Ted Daywalt
President, VetJobs.com, Inc
Captain, USNR, Retired

We are gathered here today for the purpose of commemorating the souls of our comrades who are buried in this beautiful setting and for what they did in the past to defend our great Republic. It is patriotic with ceremonies like these that the citizens of our country offer a grateful homage and affectionate tribute annually to the memories of those who dared all, periled all, and in many cases lost all, for the country they loved.

Our gathering today marks the journey of advancing time and the resulting cause of a reunion of hearts engendering common sympathies. By gathering together we perpetuate the deeds of many a noble Soldier, Sailor, Marine, Airman and Coast Guardsman. By this custom we commemorate the dead, thereby enshrining their memories in the hearts of succeeding generations, and causing the service of those buried here to be imitated by younger generations who come after them.

We do not meet on these Memorial Days to weep for the dead. Time heals the scars of conflicts in which our nation has been involved, and we can calmly contemplate the great lesson of patriotic devotion, and rejoice today that the nation to which we belong produces such honorable men and women noble enough to die for that which they value so much, that being freedom.

We are here today to foster patriotism, in view of the most tremendous sacrifices ever willingly made by a people on the altar of freedom. That the sacrifices of past conflicts deserve this rank is validated by the fact that these sacrifices were made primarily by volunteers.

Under our Constitutional Republic, protection and allegiance are reciprocal. When one ceases the other expires. Not only is it the duty of the patriot to defend, but to save liberty, to save rights, to save amidst perils and dangers that appall the stoutest of hearts. To preserve liberty takes great courage which I fervently pray many in our government today will develop.

And while today we decorate these graves of our honored dead with beautiful garlands, and while the ground beneath in which these patriots are taking their final rest will glisten with floral wreaths, let us be not unmindful of the duties that we give this hallowed land for which those before us so honorably served and have since passed on.

Such is today’s military, patriots all, whose grand deeds and heroic achievements rise resplendent above the tears and groans of mortal agony and bereavement. The fame of the American military person, they who cut the most sacred ties of their family and walked away from a position of ease and comfort to offer up, if necessary, their lives in the maintenance of and defense of a grand and immortal principle, that of freedom in our free market society governed by a Constitutional Republic.

In a cemetery in Virginia is the inscription: NOT FOR FAME OR REWARD, NOT FOR PLACE OR FOR RANK, NOT LURED BY AMBITION OR GOADED BY NECESSITY, BUT IN SIMPLE OBEDIENCE TO DUTY AS THEY UNDERSTOOD IT, THESE MEN SUFFERED ALL, SACRIFICED ALL, DARED ALL, AND DIED.

Those words were written by a Confederate veteran who had later become a minister. This simple sentence speaks for all American military in all wars. Men and women who must always trust their lives to the judgment of their leaders, and whose bond thus goes to individuals rather than to stark ideology. Citizens who desire more than anything to sleep with the satisfaction that when all the rhetoric was stripped away, they had fulfilled their duty as an honorable member of the United States military and who in the end must not only judge their acts while they served, but be judged by their successors.

And so I am here with you today to remember.

Love of our country still resonates strong in this great nation. The patriotism that was so strong in the founders of our Republic is still a moving force in our country today. But we are a different people from those hearty souls who came, settled and formed these United States of America. We are now a country comprised of people from all the nations of the world who seek freedom and escape from tyranny, socialism and communism.

There are two important lessons for us to take away from this day of remembrance.

The first is one our leaders should carry next to their hearts and contemplate every time they face a crisis, however small, which puts our military in harms way. Such decisions should resound in their conscience from the power of millions of patriot graves. It is simply this: You hold our military members’ lives in sacred trust. When a citizen has sworn to obey you and follow your judgment, and enter a battlefield or go to an area of conflict to defend the interests you define as worthy of their blood, do not abuse that awesome power through careless policy, unclear objectives, or inflexible leadership.

And to the members of Congress I say you must take care of the men and women in the military irrespective of the costs, for without those willing to join the military, your policies would not be upheld, America would become weak and we would not have our freedoms!

The second lesson regards those of us who have taken such an oath, and who have honored the judgment of our leaders. The lesson is duty. Duty is a constant, frozen in the context of the moment it is performed. Duty is action, taken after listening to one’s leaders, and weighing risk and fear against the powerful draw of obligation to family, to religion, to nation, and to the unknown future.

As one who was raised in a military family and then spent over twenty seven years in the Navy, I know personally that the duty of the military is to defend those rights guaranteed to the people by the Constitution which is still the law of our land and to yield obedience to our Constitutional Republic form of government which shields and protects citizens from wrong and oppression, irrespective of our personal political opinions and leanings.

The two things of inestimable value which our Constitutional Republic furnishes, and which we ought to preserve even with life itself, are liberty and law – or rather liberty in the law.

