Evan Vucci / AP file

Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington, on April 18, before the House Appropriations subcommittee on Military Constructions, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies hearing on the Veterans Affairs Department's fiscal 2014 budget.

The U.S. Veterans Affairs department says it has hit a “tipping point,” cutting its monstrous backlog of disability claims by 74,000 since late April, yet agency critics contend that growing throngs of ex-troops waiting for injury compensation in America’s biggest cities show the VA is “over-promising and under-delivering.”

Amid scrutiny from Capitol Hill and the White House, a top VA official reaffirmed last week the agency will meet its goal to process all disability-benefit claims within 125 days by 2015. Three of the VA’s 56 regional offices — St. Paul, Minn., Sioux Falls, S.D., and Providence, R.I. — have achieved that threshold, and VA officials told NBC News they will pluck lessons from those “pockets of success.”

“We can get those best practices, (and) shine the light on some of our problem areas,” said Beth McCoy, who oversees 14 VA regional offices in the country’s midsection, including St. Paul, where benefit claims are typically processed in 100 days. 

But those “problem areas” — where some duty-injured veterans wait 16 to 19 months for disability checks to stay financially afloat — are coloring the national mood regarding the VA.

Jonathan Goodman, 29, a Marine veteran from Tulsa, Okla., and his wife, Shannon, say the delay in his disability-benefit claim has been putting a strain on their finances.

“It's sad to see so many veterans come back and apply for this, and it just takes so long. It can send a lot of guys into a downward spiral,” said Jonathan Goodman, 29, a Marine veteran from Tulsa, Okla. who earned a Purple Heart Medal for wounds sustained in a 2004 suicide-bomb blast. He's been waiting 11 months for the VA to process his disability-benefit claim.

“I just want to see guys get the (financial) help they've earned. I don’t want to see veterans put on the back burner," he added.

Veterans in 12 cities now face delays of more than 400 days, on average, for their regional VA offices to handle their disability claims. One year ago, no cities posted VA backlogs surpassing 400 days, according to the agency’s online benefits dashboard.

As of May 30 this year, the average backlog wait for veterans in New York City was 496 days, up 34 percent from a year ago, the dashboard shows. In Los Angeles, the average wait is now 568 days, up 63 percent since last year.

In May 2012, the VA reported a national “rating claims processing time” of 250 days. As of May 30 this year, that national average was 302 days. 

“VA has been over-promising and under-delivering for decades under both Democrat and Republican administrations,” said Rep. Jeff Miller, R-Fla, chairman of the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs. “While VA leaders seem confident they’re on track to break the backlog by 2015, they haven’t provided us with any evidence to support that projection. That’s why the closer we get to 2015, the more I’m convinced that ending the backlog by then will require a commitment from the only person with the power to ensure VA lives up to its word: President Obama.”

And veterans are challenging President Barack Obama to act. Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA), which represents more than 200,000 men and women, posed five questions about the backlog to Obama on June 5. They asked, for example, how the White House is coordinating efforts between the Department of Defense and the VA to slash wait times.

Other VA watchdogs want to know: Does the quick work executed at VA regional offices in St. Paul, Sioux Falls (where it typically takes 115 days to process claims) and Providence (117 days) foreshadow the dawn of a larger fix?

“It’s worth looking at the leadership climate and the procedures used at those regional offices to see what they are doing differently,” said Tom Tarantino, IAVA's chief policy officer. “You also have to consider ... you only have 831 claims pending at the Sioux Falls office. When we solve those problems in L.A., then we will see progress.” 

In Tulsa, where Marine veteran Goodman waits on a disability claim he filed with the VA in July 2012, life means managing wounds and ailments he sustained during two Iraq tours: a traumatic brain injury, back problems, and migraines plus memory and anxiety issues — all of which make working and going to school difficult, he said.

While he appreciates the medical treatment he gets from his local VA hospital, he said, the job that best suits his symptoms is night bartending: dark and calm.

The benefit-compensation delay, meanwhile, forced his wife, Shannon, to pull extra work hours. Goodman had to grab additional bar shifts.

