Honoring Marine Corporal Taylor J. Baune

I am at work today in corporate America.  Like most Mondays, the dreariness of the office borders on the comedic.  It's almost as if I might be able to look across the walls of cubicles and actually see the Wachowski brothers filming the next Matrix film or something.

However, as I am floating along in my stream of half consciousness, calmly updating Salesforce in order to keep track of the multiple ongoing initiatives in the world of corporate finance, I hear a co-worker wondering why the Flag is at "Halfway" today.  Another co-worker asserts that she hopes it is for all the animals who have drowned at the Duluth Zoo after the flooding from the last week.

As my eyes narrow, I put some text into Google and realize that Marine Corporal Taylor J. Baune is being interred today at Ft. Snelling National Cemetery.  Taylor was the 2,000th service member to become KIA in Afghanistan.  He was 20 years old, a new husband to his beautiful wife Colleen, a graduate of Andover High School in 2009, and a strong marine who placed himself in harm's way on behalf of his fellow Americans.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2159634/Marine-Taylor-J-Baune-2-000th-American-soldier-killed-Afghanistan.html

Not a day goes by when I don't think about our troops in harm's way.  I didn't know Taylor.  He was a Marine on active duty, and other than a brief week in Taqaddum in the Fall of 2006, I rarely come into contact with our Marines.  But I know what was in his heart.  All of us in uniform have it...that love of country.  The love for our families, friends and neighbors across Minnesota and the nation.

I was sad to hear about all the zoo animals that died as a result of a random weather event.  Bad news is never something to make fun of, regardless of the circumstances.   And it certainly doesn't win me any friends to be mean or disrespectful to someone else's cause, regardless of what it is.

However, I would urge all of you who have a chance to read this today to remember Taylor.  Take a moment out of your day, regardless of what you're doing, and give thanks for people like him.  He was a good husband.  A good Son.  And he was a great American.

God Bless Taylor.  And God Speed.

What does "HMFIC" Mean?

After spending over 22 years in the Army, I have found that I sometimes get caught up in the misconception that everyone in the civilian world knows how to speak "Military".  Which is, of course, completely ridiculous.

I think one of the most significant challenges we as veterans face in our efforts to fit into civilian society is our ability to translate our experience to civilian vernacular.  In order words, we simply need to learn how to talk normal!

After some limited research on the interweb(TM) and speaking to hiring professionals from across the nation, I have decided to post this quick, down and dirty suggestion guide into how to translate all that great Military experience into words and concepts that our civilian employers will understand.  Here goes!

You Know it As:	Civilian Employers Know it As:
NCOIC, Watch Captain, Petty Officer of the Watch	Supervisor, Manager, Coordinator
Commander, Chief	Division Head, Director, Senior Manager
Executive Officer (XO)	Deputy Director, Assistant Manager
Action Officer (AO)	Analyst (or Senior Analyst)
TDY/TAD	Business Travel
PCS	Relocation
OER/NCOER	Performance Appraisal
MOS/MOC	Career Field
Commanded	Supervised, Directed
Battalion, Unit, Platoon	Organization, agency, department
Mission	Responsibility, task, objective, job
Combat/War	hazardous conditions
Headquarters	Corporate Office
Subordinates	Employees, Co-Workers
Service Members	Colleagues, employees
Military Personnel Office (MILPO), Personnel Action Center (PAC)	Hunan Resources
Regulations	Guidance, policy
Reconnaissance	data collection, survey, analysis
TDA/MTOE	Org Charts, material resources, manpower

*  Courtesy of ClearanceJobs.com

A couple of helpful links for Minnesota Veterans, and for some of our neighbors in other states as well!

Military to Civilian Occupation Translator
http://www.acinet.org/moc/

Clearance Jobs
http://www.clearancejobs.com/cleared-news/138/common-military-to-civilian-translations

Minnesota Veterans Networking Group
http://www.linkedin.com/groups?home=&gid=1854781&trk=anet_ug_hm

THRIVE Veteran Employment Initiative
http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=4261584&trk=myg_ugrp_ovr

Abbott & Costello

Something I saw online, and thought it was funny enough to share...

