Employer Support Freedom Award recipients named by Secretary of Defense Mattis

Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis has named this year’s recipients of the “Secretary of Defense Employer Support Freedom Award.” Out of over 2,350 nominees, the award will go to 15 employers who support National Guard and Reservist employees. The recipients are as follows: Texas Department of Insurance from Austin, TX Duke Energy from Charlotte, NC […]

The most useful skill of all

When you’re learning how to hold your own in combat, there are all sorts of things you need to know. The practical skills come to mind first — how to shoot, how to change magazines and reload, how to react to contact, how to operate various military vehicles, how to conduct effective first aid — […]

VA employee is strong-armed into silence after voicing concerns

Dan Martin — veteran of the United States Navy from 1985 to 1991, is an employee of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. After his service in the Navy, he attended Purdue and graduated with his degree in electrical engineering. From there, he went to Indiana Wesleyan for his MBA, where he also worked for […]

VA releases updates on veteran suicide report

There have been disturbing increases in the suicide rates across America. Since 1999, suicides have increased over 30% in half of states, some of them all the way up to 58%. On top of that, the CDC found that 54% of those cases had no known mental health conditions. Read about the CDC report here. […]

Quality of care at the VA: See how your local VA hospital measures up

The VA has a system of ranking its hospitals, and it’s called the Strategic Analytics for Improving and Learning (SAIL). The system essentially has a number of criteria that they use to determine the overall quality of a VA hospital, and then rank it accordingly. The idea is that empirical numbers can sometimes be easier […]

Getting your hands dirty: The practical value of impractical hobbies

You take a rusty piece of scrap metal, a hack saw, a file, and you get to work. After hours of cutting, grinding, and sanding spread out of a week’s worth of days, you’re left with a knife that’s probably not quite as good as one you might buy at Walmart for just less than […]

Applying veteran discipline to the civilian world

You hear about the perks of joining the military quite a bit. Not only does it offer the veteran a myriad of benefits, but it gives the individual certain life skills and experiences that are very difficult to attain elsewhere. Discipline, a solid work ethic, and the willingness to do the dirty-work that no one […]

The problem with the Kurdish Peshmerga

Recently I have been speaking with many of the Kurds I had previously served alongside in the Kurdish Peshmerga military forces. Many have moved on to veteran status and found civilian jobs. Many feel disenfranchised with the Peshmerga because it is surrounded by family hookups and back door deals. Corruption is common practice among the […]

The irony of combat

I have fought for what I believed in for a year now. If we win here we will win everywhere. The world is a fine place and worth the fighting for and I hate very much to leave it. And you had a lot of luck, he told himself, to have had such a good […]