Hello, Capt. Eric Eversole from Hiring Our Heroes here. I'm coming by on 9/5 for a Q&A. What questions do you have for me?

Mark Heick - The bill was passed last year as part of the National Defense Authorization Act and is being implemented by DOL now...they recently asked for public comments on its implementation and I know that it is a priority for the Secretary Acosta.

@CPT. Eric Eversole, I appreciate the response. Thank you again for your time.

Looking to teach fellow Vets skills such as Excel, Word etc. New e-mail is [login to see]

Why is it that most establishments that claim to hire Vets-Don't?

CAPT (Join to see) - Thanks for taking care of Questions 1 & 2; and since pmost of the individuals here that have bad conduct dicharges due to PTSD, do you recommend that reach out to private council since they are no longer in the service? Do you know of any Veteran friendly legal services for veterans with PTSD that need legal advice? Thanks Eric!

Each service has discharge review boards/boards of records that can evaluate a discharge and have the ability to upgrade bad paper. DOD issued a memorandum in 2014 instructing those boards to carefully consider each and every petition where the veteran claims that PTSD contributed to the conduct that led to a less than honorable service characterization. You don't need to be a lawyer to petition the boards, but a lawyer can be helpful. Here is a link to the Army's webpage on the new rules: http://arba.army.pentagon.mil/adrb-ptsd.html

CAPT (Join to see) - Excellent - thanks Eric - have a great day and thanks for being a part of this Q&A!

I really enjoyed it!

Breaking out of the your shell can be tough. Being in the military is a way of life...it is a commitment to serving something much larger than yourself or a single entity. The civilian employment sector isn't like that. It is not better or worse...it is just different and you have to prepare for those differences as you make the transition. The biggest thing you can do is network and talk to your new colleagues. Understand what motivates them and look for areas of common interest. Don't be afraid to ask questions and look for mentors. Find other veterans who have made the transition before you and get their advice.

I served in the Air Force as a C-130 pilot for 18 months based on Okinawa but flying in mainly in Vietnam and Thailand. I then returned to Vietnam as a forward air controller flying light aircraft and extended by tour twice. When I returned to the United States, I left the service on arrival. My grades of the Graduate Record Examination placed me in the upper 1% of the applicants for graduate school on the Biology Achievement and Verbal Ability tests and in the upper 4% on the Quantitative Ability Test. Because of my honorable Air Force service, which included logging 1897 combat flying hours over South and North Vietnam and eastern Laos, I have been denied all employment opportunity in the United States for 51 years this November. What are you going to prevent this from happening to our newest veterans today?
Because of my limited opportunities in the United States, I left after obtaining my M.S. from St, John's University in New York and continued my studies to the doctoral degree at the University of Hamburg, Germany. I have written 11 books so far and about 65 shorter scientific publications, I scored highest on more than 70 civil service exams but was turned down for all, illegally. Please let me know how you plan to eliminate the discrimination against American war veterans.

I would like to add a few points to my comment above. Comparing my successes in finding employment in Europe and Asia with the complete blockage from even getting an interview for employment in the United States reveals a threat to their existence that veterans who do not retire from the armed forces have to take. When I left the service with my honorable discharge in 1968, I had earned a DFC with one OLC, the Air Medal with 29 OLCs, and the Vietnamese Gallantry w. sil. star, according to my record recently sent me from the National Archives. While continually being turned down by American universities and civil service research institutes after placing my military service on my applications, I was employed as a research scientist in Germany from 1979 to 1990, then sent to Brazil to lead a project in Mato Grosso until the end of 1994 and work as an exchange scientist on a German-Brazilian program during 1995 and 1996. The biggest mistake of my life came when I returned to the United States in 1998 on the false promise of employment with the USDA Forest Service in Alaska. The circumstances were revealing of the attitude of the U.S. Civil Service toward veterans since the Vietnam War. I applied and was interviewed in 1997, and I was told that I would not be hired under any circumstances, but if I would withdraw my application for employment "voluntarily, I would be awarded a "research grant" of $20,000. The Forest Service representative and an employee who had come to the University of Alaska from U.C. Berkeley wanted to hire a much less qualified applicant, but because I was a veteran, I was blocking the list for the non-veteran they preferred. I reported the offer to the Office of Special Counsel, who force the USDA Forest Service to hire me. After hiring me, the Forest Service hired a specialist at firing scientists from the U.S. Dept. of the Interior to make a case for firing me, which they could do within one year. Since 1999, I have been an unemployed veteran and whistleblower without sufficient funds to move from Washington State.

The Federal Government has assigned agencies the tasks of seeing to it that Federal agencies and Federal contractors abide by laws giving veterans employment opportunities, including affirmative action. How do you get these agencies to do their jobs?
1. Department of Labor: gives money to State agencies and may stop payment to contractors who discriminate. Most state agencies give veterans poorer service than non-veterans and veterans in 10 states have less than 80% as much chance of being hired as non-veterans. Secretaries of Labor have never used their power to force Federal and state agencies to provide reasonably good employment opportunity to veterans. The Department of Labor made a rule that only jobs paying less than $25,000 per year are to be considered "suitable for veterans," and employers have been encouraged not to post jobs paying more where veterans will see them. This violates the statute passed by Congress that veterans are to be considered for all jobs, up to and including the executive level of the civil service. I know of two GAO reports from the 1990s complaining about this rule of the DOL, but I have never heard that it has been changed.
2. The Merit System Protection Board (MSPB) is responsible for hearing complaints that rules giving veterans preference in public employment have been violated, after the DOL has dismissed complaints from veterans. It almost never gives relief to veterans, and when it does, it fails to enforce its own orders.
3. Based on the Feres Doctrine, created by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1950, veterans are the only Americans prohibited from filing complaints pursuant to the Federal Tort Claims Act. This judge-made law prevents veterans from taking their complaints to a Federal Court for a jury trial. Only the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit can review decisions by the MSPB.
4. The U.S. Supreme Court almost always hears lawsuits brought by feminist groups and others who attack veterans' preference, although it generally finds for the veterans. It almost never hears complaints brought by veterans concerning violations of veterans' preference statutes. The only exception to this was in the case Staub v. Proctor Hospital, decided in or about 2011. This was the only one of thousands of cases that veterans filed in their own behalf that was not denied review by the Supreme Court. Staub had lost his appeal to the MSPB, lost his review before the MSPB, and had his appeal dismissed by the Federal Circuit. Without any serious legal help, Staub filed for certiori before the Supreme Court. His was granted his writ, and the justices voted 8 to 0 in favor of Staub, forcing the hospital to reinstate him with back pay. In the Court decision, written by Justice Antonin Scalia, now deceased, complaints filed by veterans are to be treated like Title 7 civil rights cases and Age discrimination complaints. This decision by the Supreme Court has never been implemented by the MSPB or the lower Federal courts. This effectively makes veterans' preference laws and laws preventing discrimination against veterans for employment totally worthless. Anyone can violate them with impunity.
When a veteran applies for Federal employment, he must first answer whether or not he is a veteran. If he answers yes, his application is immediately disqualified by most agencies. This is illegal! Who is going to do anything about this?