“It’s put a lot of stress on our marriage. It’s been rough financially. She works full time. I work nights. We spend a lot of time just seeing each other in passing,” Goodman said, adding that tax-free VA compensation for his combat wounds “would help us actually enjoy a normal life."

As 30,000-plus troops return from Afghanistan by 2014, the VA is completing a wholesale transformation.

Workflow is being redistributed to cities with available hands and reorganized from an “assembly-line system” to a network of “express lanes” for simple claims and “special-operations lanes” for complex claims like brain injuries, said VA’s McCoy. New employees are being trained to work more efficiently.

And the biggest overhaul: VA is switching to digitized benefits claims, replacing “thousands of tons of paper on shelves,” McCoy said. The electronic system is considered the lynchpin to reducing all backlog waits to 125 days or less. Meanwhile, the VA says it has processed more than 1 million disability claims during each of the past three years. 

“We have a sense of urgency,” McCoy said. “We don’t have the luxury of shutting down the shop, building a great system then opening the doors back up,” McCoy said. “We’re flying the plane as we’re changing it.” 

Related: 

• Unmasking the agony: combat troops turn to art therapy
• Obama urged to step in to fix VA backlog
• As VA backlog grows, Congress, veterans grow weary of excuses 

Brendan Hoffman / for NBC News

Frank Stultz, a 91-year-old veteran of World War II, poses for a portrait at his home on Friday in New Carrollton, Md.

On the day America remembers lost heroes, the memories of many of those who survived combat remain forever laced with the harrowing sights, sounds and smells of war — recollections still crisp and vivid many decades after the fight.

For some, like Vietnam veteran John Hamilton, sensory triggers from past skirmishes can never be shaken, no matter how much he’d like to forget. When night falls, he sees the blackness as “a bad time, Charlie’s time,” a reference to his enemy 45 years ago, North Vietnamese communists. 

For others, like World War II veteran Frank Stultz, the close calls in the South Pacific are recollections he refuses to surrender. He can close his eyes and put himself back inside his turret aboard the USS Biloxi, a Navy light cruiser, nearly 70 years ago, as Kamikaze pilots buzz above and his hands vibrate from the shells he’s firing into the blue sky.

“I forget a lot of things, or so my wife tells me. But I don’t forget those things,” said Stultz, 91, from his home in New Carrollton, Md. “It was rough, in a way. I got through it. We did our job.”

Whether it's 20-something Afghanistan veterans scratching out the progression of 2011 firefights in the dirt or men more than four times their age recounting battles in the South Pacific from 1945, there are stark parallels in their tales — similar noises, scents and visions, kindred feelings and emotions. War has a way of getting tattooed onto the brains of troops, no matter the conflict or the era, scientists say.

John Hamilton/VFW

John Hamilton served as a Marine Corps rifleman from 1968 to 1970, including a tour of Vietnam. Today, he is Commander-in-Chief of the Veterans of Foreign Wars. At left, Hamilton in Vietnam where he earned a Purple Heart medal.

“There are commonalities with guys from World War II and Korea, or Afghanistan or Iraq, with what we saw and heard. They affect us all — forever. They affect your soul — forever,” said Hamilton, 62, a Marine rifleman from 1968 to 1970 who earned a Purple Heart in Vietnam.

“To this day, if I’m walking through a city and see a tree line, I’m thinking: Don’t go that way; there are bad guys hiding there,” added Hamilton, who today heads the Veterans of Foreign Wars.

Such permanent memories — and sensory triggers — are pure biology. The most indelible images usually are retained from our most horrific experiences or from our happiest days, said Dr. Sydney Savion, a Texas-based behavioral scientist and Air Force veteran who studies post-traumatic stress disorder.

The centerfold in our mental scrapbook is the amygdala, an almond-shaped portion of the brain tasked with processing unique moments into long-term memory and choosing which emotional events get stored away for good.

“When the brain experiences something, whether it’s beloved events or bad events, it assigns an emotional value to it. Those memories are imprinted,” Savion said.  