COSTELLO: I want to talk about the unemployment rate in America.
ABBOTT: Good Subject. Terrible Times. It's 8.2%.
COSTELLO: That many people are out of work?
ABBOTT: No, that's 18%
COSTELLO: You just said 8.2%.
ABBOTT: 8.2% Unemployed.
COSTELLO: Right 8.2% out of work.
ABBOTT: No, that's 18%.
COSTELLO: Okay, so it's 18% unemployed.
ABBOTT: No, that's 8.2%...
COSTELLO: WAIT A MINUTE. Is it 8.2% or 18%?
ABBOTT: 8.2% are unemployed. 18% are out of work.
COSTELLO: IF you are out of work you are unemployed.
ABBOTT: No, you can't count the "Out of Work" as the
unemployed. You have to look for work to be unemployed.
COSTELLO: BUT THEY ARE OUT OF WORK!!!
ABBOTT: No, you miss my point.
COSTELLO: What point?
ABBOTT: Someone who doesn't look for work, can't be counted with those who look for work. It wouldn't be fair.
COSTELLO: To who?
ABBOTT: The unemployed.
COSTELLO: But they are ALL out of work.
ABBOTT: No, the unemployed are actively looking for work... Those who are out of work stopped looking. They gave up. And, if you give up, you are no longer in the ranks of the unemployed.
COSTELLO: So if you're off the unemployment roles, that would count as less unemployment?
ABBOTT: Unemployment would go down. Absolutely!
COSTELLO: The unemployment just goes down because you don't look for work?
ABBOTT: Absolutely it goes down. That's how you get to 8.2%. Otherwise it would be 18%. You don't want to read about 18% unemployment do ya?
COSTELLO: That would be frightening.
ABBOTT: Absolutely.
COSTELLO: Wait, I got a question for you. That means they're two ways to bring down the  unemployment number?
ABBOTT: Two ways is correct.
COSTELLO: Unemployment can go down if someone gets a job?
ABBOTT: Correct.
COSTELLO: And unemployment can also go down if you stop looking for a job?
ABBOTT: Bingo.
COSTELLO: So there are two ways to bring unemployment down, and the easier of the two is to just stop looking for work.
ABBOTT: Now you're thinking!
COSTELLO: I don't even know what the hell I just said!


This speaks volumes about what we're dealing with right now.  And oh by the way, veteran unemployment numbers are even worse.  I would be interested to know if someone out there has a guess as to how many veterans are no longer looking for work, and have dropped off the rolls of the "unemployed".

What are you in again...was it the Army?

My crew in Afghanistan

Having been a soldier for over 22 years now, I can't even begin to tell you the number of conversations that have begun with someone asking me a question that began something like this, "So...you're in the Reserves right?  What is that again...the Navy, or what?"  Usually it takes me a couple of moments to collect myself, give a genuine smile (not a fake one that shows my annoyance) and reply, "Yes.  I'm actually in the Army National Guard of Minnesota!"

Here's the problem.  As veterans, we've done alot.  That's not to say that others from other professions haven't, or that others contributions to society at large aren't just as critical and important.  But for whatever reason, we as veterans seem to think that what we've done is special.  And guess what?  IT IS!  The problem is that your average everyday civilian walking down the street doesn't have the slightest clue what it is we do or how we do it.  "You all get together and just shoot guns and stuff, right?"

The assumptions range in variety from thinking that we're all high tech computer war gamers who never go into harm's way, to folks who think our knuckles drag on the ground as we grunt and groan and wave our weapons about in a mad effort to terrorize the rest of the world.  Now, I know not everyone out there has a poor opinion, and not everyone out there thinks we're knuckle draggers (I would hope it's only a very select and limited few).  The problem is not those folks who actually HAVE an opinion, regardless of how misinformed it might be.  The problem is the folks who DON'T have an opinion, and in fact, don't really even think about us at all until we cross their path in everyday life.  It is at those moments that they stop, and think to themselves, "Hmmm....it's a soldier!  I forgot we even had those anymore..."