The old world gave us law, without which the freedoms of our American society would not exist. The American people govern themselves, not in one form of government alone, but in varying forms for national, state, county and municipal, down to the smallest school district and thousands of voluntary organizations that together form our Constitutional Republic. In each the methods by which the people’s will may be made supreme in designated affairs are clearly defined, so that the whole of united human effort is brought under the dominion of law. Men and women are willing to die that this liberty under law may not perish from the world, and that our free market society will persevere in liberty, not in the economic tyranny of socialism.

It must always be remembered that conflict and war is horrible and savage. I pray for a time when we are no longer called to participate in conflicts and war, but such will never be the case. The history of the world has shown that war is continuous.

So long as there are those who want to take away American liberties, so long as there are those who covet American freedoms and our successful free market economic system, so long as there are those who espouse fascism, socialism and communism, so long as there are those that demand the world believe in only one religion, so long as there are those whose religion enslaves others, there will be conflicts and war.

To protect ourselves America must resist the temptation to become apathetic. We must not resign ourselves to political correctness and the onslaught of socialism. It is imperative that we look back on our history and learn from the mistakes that were made in the past, both political and economic. Students in our schools must know and understand the differences between liberty with free markets and the economic tyranny of socialism. They must know what happened before so our beloved country does not commit the same mistakes in our future.

But political correctness denies letting teachers educate what happened in the past. Politically correct educators do not want history taught for fear we might offend or worse, our population will understand what is happening to them. And for the same reasons the history of our many wars are given scant, if any, attention in our schools and universities today. Our schools should teach these wars and American history not to offend, but to educate!

We need to remember what happened in the past so that we may realize that our comfortable life styles created by our free market society and Constitutional Republic are not guaranteed except by a strong military and our Second Amendment rights.

Whenever our country has had peace, it was merely a little space of calm in the midst of the tempestuous untamed streaming of a world that envies our free market economic system and the freedoms our Constitutional Republic affords. We must always be ready. We must always maintain a strong defense and military.

At Gettysburg, President Lincoln said: “…in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate…we cannot consecrate…we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to that great task remaining before us…that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion; that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain.”

You see, out of heroism grows faith in the worth of heroism.

George Orwell once noted: We sleep safe in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm.

The military men and women, who are buried in this and the other national cemeteries, and their families, understand on a personal level all that I have brought to you today. They know first hand that the military is the only work force in America whose contract includes a mandatory clause that says they may have to give their life to maintain the freedoms the rest of us enjoy.

So I would like to end with part of a poem by Oliver Wendell Holmes. It carries the reasoned sentiment of a veteran from the past, and speaks to those in the military of today. It goes like this:

And when the wind in the tree-tops roared, the soldier asked from the deep dark grave:
“Did the banner flutter then?” “Not so, my hero,” the wind replied.
“The fight is done, but the banner won, thy comrades of old have borne it hence,
have borne it in triumph hence.”
Then the soldier spake from the deep dark grave: “I am content.”

Then he heareth the lovers laughing pass, and the soldier asks once more:
“Are these not the voices of them that love, that love–and remember me?”
“Not so, my hero,” the lovers say, “we are those that remember not;
For the spring has come and the earth has smiled, and the dead must be forgot.”
Then the soldier spake from the deep dark grave: “I am content.”

Like our comrades who sleep here today, that soldier was content in the knowledge that he did his duty for his country with honor.

Thank you for your time today and the privilege to address you on this Memorial Day weekend. Let us always continue to have these celebrations and understand what they mean not only for us today, but for the future generations of our great Republic.

We are gathered here today for the purpose of commemorating what occurred in the past. It is proper and patriotic with ceremonies like these to offer a grateful homage and affectionate tribute annually, to the memories of those who dared all, periled all, and lost all for the land of their birth. Our gathering today marks the journey of advancing time and the resulting cause of a reunion of hearts engendering common sympathies and perpetuate the deeds of many a noble soldier on both sides of our country’s Civil War. By this custom we commemorate the dead, thereby enshrining their memories in the hearts of succeeding generations, and causing their heroic deeds to be emulated and imitated by those who come after them.

As I was preparing for this speech today it dawned on me that most Americans do not know that Georgia, along with Mississippi, Alabama, North Carolina, South Carolina, Louisiana, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia celebrate Confederate Memorial Day. Such is the invasion of political correctness in our society and educational institutions in its attempt to crush the teaching of history.

History has delineated the names and families of countless statesmen, warriors and patriots whose renowned deeds on the battlefield will endure until time is no more. And we are a people who are proud of our lineage, but prouder still of those in whose veins course the nearest and dearest of our own blood, and who in our opinion died in a just cause. We here today testify to the world our admiration and adoration for those who fell while struggling for their rights.

Now is not the time or occasion to trace the origin or cause of the war or the spirit of its sources as to the great actors in the scenes of that war.

As one who spent thirty years in the Navy, I know personally that the duty of the patriot soldier is to defend rights guaranteed to the people under the laws of the land and to yield obedience to that power of government which shields and protects their people from wrong and oppression.

Protection and allegiance are reciprocal. When one ceases the other expires. Not only is it the duty of the patriot soldier to defend, but to save liberty, to save rights, to save amidst perils that appall the stoutest of hearts. To save liberty takes great courage, which many in our government today do not have.