The most gruesome or most beautiful moments we experience cause the brain to become “awash with adrenaline,” she said. “That intensity over time, whether it’s graphic memories of the war or the birth of child, continues to self-perpetuate in memory.  

“In these combat instances — in part because the veterans' brains have assigned such a high emotional value to them, they just can’t ever get these experiences off of their minds.” 

Or, like nonagenarian Stultz, they simply don’t want to lose them.

Even if they were downright frightful.

There was the night be opened fire unknowingly on an American plane, which he was ordered to do because it was flying in from the direction of the enemy. A fellow sailor had to pound on Stultz's turret with a hammer to tell him to stop shooting. The plane and pilot were spared. 

Brendan Hoffman / for NBC News

A photo of Frank Stultz from his days in the U.S. Navy, as well as a diary he kept during World War II and a souvenir booklet from USS Biloxi, the ship on which he served.

There was the day a shell dropped from a plane onto the Biloxi’s fantail. It struck 50 feet from Stultz’s turret. But it was a dud. Stultz and his shipmates were saved.

There were days when Japanese suicide planes circled above, some hurtling down and crashing into nearby U.S. ships, including the USS West Virginia near Okinawa, killing four sailors. 

"I could see them from the parascope in my turret. We were just shooting, shooting, shooting. They were all around our ship. We were just trying to put a shell right in front of them so they would hit it," Stultz said. "It was a good education for me. But I was young. 

"When you're young, you don't worry about those things. I like to remember because we were taught to do the right thing and I think we did. If worst came to worst, well, that's the way it was." 

Terry Pickard / NBC News

Surviving sailors from the USS Franklin hold a reunion at Patriots Point in Charleston on Friday.

MT. PLEASANT, S.C. -- Two dozen surviving veterans from the World War II aircraft carrier USS Franklin gathered on Friday, probably for the last time, to honor and remember one of the most remarkable naval episodes of the war.

It was before dawn on a late winter morning in 1945 when a Japanese dive bomber dropped two 500 pound bombs on the Franklin. The year-old carrier nicknamed “Big Ben” was serving in the Pacific theater and, at that moment, had maneuvered closer to Japan than any other U.S.-flagged carrier during the war.

Sam ‘Dusty’ Rhodes was asleep in the ship’s bunk area when the bombs hit. Rhodes was a water tender 3^rd class and was responsible for operating the ship’s massive boilers – and with debris from the massive explosions raining down on him, that is just what he did.

Rhodes said he and other crew members ran to the one of the unaffected firerooms and attempted to raise enough steam to light the remaining boiler. When the flame caught from Rhodes’ Zippo lighter, “that’s when the ship’s heart started to beat again,” he recalled.

Above on the flight deck, the scene was nothing short of catastrophic. The Franklin was dead in the water, listing to one side and cut off from communications as fires burned everywhere. More than 800 sailors died in the attack, with hundreds more wounded.

Terry Pickard / NBC News

Flags line the walkway to the USS Yorktown, where a '13' was painted to honor the number of the USS Franklin.

But the Franklin didn’t sink, and that is the legacy crew members like Rhodes like to remember. The Franklin would become the most heavily damaged aircraft carrier of the war to make it back to port.

“We saved the ship,” Rhodes said. “In the Navy, you save the ship. It’s your home.”

William Schauer was a Naval electrician and fireman 1^st class, just out of high school when he reported for duty on the deck of the Franklin, three months before the attack. Looking back on that day 68 years later, he said he was certain he was going to go down with the ship that morning, and “that was the end.”

“But we were there for a purpose,” and despite suffering such heavy losses, Schauer says he still considers their mission – keeping the ship afloat – accomplished.

At the reunion on Friday, Medal of Honor recipient and retired Gen. James Livingston saluted the assembled veterans. He said their “refusal to allow her to sink” allowed the Franklin to limp back to port instead of ending up buried forever on the ocean floor. “That’s a testimony to what you are as men,” he said.

Terry Pickard / NBC News

The tattered battle flag from the USS Franklin hangs on display at the USS Yorktown.

