The Hill News

Recently, there has been a stampede of politicians who are all trying to earn the “I Love The Military More” title. As a military veteran, an Army wife and former Veterans Employment and Training Services director, all this bravado has proven just one thing to me. No one in on the podium knows a hill of beans about military life, the military-to-civilian transition or life after service.  

President Obama is not only the Commander-in-Chief of our troops; he is the tip of the spear in the military chain of command. So when he speaks of “more access to One-Stops” and “reverse boot camp,” he sends an alarming message â€" “if you were more civilian like, you wouldn’t be unemployed.” When the truth is, veterans know how to get and keep civilian jobs. The break down is in civilian human resource departments all across the country. 

When Governor Rick Perry stumps that he’s going to be the President the troops can be proud of, he shows a shocki! ng ignorance of military culture even though he has been the Commander-in-Chief for the Texas National Guard for a decade. No matter how a Sailor, Airman, Marine, Soldier or Coastie came to serve, they learned from day one that respect is never dependent on personalities. In fact, people rotate in and out every day in the military. If our ability to perform was dependent on our feelings about a person, we’d be a colony today and some other country would be the world’s super power. 

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