Such is the patriot soldier, whose grand deeds and heroic achievements rise resplendent above the tears and groans of mortal agony and mortal bereavement. The fame of the Southern Patriots and volunteer soldiers of the South, they who severed the holiest and most sacred ties of their family members and their happy homes and forsook a position of ease and comfort to offer up their lives in the maintenance of and in defense of a grand and immortal principle, the right of self-government.

And while today we decorate the graves of our honored dead throughout this country with beautiful garlands and while the ground beneath which they are taking their last and final rest will glisten with gorgeous floral wreaths, and while many a tear may moisten their sacred tombs, and fond memory will delight to dwell on their valor, their heroism, and their patriotism, let us, the living be not unmindful of the duties that we gave that land for which they so bravely fought and so nobly died.

In a Confederate cemetery in Virginia is the inscription: NOT FOR FAME OR REWARD, NOT FOR PLACE OR FOR RANK, NOT LURED BY AMBITION OR GOADED BY NECESSITY, BUT IN SIMPLE OBEDIENCE TO DUTY AS THEY UNDERSTOOD IT, THESE MEN SUFFERED ALL, SACRIFICED ALL, DARED ALL, AND DIED.

The words were written by a Confederate veteran who had later become a minister, and knew that this simple sentence spoke for all soldiers in all wars, men who must always trust their lives to the judgment of their leaders, and whose bond thus goes to individuals rather than to stark ideology, and who, at the end of the day that in their lives, desire more than anything to sleep with the satisfaction that when all the rhetoric was stripped away, they had fulfilled their duty as they understood it; to their community; to their nation; to their individual consciences; to their family and to their children who in the end must not only judge their acts, but be judged as their successors.

And so I am here with you today to remember. And to honor an army that rose like a sudden wind out of the many towns that comprised the Confederacy and created an army that drew 750,000 soldiers from a population base of only nine million, less than the current population of Georgia today.

The Confederates fought with squirrel rifles and cold steel against a much larger and more modern force. They saw 60 percent of their soldiers become casualties, some 256,000 of them dead. They gave every ounce of courage and loyalty to a leadership they trusted and respected, and then laid down their arms in an instant when that leadership decided that enough was enough.

I am not here to apologize for why they fought, although modern historians might contemplate that there truly were different perceptions in the North and South about those reasons, and that most Southerners viewed the driving issue to be sovereignty rather than slavery. Love of the Union was definitely stronger in the South than in the North before the war, just as overt patriotism is today. But it was tempered by a strong belief that state sovereignty existed prior to the Constitution, and that it had never been surrendered.

Four years and six hundred thousand dead men later the twin issues of sovereignty and slavery were resolved. Now, nearly 150 years after the war, the bitterness has vented itself to the point that we can honestly say the emotional scars have healed. We are a stronger, more diverse, and genuinely free nation.

But we are also a different people. As we gather here to commemorate the most turbulent crisis our country has ever undergone, it’s interesting to note that a majority of those now in this country are descended from immigrants who arrived after the war was fought.

There are at least two lessons for us to take away from this day of remembrance.

The first is one our leaders should carry next to their hearts, and contemplate every time they face a crisis, however small, which puts our military men and women in harms way. Such decisions should echo in their consciences, from the power of over a million graves. It is simply this: You hold our military members’ lives in sacred trust. When a citizen has sworn to obey you, and follow your judgment, and walk onto a battlefield to defend the interests you define as worthy of their blood, do not abuse that awesome power through careless policy, unclear objectives, or inflexible leadership. And take care of those soldiers irrespective of the costs, for without those soldiers, your policy would not be upheld and America would not have its freedoms!

The second lesson regards those who have taken such an oath, and who have honored the judgment of their leaders, often at great personal cost. Intellectual analyses of national policy are subject to constant re-evaluation by historians as the decades roll by.

But duty is a constant, frozen in the context of the moment it was performed. Duty is action, taken after listening to one’s leaders, and weighing risk and fear against the powerful draw of obligation to family, community, nation, and the unknown future.

The celebration of this day has become general and has assumed a special and beautiful character. It might have been feared that angry passions engendered by civil strife would predominate, but in the character of the American value system and psychic, just the opposite is true. Kindness and charity, tender memories of the sacrifices of patriotism on both sides, the duty of caring for the living and of avoiding all that might lead again to the sad necessity of war.

We do not meet on these Memorial Days to weep for the dead. Time has healed the scars of war, and we can calmly contemplate the great lesson of patriotic devotion, and rejoice today that the nation to which we belong produces men and women noble enough to die for that which they value so much, that being freedom.

We are here today to foster patriotism, in view of the most tremendous sacrifice ever willingly made by a people on the altar of freedom. That the sacrifices of the Civil War deserve this rank will appear from the fact that they were made primarily by volunteers.

