“Forever GI Bill” - Things You Should Know

Image: American Legion

"MILITARY TIMES"

"A new law that will bring significant changes to education benefits for service members, veterans and their families.

The legislation known as the “Forever GI Bill” garnered strong bipartisan support in Congress, passing unanimously in both the House and Senate.  Here are things you should know about the new GI Bill benefits.

1. There’s no longer an expiration date.

Previously, veterans had to use their Post-9/11 GI Bill within 15 years of their last 90-day period of active-duty service. That requirement is going away.

This portion of the law will apply to anyone who left the military after January 1, 2013. It will also apply to spouses who are receiving education benefits through the Marine Gunnery Sergeant John David Fry Scholarship for family members of service members who have been killed in the line of duty since Sept. 10, 2001.

2. Purple Heart recipients will get more benefits.

The new GI Bill allows anyone who has received a Purple Heart on or after Sept. 11, 2001 to receive 100 percent of the benefits offered under the Post-9/11 GI Bill, which includes coverage of tuition costs at a public school’s in-state rate for 36 months and stipends for textbooks and housing.

Previously, Purple Heart recipients were beholden to the same time-in-service qualifications for the GI Bill as other service members. This meant that Purple Heart recipients without a service-connected disability who did not reach 36 months of service were only eligible for a percentage of the benefits and not the full amount.

Aleks Morosky, national legislative director for Military Order of the Purple Heart, said there have been 52,598 Purple Heart recipients who were wounded in action during post-9/11 conflicts, though it’s unclear how many would immediately benefit from this provision. An estimated 660 Purple Heart recipients each year over the next 10 years will be able to take advantage of the increased benefits.

“We think that anybody who has shed blood for this country has met the service requirement by virtue of that fact,” Morosky said. “Everybody sacrifices, everybody puts themselves in harm’s way, but Purple Heart recipients are certainly among the service members who have sacrificed the most.”

This provision will go into effect in August 2018.

3. More people are eligible for Yellow Ribbon.

The Yellow Ribbon Program is a voluntary agreement between schools and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs to split school costs not covered by the GI Bill, reducing or eliminating the amount students must pay themselves.

The Forever GI Bill will expand eligibility for this program to surviving spouses or children of service members in August 2018 and active-duty service members in August 2022.

Previously, only veterans eligible for GI Bill benefits at the 100 percent level or their dependents using transferred benefits were eligible for Yellow Ribbon.

4. There’s some extra money — and time — for STEM degrees.

Some college degrees in science, technology, engineering and math fields take longer than four years to complete, which is why the new law authorizes an additional school year of GI Bill funds on a first-come, first-serve basis.

Scholarships of up to $30,000 will be available for eligible GI Bill users starting in August 2018. Only veterans or surviving family members of deceased service members are eligible for this scholarship — not dependents using transferred benefits.

5. Vets hurt by school shutdowns will get benefits back.

A provision in the new GI Bill that will restore benefits to victims of school closures has been a long-time coming for the staff at Student Veterans of America.

“We’ve been getting calls for several years now, beginning with the collapse of Corinthian (Colleges), from student veterans whose lives were put on hold,” said Will Hubbard, vice president of government affairs for the nonprofit, which has more than 500,000 student members. “Every day we wasted until it passed was another day that they had to wait.”

This provision will retroactively apply to GI Bill users whose schools have abruptly closed since January 2015, for credits earned at the shuttered institutions that did not transfer to new schools. This will include the thousands of veteran students who were attending the national for-profit chains Corinthian Colleges and ITT Technical Institute when they closed in 2015 and 2016, respectively. It would also provide a semester’s worth of reimbursement for GI Bill users affected by future school closures, as well as up to four months of a housing stipend.

6. The VA will measure eligibility for benefits differently.

Starting August 2018, this bill changes the way the VA uses time in service to calculate eligibility.

Previously, service members with at least 90 days but less than six months of active-duty service would be eligible for up to 40 percent of the full GI Bill benefits. Under new regulations, the same 90-days-to-six-month window is equal to 50 percent of benefits. Service members with at least six months and less than 18 months of service will be eligible for 60 percent of benefits.

This change will tend to benefit reservists more due to the nature of their service, according to a spokeswoman for the Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs.

