navy corpsmen and the other air force. they are dressed in combat gear and dispersed among the strips of granite and bushes that represent the rugged terrain of korea. today is the 11th month. it's celebrated in other countries marking the anniversary of the end of world war i on this date in 1918. over 315,000 americans were killed or wounded and about 37 million casualties worldwide in the great war. they are celebrated as armistice day here in the u.s. it was renamed veterans day in 1954 rated the day now honors all u.s. veterans.

>> ..

>> we all know that america is a special place. i came across a quote recently

that sums it upperfectly. -- up perfectly. >> it is an oasis of goodness. help me. thank you, margaret. it's now the last best hope for the world. we know this, our military men and women know this. you served for it, sacrificed for it. we all know that america is a special place, and for that to continue a strong country be the strong economy. it needs a strong business community. it needs a strong skilled-able workforce. my message to the military community to the nation is it doesn't have to stop when you

retire or transition into civilian life. you can continue to serve your country in new vital and valuable ways. america needs you, our economy needs you. our businesses need you. there's been a lot of talk about hiring our heros to help veterans and military spouses participate in this workforce. i would say that's just a start. it's really about empowering them to lead in the workforce, to propel invasion, drive our economy and to create opportunities for so many other people. many of the industries that we saw highlighted in this video represent the future. this is where we are headed and we believe and hope and pray that our military men and women are going to help lead the way. so let's match up this great generation of talent with the next great generation of american business. if we do, if we harness our industrial might and unleash our

human talent, there's no question that america will remain the greatest country on the earth, the nation with the most resilient economy and the greatest opportunity for individual advancement and reward. this is a new opportunity for service for america's heros and there's no one better suited for the job. thank you very much. [applause] >> ladies and gentlemen, please welcome general eric eversole, rand yi -- sandy ogg. >> good afternoon, my name is pete pace. next to me sandy ogg from the

black stone group. ross brown from jpmorgan chase and you met before eric eversole who seems to be everywhere doing every thing. [laughter] >> we have about 20 minutes so we are not going to spend a lot of time in introductions. we ask each of the gentlemen to tell us about the organization and what they've accomplished. >> thank you, general. well, first of all, i consider a real privilege and an honor to be here. [inaudible]

>> to hire 50,000 veterans. you know, we feel like we still have a lot of work to do. we've been at it for two years now. we've hired about 28,000 veterans so far. and we think that the original commitment we set that we will meet and exceed. and for us it's been a very practical matter of getting it done started with leadership and that is we went to our ceo's and we have 80 different companies that are lead by excellent management teams and we said, hey, is there something we can do, and they came back to us and said, we think so. and relative to that, first one

was to ensure that we had leadership from the top. now, i know that sounds almost like a cliché, but what that has done it created permission for every one of these organizations to run hard at it. it creates that sense of permission and alignment to go. once we secure leadership at the top, then the second thing that we ask of those leaders was we need a number and we need a champion, and the number was not something that we forced. the number was something that came from them. it represented ambition. something like this requires ambition in order for it to happen, and that number was representative of that. with that number, we needed a champion. and we have a couple of the champions in the room here today. one person who without

leadership and guidance as our champion of black stone michael who is right here in the front, and i know that we have derrick blake from laquinta. these are the people who are really making this happen day in and day out, and have -- [applause] >> and so a number and a champion and then once we had a number and a champion, we knew that we needed to mobilize. our kind of theme of mobilizing something like this is to think big. we wanted to have a big bold number, but to start small and not try to overwhelm the thing. start small, meaning let's do some things, meaningful things that can build momentum and then

move fast. and so with that montra we've been able to get this initiative mobilized. i would say that the second thing that besides leadership and ambition that has been extremely important for us is the partnership that has developed with the government. people told us in the beginning that, oh, you know, if you try to partner with the government, they are going to slow you down. well, that's been exactly the opposite of our experience. and i know kurt is here from the veterans affairs. the people that are -- you know, have helped us from labor, that have helped us from dod, that have helped from veterans affairs, we got together the first time, we run a summit once a year. we got together and there was all this talk about having a warm handoff that our servicemen

needed. warm handoff, bull. what we need to do is build a bridge and what the people that were in the room have done is to build a bridge and there have been very practical things that have been delivered by kurt and the team at the va, by terry and the team at the department of labor, by stephanie and the team at dod to help us to build this bridge and -- and essentially i thought public private partnership was a cliché but it's real and it's really working and it's helping to accelerate the way we are getting this done. a big thank you to all of those people, and even bigger thank you to the champions that are here that are representative of the group that's making it happen. >> thank you for all your portfolio and companies.