The two things of inestimable value which our government furnishes and which we ought to preserve even with life itself, are liberty and law, or rather liberty in the law. The old world gave us law, without which the freedoms of our American society cannot exist. The American people govern themselves, not in one form of government alone but in affairs national, State, county, down to the smallest school district and a thousand voluntary societies. In each the methods by which the people’s will may be made supreme in designated affairs are clearly defined, so that the whole of united human effort is brought under the dominion of law, even such things as general education, and yet each affair is in the hands of the people directly concerned. For thousands of years the principles of our complex and wonderful system of coordinated government have been growing up until they have reached their fullest perfection on our American soil. Men and women are willing to die that this liberty under law may not perish from the world.

The Confederate women first began decorating the graves of their dead with flowers, and did not pass by the Union graves, but decorated their graves as well. This touched the heart of the nation as nothing else could have done, and enmity melted away, and the observance of Memorial Day has become universal.

Memorial Day was originally known as Decoration Day because it was a time set aside to honor the American Civil War dead by decorating their graves. It was first widely observed on May 30, 1868, to commemorate the sacrifices of Civil War soldiers, by proclamation of General John Logan of the Grand Army of the Republic, an organization of former sailors and soldiers.

But it must be remembered that war, when you are at it, is horrible and dull. It is only when time has passed that you can see that its message was divine. I would like to hope it will be a long time before we are called again to sit at the feet of war, but such will never be the case. The history of the world has shown that war is continuous. So long as there are those who want to take away our liberties in the United States, so long as there are those that demand the world believe in only one religion, so long as there are those whose religion enslaves others, there will be war.

To protect ourselves America must resist the temptation to become apathetic and resign itself to political correctness. It is imperative that we look back on our history and learn from the mistakes made in the past. Our students in our schools must know what happened before so our beloved country does not commit the same mistakes in our future.

But political correctness fights letting teachers show what happened in the past. Politically correct educators do not want Civil War history taught for fear we might offend. And for the same reason, the history of First World War, the Second World War, the Korean War, the Vietnam War and even the Gulf War are given scant, if any, attention in our high schools today. Our schools should teach these wars not to offend, but to educate!

In the comfort of a country we call the United States we need to remember what happened in the past so that we may realize that our comfortable routine is not guaranteed except by a strong military. Whenever our country has had peace, it was merely a little space of calm in the midst of the tempestuous untamed streaming of the world. We must always be ready for danger. We must always maintain a strong defense and military.

Out of heroism grows faith in the worth of heroism. As George Orwell noted: We sleep safe in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm.

Military people understand all that I have brought to you today. For the military of the United States today is the only work force in America whose contract includes a mandatory clause that says they may have to give their life to maintain the freedoms we enjoy.

So I would like to end with part of a poem by Oliver Wendell Holmes. It carries the sentiment of a military person regarding the past, as well as those in the military of today.

It goes like this:

And when the wind in the tree-tops roared,
The soldier asked from the deep dark grave:
“Did the banner flutter then?”
“Not so, my hero,” the wind replied.
“The fight is done, but the banner won,
Thy comrades of old have borne it hence,
Have borne it in triumph hence.”
Then the soldier spake from the deep dark grave:
“I am content.”

Then he heareth the lovers laughing pass,
and the soldier asks once more:
“Are these not the voices of them that love,
That love–and remember me?”
“Not so, my hero,” the lovers say,
“We are those that remember not;
For the spring has come and the earth has smiled,
And the dead must be forgot.”
Then the soldier spake from the deep dark grave:
“I am content.”

You see, that soldier did his duty.

Thank you for your time today. Let us always continue to have these celebrations and understand what they mean not only for us today, but for the future generations of our great country.

http://www.hreonline.com/HRE/story.jsp?storyId=89090120
By Mark McGraw
Eighteen percent of military veterans recently back from a tour of duty are out of work, and one-quarter of those who do have jobs are earning less than $21,840 a year, according to a recent Department of Veterans Affairs survey.

Those numbers may be startling at first glance, but don’t necessarily paint an accurate picture, says Ted Daywalt, president and chief executive officer of VetJobs, a Marietta, Ga.-based job board geared to veterans.

The current overall rate of veterans’ unemployment is just under 4 percent, Daywalt says, citing the U.S. Department of Labor Bureau for Labor Statistics recent report, the Employment Situation of Veterans: 2007.

The veterans in the VA study were a small, “hand-picked group of 1,500, [selected] to represent 60,000 vets,” Daywalt says. The VA figures are skewed in large part by the number of veterans who have left the service and are attending college; considered to be among the “unemployed” in the VA study, he says.

Indeed, the unemployment rate of veterans is actually lower — 3.8 percent for 2007 — than the rest of the workforce, which was 4.4 percent last year, said Secretary of Labor Elaine L. Chao in a statement regarding the recent BLS report.

So, how critical is the issue of veteran unemployment at the moment, and are employers — and HR professionals — shying away from hiring veterans?

The answer to that question is “a mixed bag,” Daywalt says.

By and large, “there hasn’t been any hesitancy on the part of corporations or HR professionals with respect to hiring veterans,” says Bryan Zawikowski, vice president of the military transition division at the Lucas Group, an Atlanta-based executive search firm.