7. Reservists can count more of their service toward eligibility.

Starting next August, members of the National Guard and Reserve will be able to count time spent receiving medical care or recovering from injuries received while on active duty toward their GI Bill eligibility. This will apply to all who have been activated since 9/11.

The Forever GI Bill also allows individuals who lost their Reserve Educational Assistance Program when the program ended in 2015 to credit their previous service toward their eligibility for the Post-9/11 GI Bill.

8. Housing stipends will decrease slightly.

The government will pay for the expansions represented in the Forever GI Bill through a 1 percent decrease in housing stipends over the next five years. This will bring veterans’ housing stipends on par with what active-duty service members receive at the E-5 with dependents rate. (Veterans on the GI Bill currently receive a slightly higher housing allowance rate than active-duty E-5s with dependents.) This change will take effect on Jan. 1, 2018 and will only apply to service members who enroll in GI Bill benefits after that date. No one currently receiving a housing stipend from the VA will see a reduction in benefits.

“On a month-to-month basis, they would never see less money,” said SVA’s Hubbard, explaining that the 1 percent reduction will come off of the total the VA would have spent over five years.

Starting in August 2018, housing stipends previously calculated based on the ZIP code of a student’s school will be based on where a student takes the most classes.

Also in August 2018, reservists will continue to receive their monthly housing allowance under the GI Bill on a prorated rate for any month during which they are activated, preventing them from losing a whole month’s worth of funds.

9. Benefits can get transferred after death.

A provision of the new GI Bill offers more flexibility with the transfer and distribution of benefits in case of death.

If a dependent who received transferred benefits dies before using all of the benefits, this provision gives the service member or veteran the ability to transfer remaining benefits to another dependent. This will go into effect August 2018 and apply to all deaths since 2009.

This provision also gives dependents of deceased service members the ability to make changes to their deceased loved one’s transferred benefits.

Ashlynne Haycock, senior coordinator of education support services for the nonprofit Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors, explains that currently, only a service member has the authority to make changes to the benefits they’d like to transfer. So, if a service member dies after transferring 35 months of benefits to one child and one month of benefits to another, for example, the family would not be able to make future changes to the GI Bill’s distribution among that service member’s dependents.

10. Surviving family members will get more money, but less time.

Besides access to Yellow Ribbon, spouses and children of service members who died in the line of duty on or after 9/11 will also see their monthly education stipend from the Survivors’ and Dependents’ Educational Assistance Program increase by $200.

There’s a downside, however. Though the same program has previously provided 45 months of education benefits, that will decrease to 36 months in August 2018 to bring it in line with the provisions of the GI Bill.

11. School certifying officials must be trained.

Individuals who certify veteran student enrollment at schools with more than 20 veteran students will be required to undergo training. Previously, training was not mandatory.

"Forever G.I. Bill" Is Now Law

PTSD - A Veteran's Photo/Poetry Journal of Recovery from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

View On Behance

Free in Adobe format in the Box Net cube in the right margin of this site.

In 2005 Ken Larson underwent treatment at the Veteran's Administration Hospital in Minneapolis, Minnesota for PTSD, having self-treated the illness since returning from Vietnam in 1968

He chose not to be treated when advances in care became available in the mid 1980's, driven by a need to keep his security clearances in the defense industry. That dilemma is described in his book," Odyssey of Armaments" and is a story for another time.

This journal has been a powerful catalyst in Ken's recovery. It combines thoughts as he worked his way through a traumatic past with favorite photos of nature taken in his odyssey. The resulting marriage of written word and visual expression permitted resolutions to issues that haunted him.

Although the journal is still a work in process, it is published here in the hope it may educate and perhaps assist others like him who have suffered from PTSD to come out of the darkness and into the light.

An Independent Commission Will Review The Military’s Suicide Prevention Efforts

 

  Airman Karla Parra/Air Force

"MILITARY TIMES" By Meghann Myers

"Despite more than a decade’s worth of effort to prevent suicides among service members, the numbers continue to rise, including a 16-percent jump during 2020.

To get a better idea of the scope of the issue, Congress mandated an independent review commission in the 2022 National Defense Authorization Act and, on Tuesday, the Pentagon announced it would begin getting it off the ground."