I think I've said this before, but it bears repeating.  Less than 1/2 of 1% of the population today even has a remote connection to a service member.  Family, friends, acquaintances....less than 1/2 of 1%.  That statistic speaks volumes.

There are many reasons for this, not the least of which is that our population is significantly higher today than ever before.  It stands to reason that if you have a higher civilian population, less civilians will actually know or be connected to a member of the Armed Forces.  But there are other reasons....

In Word War II, the propaganda machine was alive and well.  It was a simpler time.  Things were less ambiguous then.  We knew who the enemy was, and it was ok to hate them.  In fact, it was encouraged behavior, for both civilians and service members.  The "war effort" was an all inclusive thing, from the economy to the support for the troops abroad.   

Today, it is much more complicated.  There are 7 sides to every geo-political issue, and just as many opinions about what's going on as there are issues.  It is what it is, and we as service members have come to terms with it, and endeavored to separate our country's foreign policy initiatives from our service.  We don't serve so that we can wreak havoc across the globe.  We serve (most of us who are professionals and have re-enlisted or stayed longer than the initial 8 year service obligation) for love of our country and our countrymen.  We believe in the concept of freedom and strive to embody the values of loyalty, duty, respect, selfless service, honor, integrity, and personal courage.  

What we've done a poor job of as service members is communicating our values and belief systems, along with the professional competencies we bring with us, to our civilian population.  The old propaganda machine which made the war posters of yesteryear did not survive the complication of political activism.  Once opinions and beliefs starting significantly diverging, the art of communicating our advantages was lost.  The Vietnam War was a VERY tough time for veterans.  Our Vietnam Veterans bore the brunt of bad press created by an overindulgence of political activism that improperly targeted our service members.  

Fast forward to today.  Support for our troops returning from war is a very hip and popular thing to say these days.  Support the Troops!  Yellow ribbon car magnets, license plate tabs that support the military family, it's all the rage to be able to say you support the troops!  But there is still an unemployment rate among returning veterans that is, in some cases, triple the civilian unemployment rate.  

Enter an organization called "ESGR".  Employer Support of the Guard and Reserve was commissioned in 1972 as an organization within the Department of Defense.  Policy makers in our nation's capital began to see the effects of a close-lipped policy when it came to championing our veteran's accomplishments.  When they created this organization, they had a vision of establishing a cooperative partnership between civilian employers and their guard or reserve member employees.  By striving to educate employers about the issues facing their citizen-soldiers, they hoped to alleviate some of the stress and difficulty of deployment, extended periods of duty, and absences due to military commitments.

Today, ESGR hosts multiple events every year, from partnering with guard and reserve air units to offer things like "Boss Lift", which takes our civilian employers on a helicopter ride, to events such as "Breakfast with the Boss".   By fostering these kinds of partnerships with our civilian employers, ESGR has made significant strides toward educating our civilian population about what we do and how we do it.

We need to figure out how to take this to the next level.  We need to reach out beyond the employers to the communities as well.  By publicizing our stories, and re-acquainting the societies from which we come with our efforts to secure freedom, we will only be doing ourselves a favor.  And in the process, we might not hear questions like, "Now....what is it you actually do again?  You're in the Marines, right?"

Veterans, Fathers, and Child Custody

According to a 2002 study conducted by BYU Professor Sven Wilson, male combat veterans who were in their first marriage were 62% more likely to experience an end to their marriage than were other men.  The study cites specific reasoning, "Traumatic experiences like combat seem to have a persistent impact on the ability of people to form and maintain successful relationships."  The sad truth is that being gone from a relationship for any significant length of time changes people.  Absence, in fact, does not make the heart grow fonder. 

As a result of this statistic, many veterans who are also fathers are finding themselves at the mercy of the courts when it comes to deciding parenting time.  Our society has long been concerned about reversing prevalent stereotypical paradigms about gender roles.  Mostly, this focus has been on women in the workplace.  Unfortunately for veterans who are fathers, their plight has been ignored in favor of perpetuating the misconception that women are better caretakers of children.


