The Federal Hiring of Veterans Fact or Fiction

Now I have tried to bring numerous mentions to what are the issues facing our veterans and it seems that the cycle of trying to fix all the things going on in America at the present moment, Veterans issues are just one issue that President Obama is trying to juggle at one moment. My intent in these blogs is one to decrease the perception that health care is the number one issue facing veterans’ issues, two to come up with solutions to the endless cycle of the homeless problems that cause various degrees of indirect cost to our tax payers, three to explain to the common civilian non-military, non-politician why the struggle seems so difficult, and lastly explain how over time exposure to elements, conditions, stereotypical viewpoints seen from movie productions or from fear from the events of certain individuals are a leading factor to the high unemployment rate facing American’s Veterans.

We are going to discuss in detail the Federal Hiring practice and the intent of “Veterans Preference” as it relates to competing for employment in the Federal Government. As the Vietnam War ended and the multitude of soldiers began to come home, Congress enacted the Vietnam Era Veterans Readjustment Assistance Act of 1974. You the reader can read all the details here http://tinyurl.com/cg3dod. Now the intent of the law meant well but if we look back in history the recession of 1973 – 1975 was considered one of the most severe recessions since World War II. This would bring the reader to the times we are facing today with unemployment reaching 8.5% and out of that unemployment 1 in 9 being a veteran; 300,000 might be suffering from some sort of injury related to multiple tours; facing the fight for disability claims; facing an increasing hostile environment of discrimination or a hostile environment of civilian job placement verses military skill recognition; to finally a feeling of hopelessness leading to the final tour of duty – an empty box, cold, hungry, homeless, forgotten, and all alone.

As time progressed, congress modified the Vietnam Era Readjustment Act to be the Veterans Recruitment Act (VRA) and later the Veterans Employment Opportunity Act (VEOA) of 1998 was passed which allowed “preference” eligibles or veterans to compete for vacancies under merit promotion procedures. To the common reader I have to explain what means “Veterans Preference” and how the law has gotten twisted to avoid giving veterans points to compete for employment. In the beginning, “The Spirit of the Law” was intended to give veterans a fighting chance at positions at the GS-11 level based of their experience level in order to compete with people that get Masters Degrees and are earning GS-11 figures http://tinyurl.com/c8unua. Now you take a soldier, highly trained, deployed multiple times, might have found his dream girl, had a few children, might have gotten divorced, layered with trauma; and congress passes this law in the past that promises a future. He comes home with hopes and dreams of finding a new career but soon understands that the so-called “Veterans Preference” in truth is another political election idea used to gather votes but it does not solve the problem of getting veterans jobs and as the Vietnam veteran realized, these acts were promises given in vain by politicians but never came to light and again the veteran has his final tour of duty – an empty box, cold, hungry, homeless, forgotten, and all alone.

Now obviously just being a veteran alone does not just grant you a job in the Federal workforce. There has to be some since of equality when it comes to hiring managers in selecting the best qualified candidate. But the reader has to understand the purpose of the laws and that was to give a veteran an opportunity to compete for these positions. The United States Office of Personnel Management (OPM) http://tinyurl.com/dgacka explains in detail how “preference” is handled. An issue now arises because of David M. Brandt v. Department of the Air Force, Docket No. SF-3443-04-0614-I-3 which has nullified the “Spirit of the Law”. You can see Dr. Charles W. Heckman’s open letter to Senator Maria Cantwell http://tinyurl.com/cqdxn7 which explains how Federal agencies circumvent utilization of veterans’ preference. When a veteran submits an application for a Federal Job under normal conditions, the job is advertised under MERIT and/or Delegated Examining Unit. If the Federal agency chooses to utilize delegated examining unit, the veteran is granted points for disability and the veteran is given a fighting chance at positions at the GS-11 level based of their experience level in order to compete with people that get Masters Degrees as the law was truly intended. However, when we examine “The Employment of Veterans in the Federal Government Fiscal Year 2007” http://tinyurl.com/d7mw8f notice one the lack of utilization of the Veterans Recruitment Act or the Veterans Employment Opportunity Act outside of Department of Defense organizations, the decrease in 30% or more hiring of disabled veterans, and two funding exist along with other benefits overlooked for agencies to hire veterans. Remember in order to fight homelessness we must provide income, and we must fix some of these things now.