______________________________________________________________________

“It is imperative that we take care of all our teammates and continue to reinforce that mental health and suicide prevention remain a key priority,” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin wrote in a memo signed Tuesday. “One death by suicide is one too many. And suicide rates among our Service members are still too high. So, clearly we have more work.

The commission will study suicide prevention and behavioral health programs across the services, including site visits, focus groups, interviews and a confidential survey of troops at every location visited, much in the same way an independent review commission on sexual assault went about its mandate last year.

“He’s seen enough to know that we we’ve got to do something different, that we’ve got to try to take additional and more creative action here,” Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said of the secretary’s concerns.

The first nine bases on the list are:

• Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska

• Fort Wainright, Alaska

• Eielson Air Force Base, Alaska

• Fort Campbell, Kentucky

• Camp Lejeune, North Carolina

• Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada

• Naval Air Station North Island, California

• Camp Humphreys, South Korea

• North Carolina National Guard

Alaska has made headlines in recent years with its disproportionate suicide rate among service members. U.S. Army Alaska alone confirmed in December that it had seen 10 confirmed suicides in 2021, with several more deaths still under investigation.

Austin “spent a lot of time when he went out to Fairbanks, talking with troops and commanders about the challenges there with respect to mental health and suicide,” Kirby said of the secretary’s trip to Alaska last summer.

The other installations were chosen in consultation with leaders, Kirby said.

Alaska has made headlines in recent years with its disproportionate suicide rate among service members. U.S. Army Alaska alone confirmed in December that it had seen 10 confirmed suicides in 2021, with several more deaths still under investigation.

Austin “spent a lot of time when he went out to Fairbanks, talking with troops and commanders about the challenges there with respect to mental health and suicide,” Kirby said of the secretary’s trip to Alaska last summer.

The other installations were chosen in consultation with leaders, Kirby said.

“So, I mean, it was a team effort to come up with this list,” he said. “And … it’s the initial list of installations. It doesn’t necessarily have to be the end all list here.”

Despite more access to behavioral health resources than ever before, some service members still struggle to push through their concerns about seeking treatment, while others experience long waits to access care on their bases.

I think the secretary believes that one problem that we have to get after is the stigma of seeking help for mental health problems, which is still a problem in the military,” Kirby said. Many service members still have the impression that seeking mental health treatment will negatively affect their military careers, from favorable assignments to deployments to promotion chances.

One specific measure Austin is interested in is firearms storage, Kirby said.

More than 60 percent of military suicides are carried out with a personally owned firearm, according to DoD data. Research on suicide has shown that the decision to end one’s life is largely an impulsive one, and that even having to remove a weapon from a locked safe can give someone enough time to reconsider.

“And one of the things that he wants to do is is is work with commanders on storage of the firearms in the home or on base and make sure we’ve got that,” Kirby said.

The department has 60 days to tap members of the commission, according to the memo. After that, site visits will begin no later than Aug. 1, with an initial report due to Austin by Dec. 20. Congress will receive the findings by Feb. 18."

If you or a loved one is experiencing thoughts of self-harm or suicide, you can confidentially seek assistance via the Military/Veterans Crisis Line at 800-273-8255, via text at 838255 or chat at http://VeteransCrisisLine.net."

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Meghann Myers is the Pentagon bureau chief at Military Times. She covers operations, policy, personnel, leadership and other issues affecting service members. Follow on Twitter @Meghann_MT

Vets Suicide Independent Commission

"Drone Warrior" - A Stunning First Hand Memoir

Amazon.com

GQ.com

After a careful review by the Intelligence Community for Publication, Drone Warrior has performed a stunning service, giving the reader a gut level feel for U.S. War from a decorated soldier's perspective. 

Those of us who served in Vietnam and similar conflicts since can totally relate to this masterpiece of  honesty.  

___________________________________________________________________

Brett Velicovich pulls no punches. The mental stress, teamwork, tragedy and after effects in this modern, technological killing process can be felt with every line.  The impact on the man himself and on those with whom he worked has not been spared in its detail and its effects. 

Having left the service, Brett is now involved in harnessing and controlling the technology for peaceful purposes like wildlife preservation and management.  Those of us who have made similar transitions applaud, commend and recommend the book and the man. 