In 1989, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court conducted a study about Gender Bias in the court system.    The study, which has been much debated, claimed that when fathers actively seek either primary or joint physical custody of their children, they are successful about 70% of the time.  However, as independent researchers began to analyze the data that this conclusion was based on, they began to find startlingly different information.


The truth is, when mothers request sole custody of the children, their request is granted 65% more often than the same request tendered by fathers.  Add to this the compounding effect of being away from the home for large periods of time due to wartime deployments, and veterans are typically seen by the court as "absentee fathers".   As a result, their rights as parents are often unfairly abridged. 


Of course, the Catch 22 of this situation is that the less they are allowed to see the children, the more they are required to pay in child support.  Add this to the grim prospects of finding a civilian job after returning home from war due to a veteran unemployment rate which is sometimes double or triple the rate for everyone else, and it makes for a very difficult financial and emotional experience for our returning soldiers.


In the Minnesota State Legislature, there is a proposed bill (H.F. No. 322) which would require the courts to presume that a 50/50 joint physical custody arrangement is in the best interests of the children unless specific evidence can be shown that one parent is unworthy of it.  Hopefully, this bill will receive bipartisan support and become law.  Until then, at least in Minnesota, many military fathers will continue to be unfairly discriminated against in child custody cases.

Popular Misconception

As with every generation defined by war, ours is often showcased both on the silver screen and in popular media.  Whether we like it or not, much of how the civilian population sees us is derived from what they are able to glean from the movies and shows that Hollywood feeds them.

One of the most significant differences today as opposed to previous generations is the way service members are portrayed on the screen.  In John Markert's book, Post-9/11 Cinema:  Through a Lens Darkly, he writes, "The negative depiction of war-related events is something that did not occur during WWII or Korea, but was also atypical during the highly contentious debate that raged in the public arena during the Vietnam conflict."

Among recent films about veterans and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the 2008 movie The Hurt Locker was nominated for 9 Academy Awards, and won 6, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Original Screenplay.  Unfortunately, the screenplay, the director, and all of Hollywood got the movie completely wrong.  The film is centered around a main character whose thirst for adrenaline and propensity to unnecessarily court danger with every unexploded ordnance (UXO) situation he encounters couldn't be further from the truth.  In real world situations, Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) personnel are highly risk averse from a personal standpoint.  They've become that way based on experience and professional competence, understanding intrinsically that most UXOs can be detonated or rendered inert without ever coming anywhere close to the ordnance at all.  The very concept of identifying risk and mitigating the potential threats through risk controls is hammered into their concept of operations from the very beginning.  The soldier upon whose experiences the film was loosely based would tell you the same.  Master Sergeant Jeffrey Sarver, who ended up filing a multi-million dollar lawsuit against the movies producers, would tell you that their depiction of EOD personnel in the film was ridiculously outlandish.  Yet, the movie was critically acclaimed as an excellent portrayal of the Iraq war and EOD personnel.

It is no wonder that our civilian counterparts see us as reckless, dangerous, and rabidly Type A personalities with sloppy impulse control.  They have been indoctrinated to think that way.

Adding to all of these misconceptions about veterans and their suitability for civilian life is a belief that most veterans are secretly suffering from some type of post traumatic stress disorder or other mental illness brought on by the wars' effects.  The truth, however, is that most veterans don't suffer from those conditions.  As was highlighted in the last blog post, the NBC Today show did a piece about war related illnesses and the fact that most returning veterans are actually quite normal and well adjusted.  That fact is often lost among stories of veterans who are facing difficulties, but are part of a 20% minority.

In October of 2011, the House Subcommittee on Economic Opportunity held hearings on the plight of returning veterans and their employment issues.  The hearings, led by Rep. Marlin Stutzam (R-Ind) and Rep. Bruce Braley (D-Iowa), found that there was a "disconnect between businesses, the VA Department, and the veterans themselves...."

For businesses, the ability to absorb the potential cost of turnover, retraining, and loss of an employee due to redeployment, it is difficult.  As a result, many employers have shied away from hiring their country's veterans for those very reasons.  For reservists and national guard personnel, whose livelihood depends on being able to effectively manage a civilian employer relationship with their service commitment, it is doubly difficult.  These are only some of the contributing factors for why we see such high unemployment numbers among our veterans today.