>> it's a real privilege to be here today to represent jamie diamon and the commitment the firm has for veterans. there are three pillars. there are employment, education and training and housing. employment alone this year we've hired over 900 veterans at jpmorgan chase alone and over the past four years we've hired over 9,000. but probably what we are most proud of is being the leader of the 100,000 jobs omission consistent of over 200 fortune 500 companies has hired 242,000 veterans since 2011, so we are extremely proud. [applause] >> being part of that. the second pillar for our firm

is education and training. we partner with imf and work that aimy does and we focused our program on two things, one is we committed a million dollars recently for a study at different studies to facilitate success as they pursue education. i think there's going to be great lessons learned from this that we can provide back to the va and other organizations. the other are the programs that mike haney alluded to, vcpt, veterans transition program that we help sponsor that allow service members and their spouses to be certified on different -- different certifications that will afford them opportunities to be employed. it is one of them, another is program management. so we will continue and look forward to continuing to work with the ibmf and education

training. finally in housing, jpmorgan has provided 900 homes to deserving service members throughout the country. while we continue to provide these homes as they are available, we are also looking at partnerships with our public partners to help the va and others fight veteran homelessness as well as continuing to looking for opportunities to provides veterans the opportunity to own homes. in sum, i would also like to thank our public partners and the support we are receiving from them and look forward working for with them. >> thank you very much. eric. thank you. >> thank you, general. you know, we started our hiring heros program a little over three years ago, actually it's been four now for the pret --

pretty simple mission, connect them with businesses with all sizes across the country. we were going to do that praim -- primarily through events. i think that's just one aspect, the hiring events that we do. a lot of what we've done and guided by is hiring 500 heros campaign. i know you heard a little bit about today. we partner with capital one. that's going out with local communities and getting businesses of all sizes to first and foremost make the commitment to hire veterans. it start from the top down. most importantly, give them tools and resources to actually help source and retain that great talent in the workforce. so we really had the great privilege of working in communities large and small with

businesses large and small. all with the focus to helping veterans and families make transition into the civilian sector and not just find them jobs, but finding the right jobs. >> what are the gaps that remain and what are the next steps? >> we'll hear a little bit more about it today. veterans side, to sell market their valuable skills to american businesses. they essential have them but often -- there's no course in the military. that's one course. there's really the need to help servicemen understand that the value skill sets translate in a very meaningful and impactful way of business. that's one aspect way of it. i encourage industry leaders to

sell industries. the young men and women are tremendously talented but they don't know what they don't know. they are looking for real economic opportunities in this country and it's the businesses' responsibilities to let them understand that when they come to work for your business, that they are continuing their service, maybe slightly different. they're still serving this great country. those are the two gaps that i would focus on. >> thank you. >> the one gap that i'll talk to is data. being in the financial services industry numbers mean something as you might imagine. while we all in this room know that hiring veterans is not only the right thing to do but a beneficial thing to do. we believe there's an opportunity to provide more data in support of this case. and so we are going to pursue a study here soon where we will look at the retention and performance of veterans within

jpmorgan chase because what we -- i think we all know that it's beneficial. we want to demonstrate that to the organization at large by providing this data and these numbers to support that. so i think in some -- i think that we need to provide more information on the business case for hiring a veteran even though those who are veterans and have served and hired veterans know that. i think across our coalition there's an opportunity to do that. >> okay. well, i see two issues, one is accelerating hiring rate. we are off to a good start with a couple of years behind us, but with the help of miguel and with the help of eric, dos amigos, if

