GovernmentExecutive.com

Return to Article: Report: Agencies fail to track disabled reservists' complaints

• 68154
  

  Mercenary has a good point. Vets preference is a throwback to the draftee military and should be relegated to history's dustbin. These kids today are in it for all that free college money, not true patriotism and seem to be more focused on committing war crimes because the last time I checked, the war is yet to be won. The greatest generation won their war in less than four years without anyone holding their hands.

  Wilman Slume Posted February 4, 2009 5:25 PM
• 21292
  

  Mercenary, what rock did you crawl out from under. You know as much about vets' preference as a duck knows about squirrel hunting. I would be willing to bet you are a federal employee (in not too smart of a job)

  Charlie Posted February 21, 2007 3:35 PM
• 21290
  

  Wow. Such vehemence... Mercenary, perhaps it would sooth you (and Taxpayer - haven't see him chime in yet but anticipate it any moment) to know that the Federal Government actually developed the Veteran's Preference Guides because it helps them as much as the vets.

  I've been with my organization twice before as a "Green-Suiter", and for the past nine years as a civie. Each time I asked to be assigned here, despite occasionally feeling like a masochist. Okay, I must admit I love it. I have a mission that helps the Army, my country, and me. How could it get better? Well, that's for another story...

  Still, like me, many of those veterans worked side-by-side with their civilian counterparts. That's why we truly feel we deserve parity on base pay increases. The best of the military and civilians learned to work in each other's world. The difference in our missions is exemplified by mobilization and financially made up by other pays, allowances, and tax-exemptions that we do not receive; even though sometimes we also deserve them.

  Regardless of what you think, I did even more as a Green-Suiter than I do now as a civilian, and at less pay. But that is as it should be. Sergeants are the backbone of the military management system; it's first-line supervisor. Now I'm just a nine-to-five, and loving it.

  The benefit to the government comes with it hires a soldier since that soldier has often already done that job. This cuts train-up time. He or she often hits the ground running, productive from the first day. If the job is new to the soldier, they are a good consideration for employment because that soldier has a documented track performance record that can be scrutinized by the hiring authority.

  Still, back to the topic, I think it's horrendous what the government has made the veterans go through in this day and age. Of particular note are the reservists. Between pay foul-ups, medical problems, re-employment difficulties, families unaccustomed to deployment; I can't imagine what I would do seeing how the government has thanked them for serving. I did the full 20 in the actives, I doubt if I would have put up with all that as a supposed "part-timer".

  Tip off

  GovExec.com reader Posted February 21, 2007 2:48 PM
• 21239
  

  I believe the problem exists because of Vet preference in federal hiring. This seemed like a good idea up until we went to an all volunteer military! However, it is a bad idea after that. Military service is voluntary and should be treated just as any other career decision. The Congress never redid the entire pay structure for the military after the move to the all volunteer military. Nor did Congress examine and change the structure of the DoD and services to handle an all volunteer military. What we have today is a total mess relative to retirement, health care, pay, housing and vet preference in federal hiring!

  One possible way to solve the problems of tracking vet applications for federal jobs is to eliminate vet preference. Maybe we should give farmer preference to get farmers off the land were we pay them big subsidies, or auto worker preference to allow the displaced workers from American auto companies to find new jobs with the federal government, or maybe ex-commercial pilots as we continue to require the pilots to stop flying after age 60. Military do no more deserve vet preference than any of these other groups.

  Vet preference was designed to help those drafted for military service to get back into a labor market from which they we forced into the military because of the draft. Today, the vet is not forced out of the labor market by a draft but they choose to go as a career move. There should be no vet preference for anyone serving in the military that was not drafted to be there.

  This is another indication of a total lack of competence on the part of Congress!

  Mercenary Posted February 20, 2007 8:08 AM
• 21131
  

  Well, Frankenstein's monster(s) has reared its ugly head again. This is just one more of the same injustices being played upon federal workers because the Congress gave federal agencies like the Defense and Labor departments almost total autonomy over matters of federal personnel. The reserve's problem is hardly out of the ordinary. Military personnel, the injured and disabled and just about anybody else who tries to exercise specific rights under federal law are deliberately knocked down.

  This happens because the bureaucracy in these federal agencies is faceless and without accountability. The Congress made it that way. So what if some congressional representative investigates. The Congress has ignored the cries of those wronged for decades. They have shamelessly pushed away their constituents because they weren't important enough. This is just another spark that will be acknowledged and stomped out as quickly as possible.

  Robert M. Posted February 13, 2007 8:50 AM
• 21121
  

  They can't track them because they don't want to. The Labor Department is worthless as boobs on a boar hog and always has been in the handling of veterans' employment. This type of crap has been going on since after the days of WWII. The veterans (disabled and otherwise) need a separate agency of their own, managed by veterans with only veterans employed in it, and responsible directly to Congress.

  The non-vet civilians who manage veterans' services could care less whether a vet's record gets lost, etc. I know because I have been there. All the government seems to do is to promote these incompetents and reward them with more money. It is time all vets and their spouses, etc., raise so much hell that they will have to do something. They are being paid good salaries to manage these programs and all they seem to do is increase their annual and sick leave for retirement. It is time a few thousand vets stomp the halls of Congress, maybe these deadheads will get the message.

  Charlie Posted February 12, 2007 8:22 PM