Read it to become informed and consider the billions we are spending on this warfare today as well as the impact on our youth and our future. 

Drone Warrior

Women’s History Month – 8 Woman Soldiers Who Changed US Military History

 

All Photos – Military Times

“MILITARY TIMES” By Dylan Gresik

“Women have dutifully served their country since the days of the American Revolution. From breaking barriers in combat to challenging the status quo across eras, here are eight female soldiers who changed the course of history for the U.S. military.“

________________________________________________________________________________

“Cathay Williams

“The Union Army had pressed Cathay Williams into service as a young girl to cook and launder clothes for XIII Corps. She grew accustomed to military life and being on the march, which must have made her later deception easier. (U.S. Army)

Pvt. Cathay Williams began her journey with the U.S. military in a support role during the Civil War, forced to serve due to her status as a captured slave, the National Park Service noted. After the war, Williams became the first Black woman to enlist when she joined the Army under a male pseudonym, William Cathay, in 1866, the Army noted.

“A young, female, unmarried former slave,” Williams joined the Army without a full medical examination, and she was assigned to the 38th U.S. Infantry Regiment – which would become part of the famed Buffalo Soldiers, according to the Wounded Warrior Project.

Suffering from smallpox, Williams was discovered to be a woman while undergoing treatment and honorably discharged in 1868. She continued in her work as a military cook at Fort Union, New Mexico. Her story was documented in the St. Louis Daily Times in 1876.

Williams was the first Black woman to enlist in the U.S. Army and the only known female Buffalo Soldier.

Dr. Mary E. Walker

Dr. Mary Walker was an outspoken advocate for women’s rights, and the first woman ever awarded the Medal of Honor for her service as a surgeon during the Civil War. (U.S. National Library of Medicine)

In 1861, 29-year-old Dr. Mary Walker applied to become a surgeon with the Union Army, as she had been one of the few female physicians in the country prior to the start of the Civil War. She was rejected but remained on as a volunteer, leveraging her skills to treat the wounded, AUSA noted.

Two years later, Walker finally received an appointment to serve an assistant surgeon in the Army, after spending additional time as a field surgeon in Virginia, according to an Army story. In the latter years of the war, Walker was captured by Confederate forces, held in squalid conditions as a prisoner of war, yet another in a long line of abuses due to her status as a woman.

She lobbied for women’s causes and for her service during the war, she was awarded the Medal of Honor in 1865. The award was later rescinded in 1917 due to her status as a civilian, but President Jimmy Carter restored the award in 1977, the Army noted.

Dr. Mary Walker remains the only woman to have received the Medal of Honor in U.S. history.

Harriet Tubman

The rechristened and self-liberated Harriet Tubman launched an illustrious career as a member of the Underground Railroad. Tubman was the “Great Emancipator,” leading scores of escaping African Americans to freedom, often all the way to Canada. She built up a network of supporters and admirers, including William Lloyd Garrison and William Seward, to name but two who lauded her efforts. (Library of Congress)

Beyond being the legendary “conductor” of the Underground Railroad, shepherding enslaved persons to freedom, Harriet Tubman also aided the Union’s military effort in the Civil War. Early in the war, Tubman served as a nurse for Union regiments before moving on to a larger role as spymaster and military scout.

Under the direction of War Secretary Edwin Stanton, Tubman recruited locals throughout conquered areas in the South to pass information along to Union commanders and assist in assault preparations. Her group’s work led to a successful assault on Jacksonville, Florida, and the Combahee River Raid in June 1863, as Military Times previously reported.

Decades later, Tubman finally received recognition — to a degree — for her military service during the Civil War, as she had been kept out of official military documents. In 1899, Tubman was granted a pension, officially validating her widely known contributions to the Union cause.

Mary A. Hallaren

Col. Mary Hallaren became the first official female soldier to join the U.S. Army as Director of the Women’s Army Corps. (AP)

Col. Mary Hallaren became a member of the first training class of the Women’s Auxiliary Army Corps (later, Women’s Army Corps, or WAC) in 1942 before commanding the largest all-female unit to serve overseas. In 1948, while serving as WAC’s director, Hallaren “was instrumental” in advocating for women to be fully integrated as “permanent regular members” of the military beyond just wartime, according to the National Women’s Hall of Fame.