you will, what are the best practices, what are the things to be done to make it faster? accelerating the hiring would be number one. what are we going to do to retain them and to keep them excited and to help them develop a career, because we didn't take this onto hire people, because we have a number of businesses where we have people come and go a lot. for example, we have people that take inventory in the middle of the night at wal-mart. those people come and go. fortunately the veterans stick around, and they stick around at a higher rate than others, but you have to capture them in the right way, and so with our summit this fall, we are going to balance our efforts. in the beginning we said we were going to do one thing, which is to hire people, and we got busy doing that, and now we need to

accelerate that but with the population that we have, we have to dig in on the second issue, which is how how are we going to transition from a job into something that is a really meaningful career, because if -- if rod and the team at hilton, if they bring someone in and they get them trained up and they're doing a great job, say, running the frosk desk or -- front desk or running the whole hilton hotel, we want them to stick around and we want to continue to leverage off investments that we are making on these people. these are areas that we are focusing on. we have interesting data that we could potentially -- no, we will share with you in terms of business case, because we see each one of these veterans represent a very substantial business case. not only the skills that they bring but also they bring a lot

of other benefits that bring real tangible things with them. so in our case, we think we have the evidence now to say that it not only is the right thing to do but it's smart, it's smart business. >> thanks. you mentioned and it's absolutely true. there's a huge difference with providing jobs and careers, and to the extent we can help folks to get on a career path, that is accelerator. we have enough time left for one more question. i would ask each of you to go down the line. sandy you have the mic. if you have a transition member and had 60 seconds to give them a speech, what would you tell him or her that would benefit them in transition? >> what we did this past fall

which blew everybody away, sitting in the room -- and it's not literally this way. on one side of the room you have people representing various aspects of the government that have done great work in helping us to build this bridge. on the other side of the room you have a bunch of people representing businesses that are putting people to work. and in front of the room we had five veterans that we had hired, collectively that we had hired and you went down the row of the five veterans and practically made people jump out of their chairs. i have to get me some of that because these people were amazing to a person. i mean, one was, you know, driving a humv in iraq. and the thing that i would say from, you know, if i were

sitting in front of a veteran would be to, you know, this notion of translation of what it is that you actually bring to the party, i think that sometimes there's a little bit of shyness about what is it that i'm actually bringing that can be beneficial to this business. and i think it's important to do a little bit of homework to understand a little bit deeper into that enterprise, what is it that i bring to the party that is going to help to translate, you know, why would you hire a sniper, i thought that was a pretty cool thing. there's lots of reasons why you would hire a sniper. it's like we have to meet each other. the veteran has the skills and we don't want to see it get lost in translation. >> ross, you have 30-second e --

elevator. >> yeah, 30 seconds. whether it be the communication, how they communicate what they've done, but equally what you are interested in doing it from the lessons of those who have transitioned. >> eric, you get the last word. >> you have to own it. you need to prepare just like you prepare for any mission. you have to go out and execute and you have to do it early on. if you don't do those things, you're going to come up short and it's no different than any day in the military. own it and then execute. >> thank you each of you for your own efforts in your organizations you're doing for the veterans. thank y'all. [applause]

>> we have two kids, one 6-year-old boy and a 3-year-old girl. money was tight and christmas was coming and we weren't sure how we were going to be able to pay for christmas. it's a heart-breaking feeling for a parent. my name is clarissa. it is the best thing specially for a military who has kids. >> my big contribution is i'm the dad, i stay at home and i take care of alice, mom goes to work every day and makes the bulk of the money, but if i can go out and make a couple of hundred dollars, i can

contribute to the family. >> with uber i'm able to provide with my family. when i left my job, the next week was valentine's day and it was the first time in five years that i was able to volunteer in my son's school. being uber partner allows me to be at home in an important time. >> the convenience of my schedule. i turn my phone on and i activate myself when i choose to. [applause] >> good morning, everyone. it's such a privilege to be here with all of you. the chamber, i want to thank them for tremendous work on hiring heros. no more important program in the country and also the amazing

work that president bush and laura bush doing on in transition. all the remarkable leaders that are doing what they can to take care of those who take care of us. when i worked at the white house, one of the things i loved to do most, i didn't do often because the hours aren't particularly family-friendly. at night, sometimes very late on the weekend take a run in the mall, one of the great running routes in the world, partly because i'm getting old. it's always a great reminder of the people who built the country. part of what i enjoy doing is reminder of those who built this amazing country that we have the privilege to be in. we won the lottery. of course, you see the general who against all odds defeated tyranny and commander in chief that saved the union. you're reminded that there's