“As a general rule,” Daywalt says, “employers love to hire veterans who have separated from the military or have retired from the military,” many of whom possess an exceptional work ethic, highly developed leadership skills, have had extensive training and education, and in many cases, receive a government-paid relocation package.

Typically, organizations that hire the most veterans are those that already employ a fair number of vets, Zawikowski adds.

“At these corporations,” he says, “it is more likely that the hiring manager or even HR staff members are military veterans themselves. It is much easier for a veteran to understand and appreciate another veteran’s experience, and to translate those skills and experiences and qualifications that are relevant to positions that corporations are seeking to fill.”

Still, that’s not to say there aren’t veterans having difficulty finding employment, Daywalt says. Companies may be hesitant to hire active Guard and Reserve members, for example, fearing they may soon be called back into duty for an extended period of time.

Age and education levels may also hamper some vets when searching for jobs, says Zawikowski.
“Younger veterans with lower levels of education and fewer marketable skills have a harder time finding employment than college-educated and more experienced veterans,” he says.

There are resources available, however, for transitioning veterans as well as recruiters seeking information on hiring entry-level to executive vets — veteran-focused job board and resume databases, numerous Web sites offering HR managers tips for hiring military candidates and employing reservists, etc., says Zawikowski.

Companies and recruiters would be wise to actively seek veterans for open positions at all levels, but “need to understand what it is they are hiring,” Daywalt cautions.

“Most civilians have no understanding of the leadership and technical skills the average military person brings to the table,” he says. “Too many HR managers operate from a Sad Sack, Beetle Bailey or John Wayne movie paradigm. And that paradigm in no way represents today’s military.”

Ultimately, when looking at whether civilian companies are currently hiring — or want to hire — veterans, the answer depends on the type of veterans an organization is looking at, Daywalt says.

“If it is a person who has separated from the service completely or [has] retired, the answer is a resounding yes. The low unemployment rate for veterans supports this conclusion,” he continues.

“But if you are talking about an active member of the Guard and Reserve — the so-called civilian soldier — the answer is no,” he says.

April 22, 2008
Copyright 2008© LRP Publications

Speech by

Theodore Lewis Daywalt
CEO and President
VetJobs.com, Inc
Marietta, GA

to

National Association of State Directors of Veterans Affairs

at

NASDVA MidWinter Training Conference

4:15 pm, Wednesday, February 27, 2007
Dirksen Senate Office Building
Room 124
Washington, DC

CURRENT VETERAN EMPLOYMENT ISSUES

Good afternoon, first let me first thank you for the opportunity to come before the NASDVA to discuss employment issues facing veterans in the workforce today.

Overall, the employment picture for veterans is good. The average unemployment rate for veterans is less than 4%, which compares very good with the national unemployment rate. But there are some issues and problems that are hindering our veteran community as they enter or re-enter the civilian workplace.

These problems come from several sources.

First, with having an all volunteer military for 36 years, we now have two generations of people in this country who have no idea about what goes on in the military or the skill sets that military people bring to an employer.

As a former drilling Navy reservist who retired after 30 years of active and reserve service, and as a businessman with 28 years of significant senior level civilian work experience, I feel I can bring a unique perspective to the problems our veterans are facing. I have had the advantage of seeing these issues from the perspective of a reserve component member trying to balance a civilian career with my military obligation, and as an employer. And at VetJobs we deal with the employment issues facing members of the National Guard and Reserve on a daily basis.

VetJobs is the leading military related job board on the Internet. After nine years,

As each of you know from your work in your states, small and medium sized companies, including small municipal organizations, bear the largest strain when their employees are called up for service in the National Guard or Reserve. These employers have no legal or financial recourse for compensation for their losses when their employees are called to active service.

Traditional tax breaks take too long to be of any assistance to the small employer. That is why I strongly recommend direct cash reimbursement for the costs these employers must bear to hire temporary labor while their employee is called to service. This is just a cost of doing business if we are going to continue to use the National Guard and Reserve beyond the traditional use for which they were established.

I would also like to emphasize the concept of providing year round full health, dental and eye care to participating members and the families of the National Guard and Reserve. This would be a tremendous benefit for employers who want to hire National Guard and Reserve members. This would also be a major recruiting tool for the National Guard and Reserve. And this program is not all that expensive when compared to what is currently being provided to members of the National Guard and Reserve who are activated.

In the written testimony I provided data from studies by Business Law Reports (BLR), Workforce Management and the Society of Human Resource Management (SHRM) that clearly indicate that there is resistance by Corporate America to the way their employees are now being used by DOD. One study indicated that 54% of the companies surveyed would NOT hire an active member of the National Guard or Reserve. While the findings of these studies are abhorrent to me, as a senior executive in civilian business, the findings are also understandable.

You see, companies have a fudiciary responsibility to their shareholders and owners to run an efficient and profitable operation. Companies can not do so if they can not count on having their employees, their human capital, being readily available. And companies rightfully consider the employees to be their human capital, not DOD’s human capital. While for anyone who has been in civilian senior management this is just common sense, those making the decisions on how to utilize the National Guard and Reserve at DOD seem to have missed what Corporate America is saying.