Hallaren, who had originally enlisted in the military following the Pearl Harbor attack, later became the first commissioned officer in the Regular Army, not a medical role, in 1948, according to the Army’s Center of Military History.

“To me there was no question that women should serve,” Hallaren said, as reported by the New York Times.

Marcella A. Hayes became the first black female to receive aviator wings in the U.S. Armed Forces in November 1979 when she completed Army helicopter flight training at the U.S. Army Aviation Center, Fort Rucker, Alabama. (Army)

Marcella Hayes, who began her military career as an ROTC cadet at the University of Wisconsin, became the first Black female pilot in the U.S. military in 1979. She graduated Army Flight School at Fort Rucker, Alabama, earning her paratrooper badge during her training as a helicopter pilot, the Army Women’s Foundation reported.

Hayes became the 55th woman to earn her pilot wings, before being assigned to the 394th Transportation Battalion in Germany, the unit’s first black soldier and first woman leader. She went on to marry Dennis Ng, also in the Army, retiring in 2000 as a lieutenant colonel.

Linda Bray

Capt. Linda L. Bray, 29, from Butner, N.C., with the 988th Military Police Company from Fort Benning, Ga., poses in the Army’s Quarry Heights base in Panama City Jan. 3, 1990. She led 30 MPs in an attack on Panamanian Defense Forces kennels the night of the American invasion, resulting in intense combat with PDF soldiers and a cache of weapons captured. (AP)

Capt. Linda Bray was one of over 700 women to participate in Operation Just Cause in Panama in 1989, as she led the 988th Military Police Company, according to the Army. There, she became the first woman to command American soldiers in battle, a trailblazing role that launched a reflection about women in the military.

“I joined the Army for the excitement, the challenge, the experience and loyalty to my country,” Bray said at the time, according to the New York Times. “I haven’t been let down a day.”

Bray’s role in combat forced the U.S. military to reevaluate their prohibition on women in the role, which ultimately culminated in an end to the ban by then-Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta in 2013, the Seattle Times noted.

Kristen Griest & Shaye Haver

1st Lt. Shaye Haver, left, and Capt. Kristen Griest talk on the phone Aug. 20 with Defense Secretary Ash Carter, who called to congratulate them on being the first women to earn the Ranger Tab. (Patrick A. Albright/Army)

Capt. Kristen M. Griest and 1st Lt. Shaye L. Haver became the first two women to complete Army Ranger School and earn their Ranger tabs in 2015. Both graduates of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York, the two soldiers became the first females of over 77,000 tabbed soldiers since the Ranger School’s inception in 1950, according to an Army story.

Griest was a military police platoon leader, and Haver was an AH-64 Apache pilot, who both looked at Ranger School as the highest challenge to prepare them to lead soldiers.

“The reasons I chose to come were the same as the men here: to get the experience of the elite leadership school and to give me the opportunity to lead my Soldiers the best that I can,” Haver told the Army at the time. “I think if females continue to come to this course, they can be encouraged by what we have accomplished, but hopefully they’re encouraged by the legacy that the Ranger community has left.”

Since Griest and Haver shattered this barrier, over 30 female soldiers have earned Ranger tabs, including enlisted soldiers and National Guardsmen, Army Times reported.

Ann E. Dunwoody

Army Lt. Gen. Ann E. Dunwoody was pinned by Chief of Staff of the Army General George W. Casey, left, and her husband Craig Brotchie during her promotion ceremony at the Pentagon, making history as the nation’s first four-star female officer. (Petty Officer 2nd Class Molly A. Burgess/DoD)

Retired Army Gen. Ann E. Dunwoody became the first woman to reach a four-star officer rank in the history of the United States military in 2008. Dunwoody, who led Army Materiel Command before her retirement in 2012, remained a pioneer throughout her decades-long service. In 1992, she became the first woman to command a battalion in the 82nd Airborne Division during the First Gulf War, according to the Purple Heart Foundation.

“I have never considered myself anything but a soldier. I recognize that with this selection, some will view me as a trailblazer,” Dunwoody said on her promotion at the time. “But it’s important that we remember the generations of women, whose dedication, commitment and quality of service helped open the doors of opportunity for us today.”