In the belly of the USS Yorktown, another decommissioned carrier that saw battle in the Pacific and now survives as the centerpiece of the Patriots Point Naval Museum in this bucolic Charleston suburb, a tattered and smoke-tinged flag is mounted overhead. It was the original battle flag that flew on the mast of the Franklin’s flight deck the day of the attack -- the same flag that Rhodes remembers looking up and noticing through the haze of black smoke after the bombs hit. Seeing it meant they still had a chance, he remembered, “because we would strike the colors before abandoning ship.”   

“Big Ben” made it all the way back to New York for repairs, where it sat on V-J Day when the war finally ended. It never saw action again, and was sold for scrap in the 1960s. The flag, along with the bell and a gun turret also on display at the Yorktown, are all that remain of one of the most momentous spectacles of heroism and fortitude of World War II. And with what could be the final gathering of the men who saved the ship, it is up to a new generation to remember the Franklin.

Courtesy Ashley Gonzalez

Ashley Gonzalez, 40, retired from the Navy last year after a 21-year-career. He had a smooth transition back to civilian life thanks to a network of veterans organizations in San Diego.

After 21 years in the Navy, Ashley Gonzalez, 40, had to make a tough choice last year: uproot his family from San Diego for an assignment in Mississippi or retire and rejoin the civilian world. 

Gonzalez, a chief petty officer, had previously deployed to counter-narcotic operations in South and Central America and participated in a routine war games exercise on the Korean peninsula. Civilian life, he knew, would be much different. But his daughter, 16, and son, 12, wanted to stay in San Diego, and so began Gonzalez’s transition back to a life he’d left long ago. 

Gonzalez was confident at first; after all, he’d spent the past two decades earning a masters degree and learning skills like management, mentoring and public speaking. The shaky economy, however, tested his optimism. 

“It was overwhelming, it was tough,” he told NBC News. “There were times when we questioned the transition.”

Gonzalez is lucky to live near a city where there are more than 100 non-profit organizations that provide a range of services to veterans. In the past few years, these groups have formed a coalition to ensure that every service member has access to resources like health care, education, legal aid and job counseling, which can be essential for starting anew as a civilian. 

Gary Rossio, co-founder of the San Diego Veterans Coalition, said the collaboration has an urgent mission to assist those who served in Iraq and Afghanistan. Meanwhile, more than 1 million service members will leave the military in the next four years as positions are eliminated through budget cuts and the drawdown from Afghanistan. 

“We don’t want another lost generation of veterans like we had with Vietnam,” said Rossio, who served in the Air Force in the 1970s and spent 30 years as an official at the Department of Veterans Affairs.  

San Diego, where 15,000 service members leave the military annually, may be unique in its demographics, but there is a concerted effort nationwide to provide communities with tools to connect veterans to resources, streamline services, and recruit civilian volunteers.  

'It's not just about a job'
Gonzalez, who retired from the Navy last October, quickly found assistance from San Diego’s web of providers. 

He attended several job fairs and followed leads, including a recommendation from his Navy career counselor to attend a local workshop called Reboot that covered not only how to compete for the right position, but also how to find purpose in a post-military life. Within a few months, thanks to the Reboot class and networking, Gonzalez landed a well-paying job as a senior consultant in logistics support for a firm that contracts with government and commercial clients. 

“I was very fortunate,” said Gonzalez, who now attends Reboot classes to share his experience with students. “Because of my whole process, I’ve decided to pay it forward.” 

Success stories like Gonzalez’s are becoming more common. The unemployment rate for post-9/11 veterans, particularly among women, has been stubbornly higher than the national civilian rate. The unemployment rate for veterans of post-9/11 conflicts was 7.5 percent in April, down from 9.2 percent in April 2012, according to the Labor Department.

Increasing veteran employment has been the target of several initiatives, most notably the White House program Joining Forces, which last week announced that American companies have committed to hiring 435,000 veterans and military spouses in the next five years. 

While this is welcome news, some advocates worry that an exclusive focus on jobs ignores other important elements of transitioning from military culture to civilian life. 