tens of millions of people that stood by them that made everything possible and so i think that continues today and will continue tomorrow. they'll never let us down, and for all of us who have an opportunity to help them when they're done serving, there's no more important job. and so we at uber are excited to play our part. the video spoke to which started last september with guidance and support of many military leader and our goal back then was to we would bring 50,000 veterans into the platform. we are almost halfway there already just in a few months. we expanded this to military spouses and military families. what's exciting about the video that spoke to that is the opportunity that provides. for those who haven't used uber, it's a technology-form, app

basically and a driver will arrive within a matter of minutes. over 70% of the people in the u.s. have access to it. first of all, we're all about serving cities. and you see with our driver partners that's really what draws them, is variable to deliver someone home safely. they can take them to work or community college. they're able to take someone to therapy at the hospital. they get a great nourishment out of that. they obviously provide a terrific service. when we hear from them as to why they enjoy uber, first of all it's a way to reconnected to your community. you get to meet people.

you get to see new businesses that have propped up. we are pretty unique that we are a technology company but we are not just up in the clouds, we are in the cities. veterans really enjoy that opportunity to come home and serve, but also it's a great transitional job. so a lot of people come home, they may go back to school, they may be searching for what their next career is going to be, maybe interested in starting a business, they can get on the platform, veterans love to drive and within a few days they can get on the road and make money but completely on their own terms. there's really nothing in our economy. there are no hours, you can drive or not at all. you can drive eight hours, one hour, three hours, it just doesn't matter. you basically turn that app on and you turn itoff when -- off when you want to. it's a terrific opportunity and we are so thrilled to play our

part in providing it. what's interesting is we hope veterans end up driving with us for a long time full time. it's a remarkable bridge that we are so excited to be a part of to allow this opportunity and we have already here in the dc over a thousand veterans, in the la area over a thousand veterans. i think a lot of people uber is still something young people use on the weekend. we have over 20,000 people driving right now. there's no company in the last few years that's put that many people in an income producing opportunity. we have 22,000 in los angeles, over 24,000 in san francisco. so these are huge numbers. veterans are also coming in because all these people are going somewhere. veterans have a great for small

business owners. they are working hard. so those people the veterans are driving, are going to local restaurants, retail establishments, local businesses and spending money and helping the local economy. you saw some of the stories there. it's remarkable. we have a partner name mike who served in the u.s. army and came home and someone he came close to died in car accident. he want today drive people at night rather than endangering themselves and others. it's an amazing thing for people under 25 now, we know this from a research, there's been a behavioral change. they don't think about drinking and driving. why would you? someone is making that happen.

it's these amazing veterans. you heard from teresa who is a military spouse in seattle who for the first time ever -- she used to be a restaurant manager. never volunteered in her kid's school. she was able to do that for the first time because of the opportunity the platform provides. lived in ohio, was a telephone operator, had to move to a warmer climate for health reasons, came to charlotte, but he's the hand-controlled vehicle, which is allowed in platform, and now he drives. it's a way to get out who are stuck at home. it's a great way to break down the barriers for people with disabilities. we have a veteran who drives in the uber platform. he has three daughters and a dj. he has a lot going on. he's got prime business, which

is spins disks at night but he has three girls and he wants to be able to see them. he can log on for a couple of hours, log off, log back on. it's a very powerful, i think, economic engine that really works maybe better than anything for veterans as they are trying to figure out what they are going to do next. we are going to continue this commitment, we think we can make a lot more progress. and hopefully we can have you spread the word that this is an opportunity. again, this maybe something -- we have a lot of entrepreneurs. maybe a lot of people that say i'm just going to do it for a few months. and so there's nothing that our employees are more passionate about than uber military. it's what gets them up in the morning, so many brilliant engineers and people who run our cities are focused on, which is

how can we spread the word, how can we build this program to something that becomes a guaranty so that when veterans that served us there's a guaranty they've got this opportunity. and in the bargain, they will be doing something great in the city, less people die in the city, cut down on distracted driving deaths, they are going to help small businesses, bring less cars on the road. so we are eager for your advise, if you have ideas for us about how to run the program better, to spread the word, we are all ears. we are hungry for partnerships out there. if you have ideas in that regard, we would love to sit down and talk about them. don't be shy to let us know. we are trying to build a business and we are very focused

