{"id":40258,"date":"2014-03-11T07:40:32","date_gmt":"2014-03-11T12:40:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=40258"},"modified":"2014-03-11T10:33:09","modified_gmt":"2014-03-11T15:33:09","slug":"veterans-in-the-federal-service","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=40258","title":{"rendered":"Veterans in the Federal Service"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chief Tango sends us a link to Federal News Radio<\/a> which discusses veterans who go to work for the Federal Government after their service. Chief Tango thought that the article was “up my alley” since I went to work for the National Archives for nearly 15 years after I retired. The article says that about 30% of federal workers are veterans keeping with President Obama’s direction to the feds five years ago. the article quotes our buddy, Brandon “Beeker” Friedman;<\/p>\n

Friedman said he wonders whether the military is doing enough to prepare vets for the world of civilian employment, and what role that might play in the veteran discontent the survey uncovered.<\/p>\n

“Veterans are used to a very structured environment; they’re used to having their leaders mentor them and take care of them in ways that you don’t often find in the private sector and sometimes in government,” he said. “They’re also used to taking charge of situations \u2014 leading people. And a lot of times, those opportunities aren’t there [in government].” <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The problem, as I saw it, wasn’t that veterans aren’t prepared for civilian job markets, it’s that civilians aren’t prepared for veterans. My supervisors had no problem telling me that “all veterans are crazy”, the woman who told me that wasn’t kidding. Of course, they had a Vietnam veteran in the office who liked that image and cashed in on it and that reinforced the false image. <\/p>\n

Supervisors also disregarded my leadership abilities that I’d used with some effect in the military when it came to advancement. They consistently promoted people who were good editors who couldn’t lead a horse to grain, hoping that they’d learn someday. There were 60 people in my agency, about double of the number I’d led in combat, but no one could effectively ride herd on those people. <\/p>\n

Don’t get me wrong, I thoroughly enjoyed my time at the Federal Register. I liked the steady paycheck, I liked that they trusted me enough to telework, I liked the benefit package which I now enjoy in my retirement. I like the fact that I worked in West Virginia while my office was 150 miles away in DC. In that regard, the work ethic that we have in the military, greatly benefits the feds and works to our advantage, but I feel that the agency missed an opportunity by not using my leadership skills in their office.<\/p>\n

Again, although it impacts veterans’ careers, the fact that the civilians think we’re all nutty drill sergeant types, the feds suffer from that most in the end. Of course, my job was largely clerical in nature, as a technical writer, the experiences of those who go into the law enforcement side of government may have a different experience with their co-workers than my experience.<\/p>\n

Our buddy, Alex Horton says in the article;<\/p>\n

“Everyone loves and supports the troops,” Horton said. “But then, when people become a veteran, there’s like this weird dichotomy. When you wore the uniform you’re a hero, and you’re selfless and you’re brave and all that. Then, when you take it off, you’re broken, or you’re suffering from PTSD.” <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Like I said, that’s the civilians’ problem not ours. We’re fine. They need to step away from the movie and TV image of veterans and look at the individuals instead. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chief Tango sends us a link to Federal News Radio which discusses veterans who go to … Veterans in the Federal Service<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[118],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40258","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-veterans-issues"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40258","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=40258"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40258\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=40258"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=40258"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=40258"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}