Maurice Wilson, a retired chief petty officer in the Navy and president of NVTSI, the non-profit that runs Reboot, said that the program guides veterans through a psychological reintegration before even talking about jobs. 

Service members, he said, go from “a very organized, ordered world that is so established you don’t even have to ask questions about who you are, where you belong. What happens is that people go from order to disorder and their mind goes into a tailspin.”

Each veteran also has different needs. While one may be a double amputee, another may have post-traumatic stress disorder. “It’s not just about a job,” Wilson said. “It’s about his life now.” 

Reboot, which has graduated more than 800 students in nearly three years and has a long waiting list, identifies those unique needs and refers veterans to other organizations that offer assistance. This could include, for example, a VA program called From Warrior to Soul Mate, which helps veterans develop better communication skills and strengthen trust and commitment in their relationships. A legal aid program helps veterans facing jail time for minor offenses, often drug- or alcohol-related, enter therapy instead. 

Wilson, who serves as a board member on the local coalition, said that the project has been a success as leaders recognize the value of working together rather than in silos with little knowledge of what other groups are doing. 

“It takes the community to do it,” Wilson said of helping veterans to reintegrate. “The government can’t do it alone.” 

Going national
This is the philosophy of a recently launched nationwide initiative called Community Blueprint. 

The project, which is run by the Atlanta-based non-profit organization Points of Light, was developed over the past three years with the expertise of several dozen leaders of veteran organizations. 

The goal, said Mike Monroe, vice president of military initiatives at Points of Light, is to provide communities with a model for how to efficiently serve veterans while also offering civilians opportunities to volunteer for a cause they may feel is important but know little about. 

The program offers a “toolbox” of solutions in eight key areas, including employment, family strength, housing and education. The toolbox gives guidance on how to improve resources for veterans. If a community wants to train health providers in treating veterans with PTSD or TBI, for example, a tip sheet outlines how to measure success and raise money for training in addition to suggesting related volunteer opportunities. 

Community Blueprint also runs Veteran Leader Corps, in which 75 AmeriCorps volunteers are placed in 19 communities across the country for one year of service. 

Since launching in October, Community Blueprint has been adopted in 44 cities, including Phoenix, Cincinnati, Boston and San Diego. Each month, partner organizations will join a call to discuss different challenges or strategies for success. “It’s pretty humbling when you start looking at the numbers and there’s 75 people on the call,” Monroe said.

Yet, he is concerned this momentum could be blunted both by a perception that service members become “poor, sad veterans” to be helped only by the government and that reintegrating into civilian life will be a less urgent a public priority once there are no longer front-page stories about battle.

“There’s going to be a tipping point and I hope it goes in the right direction,” he said. 

Gary Rossio is hopeful that coalitions like the one in San Diego, as well as initiatives like the Community Blueprint, can provide models for how to help veterans successfully reintegrate into civilian life. 

“The idea is that it takes everybody to bring these folks home, and that they come home to a community, not to the VA or VFW,” Rossio said. “With that kind of attitude, you can do just about anything.” 

Rebecca Ruiz is a reporter based in Oakland, Calif. 

NBC News

Jeff Barillaro, aka Soldier Hard, is an Iraq War veteran who has put his hip-hop talents to work. Barillaro sings gritty songs he hopes will raise awareness of PTSD and suicide.

A hip-hop song beseeching battle buddies to be on watch for suicidal signals among their peers is being used — informally for now — within the Army as a prevention tool to help the branch stem an ongoing suicide crisis.

“Red Flags,” penned and recorded by former Army tank gunner Jeff Barillaro, was created as an urgent call for current troops as well as Iraq and Afghanistan veterans not to ignore or miss the sometimes-subtle yet often-obvious behavioral changes known to precede many suicides, Barillaro said.