on that. in terms of uber military, nothing is more important to us than making sure we are standing by veterans, providing opportunity and providing the kind of service that they and their families needs. we appreciate your time today and look forward to do road ahead with all of you. thank you. [applause] ♪ ♪ >> good morning, everybody, thanks for being here. my mother told me many years ago don't follow todd. this is an amazing crowd and an organization to be part of and the efforts that are going on

right now are really commendable and timely. i'm retired u.s. army general, spent my life as a kid in the military and spent 30 years in uniform and been in business for the last 10 years and had the honor for serving with veterans and then in civilian having a great opportunity to hire veterans. it is a wonderful, wonderful addition to any team. i'm with a great team here. justin constantine. >> obviously we focus on employment opportunities for our wounded veterans and caregivers, [inaudible] >> in september we are heading out and i also have my own

business. >> i'm karen hyland, i'm a lieutenant commander in the united states navy reserve. i work for bp america, i'm an iraq war veteran and delighted to be here. >> i'm pete chiarelli. i did not run the army. it happened twice, you don't want to correct the president of the united states but i just want to make that clear. i was former vice chief staff of the army and i currently run a non-profit one mind that's trying to get at the biological cause of brain injury, posttraumatic stress. >> folks, thank you very much, our objective is to finding

talent and retaining talent for business. i would like to start with you if i can, pete. in your research and efforts in one mind, can you dispel some of the myths and the stereotypes that are out there so we can set the record straight in terms of pts. let's focus on pts and what that means on business. >> i'm very proud of the generation of warriors because those who believe this is an injury of this generation of warriors is absolutely wrong. nothing can be further from the truth. it's been with us since war was fought. it's a good thing but at the same time it's a double-edged sword. there's a believe that there aren't evidence-based treatments. nothing can be further from the truth. jw morgan chase had my speak to a group of mid-level hr people,

and when you asked them the question or post the question to them, do you believe anybody that's deployed has posttraumatic stress, you see the heads, yes, yes, yes. i will say, you know, 8% of the population will have post traumatic stress at some point in their life. 8%. so as admiral said today the numbers aren't that great in the armed forces. you think by not hiring vets you can escape having anyone from having post traumatic stress, i promise you you have 8% of your work population has it today. you probably aren't getting them the treatment because your insurance company probably doesn't cover post traumatic stress in the same way that the military is ensured that these people, those who are willing to come forward, get the treatment

they need. so it's a real myth that you can avoid this. it is everywhere and what we really need to do is understand it, we need to get better diagnostics so we can separate it from the other depressions and type of invisible wounds we have out there and get to the root cause of it. i would kind of say, though, you know, people need to understand that we are so far behind in understanding it as we are not as far along as we are with the other diseases of the human body, and that's what my organization is trying to do, is to move from 1930's and catch up with the rest of medicine and understanding and get a good diagnostic and treatments for post-traumatic stress. >> in your work do you see employers, i would call

mid-management level, hr, folks who are on board, do you see the discussions of pts coming up as a matter of routine or that's something that's not out there as frequently as we might be concerned that it is? >> it comes up in a number of ways. it's particularly important to me as someone with pts and speaks openly about it, i mention for the wounded veteran caregiver programs, we have -- you said, one day-event where we have a workshop for the veterans and caregivers and then networking event in the afternoon. duo have one-hour long workshop for employers. we are lucky we have margaret as part of our team. she's a clinical psychologists. we talk for an hour. [inaudible] >> we have received great feedback.