Dunwoody was a fourth-generation Army officer, and she released a book on leadership in 2015.”

8 Military Women Who Changed History

About Dylan Gresik

Dylan Gresik is a reporting intern for Military Times through Northwestern University’s Journalism Residency program.

THERE ARE NO WINNERS IN WAR

 

United States Warfare Realities Today

PLEASE CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE

In the last 2 decades the US has reacted to the 911 tragedy by creating a behemoth machine that:

Knows Only Killing  

This outrageous explosion of watch listing—of monitoring people and racking and stacking them on lists, assigning them numbers…  assigning them death sentences without notice, on a worldwide battlefield—it was, from the very first instance, wrong,” the source of the documents told the Intercept. “We’re allowing this to happen. And by ‘we,’ I mean every American citizen who has access to this information now, but continues to do nothing about it.”

She Kills People From 7,850 Miles Away

Has Little Understanding of Foreign Cultural Factors in Nation Building

Our government has not considered the risks, the indigenous cultural impact, the expense and the sacrifices required to sustain the nation building that must occur after we invade countries in pursuit of perceived enemies and place the burden of governance on military personnel who are not equipped to deal with it or manage USAID contractors who have profit motives in mind and corruption as a regular practice. 

Risks, Expenses and Sacrifices in Nation Building 

Spawns New Versions of Our Old Enemies 

An observer of our military actions over the last two decades in the Middle East could in no way have predicted the splintered, irrational, “Turn-Your-Back-And-You-Have-Two-New-Enemies”, scenario the US faces today. Perhaps a look back over our shoulder, examining cause and effect relationships along the road is in order.

Cause and Effect Relationships in the Middle East 

Creates a Dangerous Outgrowth of Technology in the Military Industrial Complex and Then Exports It for Profit

The United States remains the leading arms exporter increasing sales by 23 percent, with the country’s share of the global arms trade at 31 percent.

Record US Weapons Sales to Foreign Countries – $1.6 Billion in Lockheed Martin Missiles Alone

 Very smart people in the Pentagon believed that connecting sensitive networks, expensive equipment, and powerful weapons to the open Internet was a swell idea. 

This ubiquitous connectivity among devices and objects — what we now call the "Internet of Things" — would allow them to collect performance data to help design new weapons, monitor equipment remotely, and realize myriad other benefits. The risks were less assiduously cataloged.

That strategy has spread huge vulnerabilities across the Defense Department, its networks, and much of what the defense industry has spent the last several decades creating.

The Pentagon Hooked Everything to the Internet 

Defies Financial Control With Dire Consequences for the Nation’s Economic Future

A law passed in 1994 initially set the deadline for 1997, but the Pentagon’s books were in such disarray that it blew past that date. Then, in 2010, Congress told the Pentagon to comply by 2017.

The next year, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta pledged that the department would by 2014 be ready for a partial account of its finances – a much less detailed accounting than requested of the military services — but the department missed that deadline too.

Pentagon Remains Stubbornly Unable To Account for Its Billions 

The Above Machine  Cannot and Will Not Continue.

The debt is too great a burden for generations of tax payers.

It is too risky in terms of technology that has fallen into enemy hands, either through the "Internet of Things" or by blunders in export management. 

It will be replaced by domestic and foreign relations programs that emphasize global human progress and economic development in lieu of threats.  The result will rely on uplifting, cooperative efforts among nations in lieu of killing. 

The globe has become too small to operate the Military Industrial Machine and the resources that have fueled it will be redirected. 

There simply is no other way. 

The change will be brought about in the following manner:

Facing geopolitical and economic realities, stopping war interventions and investing in relationships within and without our country by offering mutual collaboration.

Ceasing to dwell on threat and building long term infrastructure, education and international development.  The threats will melt away. 

Investing for the long term at the stock holder, company and  national levels based on a strategy dealing with both present day and long term challenges in education, communication and society value transitions.

Communicating  with Congress and The Administratrtion to strike a balance between long and short term actions. Let them know what we think regularly about the risk this huge machine  poses. 

Knowing that most cultures and societies in upheaval today are watching our national model and choosing whether to support it, ignore it or attack it.

