-star general.

“The secretary strongly supports the president’s nomination, and he believes that General Wolfenbarger is an outstanding Air Force officer,” Pentagon Press Secretary George Little said today. “The fact that she would be the first woman to wear a fourth star in the Air Force, if confirmed, is a testament to her skills, experience and dedication.”

If confirmed by the Senate, Wolfenbarger would become the military’s second female officer to receive four stars behind Army Gen. Ann E. Dunwoody, commander of Army Materiel Command, who was promoted to general in 2008.

American Forces Press Service

 Posted by at 12:21 am

Lakin – Denied license to practice in Kansas

 Birthers, Military, Right Wing Nutzoids  Comments Off
Feb 062012
 

NBC at Native and Natural Born Citizenship Explored has news on the former Lt. Col.’s former medical license today.

From November 21, 2011, the Final Order Denying Application for Licensure of the Kansas State Board of Healing Arts:

11. Applicant’s actions and conduct underlying his court-martial conviction constitute dishonorable conduct.

12. Applicant’s refusal to deploy to Afghanistan to provide medical services in support of Operation Enduring Freedom due to his own personal beliefs represents a disregard for his professional duties and undermines the integrity of the medical profession. Of even more significance, Applicant’s actions potentially jeopardized the health, safety and welfare of the military troops for which Applicant was employed to provide medical care.

13. Denial of Applicant’s application for licensure is warranted due to the egregiousness of Applicant’s conduct.

Transcript of the hearing is here.

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 Posted by at 2:11 pm

President Calls For New Conservation Corps

 Economy, Government, Infrastructure, Jobs, Military, National Service, Video  Comments Off
Feb 032012
 

I’ve been waiting for this. We’ll see how long it takes for the Republicans in Congress to say “No”:

Obama calls for job programs that help veterans

WASHINGTON (AP) – In an effort to cut the unemployment rate among veterans, President Obama is calling for a new conservation program that would put veterans to work rebuilding trails, roads and levees on public lands.

The president also will seek more grant money for programs that allow local communities to hire more police officers and firefighters.

“Let’s get more cops on the beat, let’s get more rangers in the parks, let’s get more firefighters on call, and in the process, we’re going to put more veterans back to work,” Obama said Friday at a fire station in Arlington, Va., that was one of the first to respond to the attack on the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001.

“They’ve already risked their lives defending America. They should have the opportunity to rebuild America,” he said. …

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said the Civilian Conservation Corps that operated during the 1930s could be viewed as a model for what the administration will try to accomplish through its “Veterans Jobs Corps.” He said that the administration will propose spending $1 billion that would be used to put an estimated 20,000 veterans to work restoring habitat and eradicating invasive species, among other activities.

Associated Press

While the scope of the problem is different and the solutions will be, too, this fascinating American Experience documentary examines the original CCC program, introduced by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, which put 3 million American men to work restoring the land during the Great Depression, leaving behind them the system of national parks we all love and a salvaged landscape for farming, and incidentally prepared these men to meet the challenges the country would face in World War II:


Watch The Civilian Conservation Corps on PBS. See more from American Experience.

It’s not for nothing this became known as “The Greatest Generation.” They were trained to be great.

 Posted by at 1:43 pm

Best Of Luck, But We’re Outta Here

 Foreign Affairs, Military, National Security  Comments Off
Dec 052011
 

Finally.

BAGHDAD — The U.S. military transferred control of its sprawling headquarters outside Baghdad to the Iraqi government Friday, a deeply symbolic moment that launched the final month of a nearly decade-long U.S. presence.

The last few soldiers at Camp Victory, a base that once housed 68,000 military personnel and contractors, departed early Friday afternoon. There are currently 12,000 U.S. troops left in Iraq at five bases, down from a peak of 170,000 at 500 bases in 2007, military spokesman Col. Barry Johnson said. All will be gone by the end of the year.

“There was a signing of papers of receivership that gave Iraq custody of the base effective today,” Johnson said. “It’s quite nostalgic. It was the center of gravity for what we were doing here for all these years,” he added.

On Thursday, Vice President Biden and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki urged Iran not to attempt to exploit the departure of U.S. troops to expand its own influence. They spoke during a ceremony intended to mark the end of the Iraq war at Camp Victory’s marbled al-Faw Palace, built by Saddam Hussein and converted into the nerve center of American power in Iraq for the past 81 / 2 years.

Washington Post

 Posted by at 12:34 am
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