a lot of the time -- some of the folks of the audience are veterans themselves. they know what we are talking about. a lot of employers, hr folks, this is the first time they've heard from a veteran or a warrior or psychologists or both of us at the same time talking frankly about pts and brain injury. and it's so great to have this quick forum to get statistics out there. 8% of us in america have pts. that's 24 million people, you know. every year 3 and a half percent of folks have pts. that's 8 million people in one year. compare that to who knows what the exact stats, 500,000 of us with pts. 500,000 versus over 12 years compared to 12 or 8 million in one year. so we get a chance and what i do

see love opportunity to educate themselves because they realize, wow, we are treating veterans differently. >> what are you guys doing to bridge the divide that's been described between the military inside in terms of understanding and maybe even the understanding more importantly? >> well, i -- from personal experience, i can tell you that when i realized i was deploying, obviously i had to tell my family, i called my boss immediately and just by dumb luck he happened to be a retired navy captain and understood the language very well and understood what needed to happen. i was able to tap in our hr system very quickly who understood the law but more importantly understood the spirit of the law and did everything they could to help me and my family transition to the active duty life and then for me to transition over to iraq, and when i came back, again, they

went by the letter of law and spirit of the law, even more so, they wanted me to take as much time as i needed, as i could. i chose poorly and come back to work four days after active duty orders. but i knew at every turn that i could tap into our resources, to both formal ones and informal ones. and i think that's because of the culture that the company i worked for bp has, which is one team. everybody is in it together and you can turn to anybody for help or turn to anybody to offer help, and it was very, very beneficial for me to know that i could do that if i wanted to. i chose not to for quite some time. it took a while for me to come to terms with my experience, of

my employment, and i dealt with my family first but i took the opportunity when it presented itself to inform my boss, all my bosses and colleagues that i was actually really struggling and that i was suffering from pts. and like most veterans, there's a fear factor around admitting that to yourself and others, and the support that i received from the company was astonishing. i'm very fortunate in that regard. my great wish is that every veteran has the same experience that i had because i do realize that it's unusual. but i think it goes back to the culture in our company where everybody matters and everybody is part of one team. i recognize similar traits. >> you're blessed. >> very lucky, yeah.

>> talked about the stereotypes that business and the civilian workforce might hold for the military, military members. i would like to kind of talk about that or if you all can share with us the personal perspectives of some of the stereotypes that you've seen, you've experienced as service members transition. justin, you want to -- >> sure, yes, sir. one of the stereotypes was that corporate employers out there feel that those of us coming out of the military, we might do good work but are good to following orders. that's further from the truth. we are very fortunate in military in particular, everyone hopefully knows that we train our troops and make it happen. i would say from my experience in iraq, leaving marines there, whether it was another officer or talk to go one of my noncommission officers, we could

be on a mission talking to friends because we couldn't see during the day and we start receiving fire. i could turn to the sergeant and say, what do you think we should do. he would quickly come up with a strategy, refine the one we had, identify how much longer we should stay there and the route home. we accomplished the mission. that's invaluable. that's not doing what you're told, understanding whether you're ceo or supervisor or whatever and making it happen. if anyone thinks we just do what we are told, we are good at taking orders but taking initiative is very important. >> that's true. >> i think that one of the great stereotypes that i've encountered in this company and out in the general world is that veterans or members of the military are robotic, and that

we do just follow orders. that couldn't be further from the truth. we choose to do this because we have a great passion for the service and we do that through remarkable team work and. we are not robotic, we are free thinkers, we are able to think on our feet, i believe that general eisenhower said something along the lines like plans are useless and planning is essential. that's absolutely true. we are flexible. we are able to flex to different situations, sometimes better than, i think, the average better civilian can and there's a belief that everything is robotic, we all think the same way, we all feel the same way and that's actually not true. i would offer that even when i had my uniform on, those differences are celebrated among

ranks and that's how you get things done as a team. when companies embrace that, you really see people flourish and succeed. >> absolutely. sir. >> karen is still my stereotype, but let me build on that a little. [laughter] >> one of the things that i have seen in moving into the civil sector is is that one of the thg that is make people think we are robotic is we dwell on trying to improve on just everything we do. you know, i really like going to the national training center and having a good day against the operational force and winning a battle, but we would sit down in an after-action review and take five minutes talking about the good things we did and hour and 15 minutes criticizing as to how we could do it better and quicker and faster. that's what i see -- that's part of robotocism that we ought to

try to import into civilian business. more often than not, i see a tendency to spend all the time about the great success you've had and very little time to taking the opportunity to say, how can we do this better, what are the changes that we could make to make us better than we are today. >> absolutely. in my experience in this love-hate relationship with general councils. as a matter of routine you look at a position description. you're looking for very specific skill sets, you want veterans to be job-ready upon arrival. they may be job ready but 70% there because of foundational of character.