The Dire Necessity for U.S. Long Term Strategic Vision 

Military Veterans Can Jump-Start Careers In IT With This New, Free Program

Veteran and Apprenti graduate Mike Cooper addresses the crowd at the 2018 Amazon Apprenti graduation. Also in attendance (from left to right) was Apprenti Executive DirectorJennifer Carlson, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee and Ardine Williams, Amazon’s senior vice president of business operations. (Photo provided by Apprenti

“MILITARY TIMES”

“Many veterans face a frustrating catch-22 upon exiting the military: Most jobs require experience, but it’s almost impossible to get experience without a job.

That’s where a program like Apprenti comes in. It removes the burden of experience and education by immediately placing qualifying veterans in relatively well-paying technology apprenticeships, where they will learn the skills required to succeed in the industry.”

________________________________________________________________________

“A lot of those who come to us are not prepared to go back to college for four more years and use their GI Bill that way,” said Jennifer Carlson, executive director of both Apprenti and the Washington Technology Industry Association Workforce Institute, based in the state of Washington.

“They want to go to a job,” she continued. “This is a great transition point with a much more accelerated time investment to a career.”

It’s a simple process: Veterans take a free online assessment that tests them on both basic math abilities and soft skills like leadership qualities and critical thinking. They have two tries to pass it and must wait three months before trying again if they don’t.

Once they pass, the top one-third of candidates will be offered interviews at tech companies including but not limited to industry giants like Microsoft and Amazon. They will stay in this apprenticeship — earning a median salary of $51,000 per year, plus benefits — for a minimum of one year, and if all goes well, they will be offered a permanent job upon graduation.

The program is GI Bill-eligible, so veterans will be able to use the benefit to pay for living expenses. And some of the larger companies Apprenti places candidates in are even willing to help out with university tuition for veterans seeking a more formal education once they are hired on full-time.

According to Carlson, 85 percent of the participants Apprenti places are retained by the company with which they did their apprenticeship. She also said that 46 percent of placements begin the program without a degree of any kind, but they still land jobs with titles like software developer and system administrator.

“These are middle-skills jobs, not entry-level ones like a help desk,” she said. “These are jobs that have natural career progressions, and you’re going to grow with your company.”

These apprenticeships are different from internships, which usually require affiliation with a university, only last about three to five months and tend to be less focused on doing one specific job.

None of that applies to these apprenticeships, which are open to anyone 18-and-over, last at least a year and ensure you receive training in the role in which the company hopes to retain you.

“You are a hire. You are in that job. The company is paying you a training wage, which is where you get to earn and learn,” Carlson said. “Internship is try-before-you-buy, and apprenticeships are train-to-retain.”

A group of Apprenti participants pose in 2017 before they embark on their one-year apprenticeships with Amazon’s web-services division. (Photo provided by Apprenti)

Apprenti has only been around since late 2016, but Carlson said that the number of graduates these companies keep has already grown from a “handful or two” to the hundreds. She expects to place over 450 apprentices in tech jobs around the country in 2019.

Carlson said that 58 percent of Apprenti placements are veterans, many of who are feeling stuck, despite often having professional experience and some education.

“When we look at where competency lies, you have a lot of people who choose to go to second-tier colleges and who are working while in school,” Carlson said. “They have skills, they did the college thing, they just didn’t do STEM. So they have the competency to do the work, but they have no pathway in, short of going back to school and taking on that debt.”

The other part of this equation is the boon to the tech sector, which Carlson described as being severely understaffed across the board. She said that the industry currently has 2 million vacancies, yet only 65,000 students a year are graduating with the necessary computer-science degrees to fill those roles.

Through her experience with the group based in Washington state, Carlson determined that tech companies were reeling both from this labor shortage and a lack of “people who were actually work-ready coming to them, which they didn’t feel many college students were.”

Enter Apprenti.

“Our thesis is that we can find highly competent people, without regard to pedigree,” Carlson said.

So, if you’re a veteran unsure what to do next and are interested in tech jobs — or just want to find work with benefits that could pay a median annual salary of $78,000 after a year of on-the-job training — Apprenti might be exactly what you need to jump-start a new career.”

https://rebootcamp.militarytimes.com/transition-tips/education/2019/02/12/no-experience-no-problem-vets-can-jump-start-careers-in-it-with-this-new-free-program/