“We’ve seen the red flags but we were blind to them,” said Barillaro, an Iraq War veteran who performs under the stage name Soldier Hard. Many of his songs and videos draw on his own raw experiences with a diagnosis of severe Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

Through the end of March, the Army reported 81 apparent suicides this year among active-duty, Army Reserve and National Guard troops — one death every 26.7 hours. (Some cases remain under investigation). The fatal pace has increased slightly. During 2012, the Army reported 324 suicides within those groups — one death every 27 hours, according to the Pentagon. The latest estimate from the Department of Veterans Affairs showed that 22 veterans commit suicide daily.

The Army — the branch most significantly impacted by suicides — has implemented an array of anti-suicide initiatives, but an Army Reserve adviser in Connecticut sees such a potent message in Barillaro’s lyrics, he believes the song can save lives.

“I want to share his music with anyone willing ,to listen. I think anyone can relate to 'Red Flags,' " said Army 1st Sgt. Steve Kreider, who is based at an Army Reserve Center in Middletown, Conn. “It strikes a chord that this is something we really need to keep an eye open for. There are warning signs we have to recognize not only in other people but in ourselves — I'm being reclusive or I'm drinking too much — these are all signs that something is going on in your life that could be detrimental down the road." 

'Maybe we can stop it'
Kreider has shared “Red Flags” with some of his soldiers in Connecticut — and "for everyone of them, it's had a positive impact," he said. Meanwhile, another Army veteran recently played the song for soldiers at Fort Knox, Ky., Kreider said. 

Moreover, Kreider has now shared the video "with a lot of different higher-ranking people. I'm sure that they're looking at it closely to see if this is something that would fit the mold of what the military can utilize as a tool," he said. 

"And if not, word of mouth is a powerful took itself," he added. "It's close to going viral." 

Since the song’s video was released April 17 on YouTube, it has received nearly 17,000 views. The lyrics are rooted in two actual suicides that stuck hard with Barillaro as he researched the topic by clicking through a blur of military obituaries.

The first verse details a well-decorated Iraq War veteran who, once he shed his uniform and medals, lost his pride yet gained anger while grappling with PSTD, a traumatic brain injury, alcoholism and isolation before clutching a gun and scrawling a farewell note: “I’m better off dead.” In verse two, an active-duty soldier is devastated by survivor guilt after the combat loss of a close friend. He ultimately hanged himself in his bedroom. (Two soldiers pictured in the video are living service members who allowed their images to be used.)

“He was a hard charger but now he’s just ate up,” Soldier Hard sings of the second man.

“‘Ate up’ – that’s a military term for being all messed up, for not being a good soldier anymore. This guy used to be good but after he came back, he just shut down,” Barillaro said. “That’s a red flag. But we didn’t see that.

“Real topics. People can relate to these. I decided to turn their stories into a song,” he added. “A lot of these guys, they’re showing signs before they actually do it. I decided I had to do something. Maybe we can stop it.”

Related: 

• Soldier Hard's hip-hop lyrics reveal PTSD's rough edges
• Some wounded vets thrive on 'Alive Day,' others wear black
• One inch: Death in combat hinges on the tiniest margins

An audacious vow by the Obama Administration to eliminate veteran homelessness in two years — an initiative that's shown progress but is off pace to fully succeed — got a shot in the arm Thursday when leaders of the Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs proposed legislation to help plug lingering holes in the existing veteran safety net. 

A central theme of the Homeless Veterans Prevention Act of 2013 is to allow the Department of Veterans Affairs to shift its transitional-housing system for street-bound ex-service members into a process that's more focused on giving veterans easier access to permanent, stable housing.

While transitional housing units can give quick shelter to veterans — and, indeed, lower the population of homeless veterans — many of those same men and women often cannot find affordable, long-term housing such as leased apartments. Some ultimately wind up sleeping again under bridges or in cars, say veterans advocates. 

To help end that cycle, the bill would "provide incentives" to the VA "to avoid disruptions that arise when veterans complete transitional housing programs and move on to permanent housing," according to a news release on the legislation. 

The proposed law is sponsored by Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Richard Burr, R-N.C. — the chairman and ranking member of the Senate veterans’ panel. Staff members at that committee were unable to say Thursday if the bill would require extra funding, although most of the programs slated to be enhanced already are paid for through federal budgets. 

