Veterans Unemployment: 1mil.

(11 am. – promoted by ek hornbeck)

I want a War Tax, and call it that, now over a decade and counting of No Sacrifice by the people of this country!!!

Jill Millard Helps Coordinate Clothing For Homeless Veterans

{click on photo to visit the video}

July 14, 2011 – Jill Millard looks at the mountain of clothes and wonders how it will ever get sorted in time.

Millard is the clothes coordinator for the annual Stand Down event in Balboa Park for homeless veterans. It’s a task she took on three years ago — a year after her youngest son, Gregory, was killed in Iraq.

“You know, you see all these guys and I still get emotional; I can see what Gregory might have gone through had he come home from combat,” said Millard.

Before the three-day event is over, more than 900 veterans will come through the clothing tent and come away with a set of clothes and jackets and shoes.

“We have courts that run here, so they will be able to come in and pick out a suit or clean shirt and slacks so they can appear before the judge,” she said.

“I love working with veterans, and I guess I’m selfish because this is partly for me because it does make me feel good,” said Millard. read more>>>

The one above is the ‘Stand Down’ revisited by 60min. that started taking place today, the second video above, they didn’t have capture or embed links, gives you a chopper view of part of the long line of the homeless entering the ‘Stand Down’.

Which leads to this that I just caught, and the subject title:

07/15/11 – More than 60,000 veterans hit the unemployment rolls in June, which puts the total number of unemployed veterans at more than 1 million, according to Rep. Jeff Miller, R-Fla., chairman of the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee.

Miller, in a hearing Friday, pitched the 2011 Veteran Opportunity to Work Act backed with $3 billion budget as one solution to this problem. This bill emphasizes education and training, and includes language that mandates active duty personnel attend Transition Assistance Program classes that teach civilian job market skills such as resume writing.

Rep. Bob Filner, D-Calif, the ranking member on the committee, sharply criticized the Miller bill, arguing: “This bill does very little to create jobs for veterans, regardless of how my Republican colleagues may portray it. This bill is about completely contracting out the Transition Assistance Program.” Filner also blasted the Miller bill funding formula as a tax on vets who have Veterans Administration-backed mortgages, by using high loan fees to pay for the jobs bill. read more>>>

This next I posted earlier on my site and relates to the above.

Soldiers, from the lowest to the highest, don’t need pieces of paper to serve nor serve in combat theaters, but many will enhance their skills and minds before employment with extended educational needs depending on profession sought, from our failed higher education industry, that’s what it has become, to make great employee’s in the private sector. Two of the greatest needs for any company come in with their hire, common sense and critical thought as they are trained to hone these which also has been lacking in our education system especially now with teaching to test scores and not allowing teachers to actually teach and develop what each of us have within!

July 15, 2011 – Last Sunday, on the final stop of their final day in North America, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge popped in to a Los Angeles job fair for military veterans and spouses. William and Catherine spent their time with vets and enlightened business leaders looking to pair talent with opportunity.

The unemployment rate among young American veterans is higher than the national average, and the same may be true in the UK, though the UK Office of National Statistics does not post data on veteran employment levels. Yet military service equips most men and women with skills that translate well into private, public and nonprofit sector careers. So why does high unemployment among veterans persist?

Most people associate military service with discipline, hierarchy and command and control. This reputation is well deserved, but it is not complete, and what I found during my five years as a Marine was that the military is a tremendously empowering place for many servicemen and women. It often instills confidence, teamwork and integrity: qualifications crucial for any growing organization. read more>>>

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

*Unemployment rate among young American veterans is unusually high, says Rye Barcott

*Military service instills integrity, confidence, and teamwork — ideal for workplace, he says

*There is an ever-widening gulf between the military and civilian society, says Barcott

*Veterans make up 20% of Congress today, compared with 70% in 1975, he says

Rye Barcott, the author of “It Happened on the Way to War”, is a former marine and a co-founder of Carolina for Kibera, a nongovernmental organization devoted to alleviating poverty in the Kibera slum of Nairobi.

And this sad note also comes to the attention it should for the family of this brother Vietnam Vet:

07/14/2011 – For 20 years, Walter Reed Army Medical Center has celebrated the memory of Deborah Joel’s father, the first African American combat medic to receive the Medal of Honor. But the honor, it seems, is about to come to an end.

Her father, Lawrence Joel, who served in the Army in the Vietnam War, was presented with the distinction in 1967. And for the past two decades, the Joel Auditorium at Walter Reed has been a testament to his service.

But the hospital is moving in the fall. And when the new Walter Reed National Military Medical Center opens in Bethesda, there will be no more auditorium named in her father’s honor. The Joel head bust and bronze wall plaque kept at the old hospital will be returned to his family.

Deborah Joel said it was shocking for her and her mother to learn that Walter Reed would not re-designate a new space in Bethesda in the name of her father. He received the Medal of Honor for crawling, while wounded, through a hail of machine-gun fire to treat his comrades in Vietnam.

My father’s name has been there for 20 years 20 years, Deborah Joel said. I thought it would have been very courteous to give an explanation.

All Joel has received is an e-mailed letter from the Department of the Army’s Northern Regional Medical Command, which stated that there are no plans to re-designate the Joel Auditorium at the new hospital but that there was some discussion of that possibility at the new hospital at Ft. Belvoir, where other personnel from Walter Reed will be moving. read more>>>

I Want A War Tax and I want it called that! I would like to see everyone get this but will be really satisfied for a good percentage number on just the wealthy and the war machine corporations, the people have been batter these past couple of years while they have still reaped. I want the Veterans Administration to Finally be funded and built into what it always should have been with the top of the line technology which in the long run will save money, now we pay huge amounts just to constantly catch up! I want the peoples representatives, just listen in on the hearings from the House and Senate Veterans Affairs Committee’s, and the people to Stop laying all the blame on the VA, look into the mirror, the VA and Veterans have been underfunded since Korea adding to we Vietnam Vets were ignored, from PTS to Agent Orange and more, as were the first Gulf War Vets involving Gulf War Syndrome.

The rest of the cash, that added to the peoples treasury, invested into the economy for job growth, infrastructure, green and loans to small businesses especially veterans businesses which the VA is already starting to do. The wealthy hoarders aren’t going to invest in growth the only other source is the government and using some of that wealth garnered especially off these wars of choice!!