Yet, with the BLR, Workforce Management and SHRM studies, and the re-employment of National Guard and Reserve personnel concerns being expressed constantly by all the major VSOs and even with the multitude of press articles on the subject, senior level decision makers in the Office of Personnel and Readiness at DOD seem bent on refusing to admit there is a problem. This denial of reality is disturbing.

We should take a look at why the National Guard and Reserve are being used beyond their traditional role. It comes from needing boots on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan. And the fact that recruiting is suffering. There are some ways to fix this.

In the short-term, conduct a recall (voluntary or mandatory) of retired military and/or recruit retired military back to active duty. There are several hundred thousand in this pool. I hear regularly from people in their 40s and 50s who recruiters tell they are not eligible since they have retired. These people would more than willingly volunteer to come back. This is a highly trained reservoir of talent that could be mobilized quickly if we can make a quick change in the law and the recruiting force can get the word out. This reservoir of talent could cut down on the need to activate the Guard and Reserve so frequently.

In the long-term, let foreigners join the military as a way to citizenship. This was done very successfully to meet Army recruiting numbers in the 1920s. The United States has twenty million or more illegal aliens in the United States right now. Such a move would give you the troops needed in the Army and Marine Corps, while also teaching the illegal aliens how to become good citizens, learn the language and pick up skills needed by industry. This would also address a political issue dealing with illegal aliens in the workforce.

The country and DOD needs to act quickly to rectify the situation regarding the frequent use of the National Guard and Reserve. At a press conference on January 11, Dr. David Chu, the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness, was quoted as saying: The fact that some with previous Iraq experience will end up spending more than 24 months on active duty is no “big deal.” This cavalier attitude towards Corporate America is damaging to DOD in its efforts to maintain good relations with companies. That one comment negated much of the fine work done by ESGR and VETS.

Since the announcement of the policy and its various revisions I have had the opportunity to confidentially talk with hundreds of human resource managers and senior executives with brand name companies. Uniformly, they say they can not support the way DOD now uses the National Guard and Reserve with the long call-ups. And without the support of Corporate America, the citizen soldier concept in America can not work. With all due respect to Dr. Chu, it is a big deal. DOD needs to face reality and quit denying the truth.

George Orwell once said, “We sleep safe in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm.” The American public and especially the Congress needs to understand the importance of Orwell’s comments in today’s world.

The Public and Congress needs to be supporting the National Guard and Reserve. These members are part of our front line of protection against those who would do the United States harm and deserve our full support while on active duty and when they return.

Thank you for your time.

This concludes my testimony.

I welcome any questions.

Theodore (Ted) L. Daywalt
CEO and President
VetJobs.com, Inc.
P. O. Box 71445
Marietta, GA 30007-1445
770-993-5117 (o)
877-838-5627 (877-Vet-Jobs)
tdaywalt@vetjobs.com

Chances are that when you think of career finding Web sites you can only think of a few, such as the big names Monster.com and Careerbuilder.com. However there is one, smaller, more local name that should also be on that list, and chances are that you have never heard of it. Unless you are a veteran, that is.

Vetjobs.com is a career Web site devoted exclusively to finding jobs for returning veterans and serving employers who are in need of the skills vets have. It has created such a shockwave in the career Web site industry that it has consistently been at the forefront of user polls within the Human Resources industry, winning numerous awards and accolades, not only for its business, but also its treatment of clients and for its ethical standards. When Vetjobs first launched, it was mentioned on USA Today’s front page and its staff is frequently called before Congress to testify on veteran’s issues.

Founder Ted Daywalt, of Marietta, explained the sorrowful reasons behind his decision to start up such a site.

“We began in September 1999 and [the Web site] went live at 11 a.m. November 11, 1999. Armistice Day,” said Daywalt. “I got the idea when a sergeant major down here retired from the army and got out and was basically ripped off by a career finding group. He paid them $5,000 to find him a job. At that time I had heard of several people who had been ripped off by these outfits which took advantage of people coming out of the military, never having been involved in civilian life and had no idea what was legit and what wasn’t.”

So Daywalt, an unassuming gentleman with a sharp sense of humor and a veteran himself, did what he could to solve this problem: he began his own site. “What I decided on was a site for all military veterans, all through the ranks, including spouses. Nobody was doing anything for the spouses.”

Almost immediately, Daywalt’s company got noticed. After only a few months of operation, the Veterans of Foreign Wars, the largest veteran’s service organization in the country, not only endorsed Vetjobs but also bought 10 percent of it. The VFW was begun over 100 years ago, after the Spanish-American War, to give veterans healthcare and jobs. Daywalt found it fitting that, close to their centennial, the organization chose to endorse and take an active role in supporting a job agency specifically designed to cater to veterans. Vetjobs currently receives an average of 27,000 job postings a day, with about 100,000 visitors daily.

Despite the massive backing of the VFW, Daywalt still had an uphill battle to convince employers to hire veterans. The problem, he said, lay with the lack of any draft.