“We must continue to invest in the progress that has been made and remove any remaining barriers to housing for veterans,” Sanders said.

Since VA Secretary Eric Shinseki pledged in 2009 to pull every veteran off the streets by 2015, that aggressive push has slashed veteran homelessness by 17 percent. But the most recent head count conducted by federal authorities (in January 2012) found more than 62,000 veterans remain homeless, casting doubt as to whether the VA can meet its ambitious deadline.  

Other key pieces of the act include: 

• Keeping veteran families together by allowing the VA to house the children of homeless veterans in transitional housing environments. (Currently, families are often split up when veterans enter such facilities). 
• Allowing the VA to partner with public and private entities to bolster the availability of legal services for homeless veterans. 
• Requiring transitional housing providers to specifically meet needs of homeless women veterans.

In an emailed statement, VA spokesman Josh Taylor said the agency "appreciates" the renewed backing from Sanders and Burr. 

"While we have made significant progress, there is more work to do," Taylor said. "With the continued support of our partners in Congress, at the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the hundreds of community organizations across the country, we will end homelessness among veterans and provide them with the benefits they have earned and deserve."

Related:

• Can Washington get vets off the streets? Tens of thousands homeless despite billions spent
• Rough landings: VA, DOD slow to help returning veterans, study says

We know the problem: the jobless rate for military members who have served our country since 9/11 is significantly higher than the general population. 

Each year, the Families and Work Institute, a non-profit and non-partisan research organization, honors companies that have gone the extra mile to help vets as they return to the civilian workplace.

The winners of the Work Life Legacy Military Awards for 2013: Cornell University, JPMorgan Chase, Merck and Verizon Communications.

“Each of these companies has generated a holistic approach by recruiting, hiring and training vets and giving them a path inside their organizations to sustain employment and create a bright future,” said Adm. Mike Mullen, USN (Ret.), former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and a member of the institute’s board.

For example, JPMorgan Chase has a dedicated military recruiting team and an internal military training program that has created more than 5,300 jobs for veterans in just two years.

“We think it’s important not only because it’s good for our business, but we truly believe that we owe this generation of service members the opportunity for success, and jobs is one of them,” said Maureen Casey, managing director for military and veterans affairs at JPMorgan Chase.

Chase and 10 other companies launched the 100,000 Jobs Mission two years ago. The goal is to hire 100,000 vets by 2020. To date, there have been almost 65,000 new hires.

The bank was also cited for co-founding the Institute for Veterans and Military Families with Syracuse University to do research on actionable projects and programs. For example, the institute created the Veterans Career Transition Program, a free online service that lets returning vets learn marketable skills that improve their chances of landing a job in the private sector.

The other winners:

Cornell University’s on-campus Veterans Affairs office offers private professional counseling for both employees and the local community. The university provides extensive support services for military families, including a family “helper list” of those who can assist with family care, education and household maintenance. 

Merck has an employee affinity group to help vets network and find mentors and a transitional assistance program to give veterans employment opportunities.

Verizon Communications assists military spouses with finding jobs. Its Emergency Military Leave policy gives employees on active duty benefits for an additional year beyond the provisions of the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act. 

There were eight honorable mentions: Bon Secours, Citi, Deloitte, General Motors, Johnson & Johnson, Lockheed Martin, Sodexo and The Walt Disney Company.

Veterans are not looking for any special consideration, “just the opportunity to fulfill their dreams – and that takes employment,” Admiral Mullen told NBC News. He urges companies to recruit vets, not just wait for them to knock on the door.

“Business cases studies show that over the long term, veterans are really good bets for the bottom line,” he said. “They have the discipline, the technical skills and the leadership skills. They’re loyal, they’re good team players and they lead well. All of those skills translate to an employee who is really going to make a difference in almost any organization.”

Herb Weisbaum is The ConsumerMan. Follow him on Facebook and Twitter or visit The ConsumerMan website. 

Related:

• Pentagon looks to cut up to 50,000 civilians over 5 years
• Hiring Our Heroes job fair part of week-long, national hiring push