For our disabled veterans, the situation can be even more exacerbating.  Often, smaller companies simply are not willing to take on the cost of accommodating a war-injured veteran, who might otherwise be a perfect fit for the company and it's culture.

The way forward has to include a collaborative effort between the VA, the nation's employers, and our returning veterans.  Through civilian education initiatives, and helpful question and answer seminars, potentially spearheaded by groups such as Employer Support of the Guard and Reserve (ESGR) and the like, we might still be able to rectify this popular misconception about who we are.

The bottom line is this:  Our country's veterans are the most capable, professional, competent, and conscientious prospective workforce in our nation today.  What they bring to the table for a prospective civilian employer far outweighs any perceived negatives.  They are reliable, they are motivated, they are respectful, and they have an ingrained understanding of what it takes to get the job done.  Their focus and attention to detail is second to none.  We simply need to find a way to properly communicate that to our civilian employers around the country.

(Some information in this post was derived from the April 2012 VFW Magazine as a secondary source)

Resources:


Beyond the Yellow Ribbon Campaign
www.btyr.org
  
Hire Veterans
www.hireveterans.com

Employer Partnership of the Armed Forces
www.employerpartnership.org


Wounded Warrior Project's Warrior to Work program
www.woundedwarriorproject.org

Able Forces
www.ableforces.org

America's Heroes at Work
www.americasheroesatwork.gov

In the Media....

Excerpted from the NBC Today Show....

"Nearly half of employers -- 46 percent -- said PTSD or other mental health issues were challenges in hiring employees with military experience, according to a 2010 Society of Human Resource Management survey. And a 2011 survey of 831 hiring managers by the Apollo Research Institute found that 39 percent were "less favorable" toward hiring military personnel when considering war-related psychological disorders.

About 20 percent of Iraq or Afghanistan veterans will develop post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), an anxiety disorder brought on by living through extremely stressful or life-threatening events; the more tours of duty, the greater the risk of PTSD. It can be devastating if untreated and lead to depression, panic attacks and drug abuse, and can increase the risk of suicide. Veterans commit one in five of all suicides in the U.S.

Yet recent high-profile news about veteran violence and its possible links to PTSD may speak louder than realities of the illness. It’s treatable, rarely leads to violent acts and is not uncommon -- six to eight percent of Americans will develop PTSD in their lifetime.

“In the first place, most veterans do not develop PTSD. The minority that do have the same kinds of reactions of people exposed to a hurricane or a car accident,” says Josef Ruzek, Ph.D., director of the dissemination and training division at the National Center for PTSD. "

Here is the link to the full report:  

http://todayhealth.today.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/03/28/10890087-veterans-battle-ptsd-stigma-even-if-they-dont-have-it

Defining the Cipher

¹ci·pher  noun, often attributive \ˈsī-fər\

Definition of CIPHER

1  a : zero 1a 
    b : one that has no weight, worth, or influence : nonentity

2  a : a method of transforming a text in order to conceal its meaning — compare code 3b 

    b : a message in code

3  : arabic numeral

4  : a combination of symbolic letters; especially : the interwoven initials of a name 

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In our nation's history, the plight of the returning veteran from war has often been defined by the difficulties they face not only from a psychological perspective, but also from a very emotional one.  This blog is dedicated to returning soldiers, marines, airmen, and sailors who put their lives on hold and stood their ground in the face of adversity on behalf of their nation.  In many cases, they have returned home to families who love them, welcomed as heroes, and have been treated with respect.  In some cases, they have also returned home to destroyed marriages, lost hopes and dreams, and an economy and employment situation which can best be described as prejudicial against them and their distinction as veterans.

The Cipher Effect is a blog that will highlight some of the more prevalent issues that these returning veterans face, and will attempt to educate and inform a civilian population, of whom less than 1% is connected in any way to a veteran returning home from their country's wars, about who and what they are.  This blog will serve as an attempt to de-cipher the military into a language that is recognizable and available to those who might not otherwise understand.

Thanks for reading.  - Mark