“After 36 years of an all-volunteer force, you have a situation where you have two generations of people who have no association with the military and no idea of what the military does. There are too many human resource managers and hiring officials who, when they see someone out of the military, they say ‘I need someone with real world experience.’ What it was, was a misperception these guys had. They start thinking in terms of a John Wayne movie. And the military is nothing like that today. The military today is high tech. To be an infantryman today you have to essentially be an electronics engineer. Think of the technology and the skill set you need to have to do that. That’s today’s military.”

Daywalt had strong words of support for a veteran’s skills and assets for today’s job force, arguing that much of today’s economic scandals could have been avoided if a military man had been at the helm of major companies.

“One of the things a military candidate brings that anybody else doesn’t is leadership. You can teach anybody how to be a manager. Just make sure all these things are lined up – that’s management. The military teaches people how to be real leaders. As I go ’round the country speaking on ethics issues, I like to point out that when you look at Enron, most of those people had MBA’s, the result of that type of training are people like Ken Lay in Enron.  One of the first things you learn as an officer is that you take care of your troops. It would be unthinkable for a true leader to do what Ken Lay did. And yet Ken Lay was on the front pages of Forbes, [with them] saying what a wonderful guy he was. He bankrupted 18,000 families and stole however many hundreds of millions of dollars. That’s not leadership.”

Even worse than overpowering a popular perception is fighting the government for veteran’s causes. The hardest one is reconciling the needs of employers with the needs of the government. It is illegal to fire an active service member, yet, due to the needs of the current war, reservists may be called up for two year tours.

“Would I want to hire someone knowing that in two or three months they are going to get called up and I won’t see them for two years and still have to incur all the financial responsibility for them? Some of the people at the Department of Defense don’t think that is a problem, claiming that over 90 percent of those going back to Iraq are volunteers. I went and testified that they are volunteering because they can’t get a job elsewhere. A lot of employers right now will not hire people in the guard and reserve. It forces the soldier to choose between the military and civilian life. That’s why a lot of them are getting out.”

Daywalt and his employees spend much of their time running from conference to conference and from Capitol Hill to homes in the North Fulton area.

“We get called out to speak a lot,” he said. “Last year I gave 87 speeches. I just came back from a Human Resources conference in Bratislava with attendees from all over Europe. On March 5, I am one of the keynote speakers speaking on Internet security for Online Recruitment Magazine, which is the big magazine for online recruitment in Europe.”

The need to find employment for returning soldiers and their families is a continuing battle in a nation that is getting increasingly frustrated with warfare and its effects. The acknowledgement is finally being made that the military is an important part of the nation, and the need to help those who have sacrificed is finally becoming apparent. Daywalt has provided a mechanism for doing just that.

For more information on Vetjobs, visit vetjobs.com.

By BILL HENDRICK
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Published on: 02/10/08

Angie Ryan just wanted to work again.

After enduring five months of unemployment last year, the 60-year-old posted her resume on a couple of Web-based jobs boards, convinced her age would work against her.

She was wrong.

Within months, she landed a job at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as a marketing communications expert.

“I’m delighted,” she says. “Age isn’t a factor here. They wanted someone who could step right in, and I could.”

She was the beneficiary of a new federal effort aimed at warning both the public and private sectors of a looming “brain drain” that experts say will accelerate as 78 million baby boomers age.

“It’s going to cause a lot of problems and cost a lot of money to replace these people who know so much,” says David DeLong, a research fellow at the AgeLab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and author of “Lost Knowledge: Confronting the Threat of an Aging Workforce.” “They know how to get things done.”

The U.S. Government Accountability Office says 50 percent of today’s work force will be gone within five to 10 years. It’s estimated that half of the 3.2 million leading-edge baby boomers who turn 62 this year will take early retirement.

Federal and state governments are most affected, but the ranks of academe also are heavy with older workers. Doctors as well as nurses are retiring at rapid rates.

Five years ago, the notion of a brain drain and worker shortage would have seemed preposterous, says Tammy Erickson, president of the Concours Institute, a Boston-based think tank for the human resources industry.

“We’re going to have a shortage of skills and talent unless we make changes,” says Erickson, author of “Retire Retirement: Career Strategies for the Boomer Generation,” to be published next month by Harvard Business Press. “If you want to grow, you’ve got to hold on to more older people with knowledge.”

The national Society for Human Resource Management found in a recent survey that 75 percent of HR executives say the most critical challenge of American business is finding and retaining knowledge workers.

“The federal work force is older, five years or so on average, so they are seeing it first,” said Susan Meisinger, president of the group. “We’re just starting to see the bigger companies taking steps to keep older people. But it needs to be done.”

More Georgia companies are trying to get folks to delay retirement, or work part time, or come back to mentor after they retire, said Mike Haberman, 56, of Marietta, vice president of Omega HR Solutions.

“Small businesses are hurting, too,” he said. “They’re havng a difficult time replacing them. You are hearing cries of woe from all over.”

Many hospitals and doctors’ offices are taking steps to “retain the mature nurse work force,” says Jodi Weber of the Georgia Nurses Association. “There’s a lot of talk about it because of the shortage of nurses.” Other companies, such as AXA Advisors, a financial services firm, and Rollins Inc., the pest control giant, are taking steps, too.

“We want to keep the older salespeople or technicians who’re good and trusted,” said Henry Anthony, the 56-year-old vice president of human resources for Rollins.

“The business is built on relationships. It’s clearly in our best interest to hang on to people we’ve spent so much on training and developing them.”

George Diamantis, a top executive of AXA Advisors in Atlanta, said that more older workers are being asked to mentor newcomers and not “retire completely.”

At Georgia Power, some retired folks come back to work on special projects and help with training, said Heyward Williams, training and work force planning manager.

“Over the past few years, we’ve recognized this ‘brain drain’ and we’re taking steps,” he says. “We want to capture a lot of that knowledge that’s being lost.”

“There are core competencies we can’t afford to lose,” he said.

A growing recognition of the potential costs of lost knowledge has led to a proliferation of Web-based age-related job boards – matchmaking sites aimed at hooking up workers with companies that want to hire.

Such sites include Dinosaur Exchange, Retired Brains and Seniors4Hire.

Navy veteran Ted Daywalt, 58, runs VetJobs in Roswell. It’s designed to help transitioning military personnel find jobs, he said.

“Companies are losing corporate knowledge, customer contacts and corporate culture. I’ve been hollering this for five years,” Daywalt said. “And they’re starting to say, ‘Hey, we need some experienced people.’ ”

Even with the job boards, it can take time to find a job.

Rick Diguette, 53, of Tucker, quit his job as a speechwriter for state officials. He thought his experience and a master’s degree in English would make finding a new position easy.

“Over nine months, I applied for, maybe, 80 positions and had three interviews,” he said. He recently landed a job as a teacher in a local college.

“I’m not alone,” he said. “Employers need to be reminded that there are a lot of older people who still have a lot to contribute.”

Martin Suenson, who runs Dinosaur Exchange, says U.S. companies lose thousands of dollars in experience every time a 20-year employee departs.

“The companies of the Western world are facing a massive brain drain as senior employers leave,” he says. “As a result, young staff today will often lack the mentors to coach them.”

MORE JOB INFORMATION

• www.USAjobs.com
• www.Vetjobs.com
• www.DinosaurExchange.com
• www.RetiredBrains.com
• www.Seniors4Hire.org
• www.prsa.org (Public Relations Society of America)

Looking for a few good men and women for your business? Look no further than the U.S. military. Hundreds of thousands of veterans return every year from deployments and enter the civilian job market.

Veterans bring with them a strong work ethic, exceptional training, and proven leadership skills. In 2006, more than 500,000 National Guard personnel came back to the United States from overseas deployments.

Wayne Gatewood Jr., a retired Marine and president and CEO of Quality Support Inc., a personnel, management, and logistics company in Landover, Maryland, estimates that half of his 100 employees are veterans. “In jobs where teamwork, discipline, leadership, and a positive attitude are needed, I lean toward a vet,” Gatewood says.

There are financial advantages to hiring veterans as well. Companies can benefit from a federal government tax credit as high as $2,400 per veteran hired.

In addition, veterans have valuable background and security clearances that are attractive to many employers, including government contractors, security, and technology companies, according to Ted Daywalt of VetJobs.com, an Internet job board sponsored and partially owned by the Veterans of Foreign Wars.

More than 90% of military personnel have had background checks for various levels of security clearances, Daywalt says. In addition, veterans are trained to work with cutting-edge technology. Some 60% of enlisted personnel can program in at least one computer language compared with only 2% of the general population.

For more information on hiring veterans, go to www.vetjobs.com/ or www.hirevetsfirst.gov/.

July 18, 2007
Dice Rolls a Winner on Wall Street
Dice Holdings Inc. raised $217.1 million though its initial public offering on Tuesday, July 17, making the company a force to be reckoned with in the highly competitive job board industry.
“It is a high-profile move that definitely puts them on the map,” says Peter Weddle, CEO of Weddle’s, a research and consulting firm in Stamford, Connecticut. Everybody is talking about them.”
Market momentum seems to have worked in favor of the Urbandale, Iowa-based company. Dice put up 16.7 million shares on the New York Stock Exchange at an opening price of $13. During trading Wednesday, July 18, Dice shares were up as much as 15.2 percent, just shy of $15, before ending the day at $13.40.
The market’s positive reaction to the IPO represents a major success for the company, which has made a dramatic turnaround since declaring bankruptcy in 2003. Today, Dice owns a variety of popular niche job sites, including JobsintheMoney.com, Cleararancejobs.com and eFinancialCareers.com.
The company, which initially filed for an IPO with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in April, has said it will use the capital infusion for several objectives, including the repayment of $32 million in dept and to finance growth.
Job board experts say the capital will go a long way in establishing Dice as a leading player in the industry.
“It puts them in the same league as biggies like Monster and CareerBuilder,” says Ted Daywalt, CEO of VetJobs.com. “It will be interesting to see what they are going to do with all of that money.”