let's hire someone who has magnificent talents. we can get them job ready. we can spend the money to get them job ready. kind of in conclusion, what would y'all fix moving forward in you were king or queen for the day, ceo, president of the organization in terms of trying to dispel stereotypes, clearly there has to be element of time, what would you try to institute to try to fix those things? any immediate thoughts? >> i'll just throw out there that if there was a way for corporate america-because i think there's a myth that will aren't -- what people do in the military is not good in the private sector. he did. say you're -- [inaudible] >> what good does it help in hotel, you have a responsibility

to manage budget, good team building skills. and then also we have, you know, a lot of education courses going on in the military. a lot of the folks have percentage wise started secondary education in the civilian sector. if people could understand how robust we are, that would be a great start. >> thank you. karen. >> i would ask that people not label all veterans as people looking for a handout, people who expect something in return for something that we all did voluntarily. and i think that there's a very broad brush painted that way and i would implore people to remember that every veteran is unique. we've all had unique experiences. we've all been part of something that's part of the greater good and done something in the team

atmosphere but that we all have unique kill -- skill sets and to run with it, if you will. don't see veteran group as a large block. see us as individual people and see what we can do for you. >> well, i would really like to dispel the myth of everyone who comes out of the military has posttraumatic suppress or brain injury, nothing can be further from the truth. the majority of people get stronger by the experience of what they've gone through in iraq and afghanistan and don't have these problems. that doesn't mean we can't take the focus off of helping those who need our help. that's -- that's a for sure. and if everybody in here would go back and ask their hr person or senior vp or whoever to put together a little point or briefing that anyone in their company what had any kind of problem with any of the

depressions, post traumatic stres, whether or not their insurance covers the treatment for that in the same way that the military takes care of soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines, coast guardmen, i think you're going to find a surprising fact that that is really not the case. it's an important thing, that we make sure not just in the military but in civilian society as a whole that when people have some of the invisible wounds that they can get the help and treatment that they need. >> i would suggest that we all, and i know we do, hire a vet. it's good from the bottom line. i think this makes a lot of sense for us. folks, any final thoughts before we depart, any comments? wonderful. see you.

thanks. [applause] >> ladies and gentlemen, please welcome shon manasco. [applause] >> everyone is getting up and clearing the room. that's not a good sign. [laughter] >> so i don't know about you but this conference for me has not only been inspiring but also encouraging because for some of us who have been part of this activity for the last four or five years it started off fragmented and to see coalitions that are forming, i'm really encouraged about the future. hello, my name is shon man affecto. --

shon manasco but today i have the opportunity to being part of a great team and that's usaa. any members out there? [cheers and applause] >> great, as you know ussa was formed by the military and hiring military has been a practice standing. you all seen the commercial, at least i hope you have, we know what it means to serve. when you make bold statements like that you actually have to walk the talk. if you were to take a stroll with me down the hallway at any location and talk to employees, this is what you would learn about their lives is that one and four have worn a uniform or the spouse of someone that has. one in four. as someone who has worn the uniform myself, i can tell you the subject martha we are talking about, it's personal for me, and given our commitment to

veterans, i will tell you that it's personal for the organization. now retention is a tough topic and we talked a lot about it here today. hiring, we have to start with making the right hiring decisions. make no mistake. it's all about connecting and developing. companies that do that right are going to be the ones that succeed, and that's what we need them so very much to do. so if it's all right, i'm going to take a few minutes to talk about one of the thousands of veterans at usaa and bring this story and talk about my teammate morgan. hopefully we have morgan up here maybe not. it's a great picture of morgan. [laughter] >> maybe we will find it. but let me tell you a little bit about morgan. before joining usaa morgan was a

standout in air force. go back to 2005 and morgan was a young enlisted air men who had future ahead of her. she excelled and she took on a position that the national security agency. itover the next few years she dd exceedingly well and rose to the ranks. 2010 came around in her turn to deploy and destination was bagdad, iraq. so if you remember back at the head lines in 2010 it went something like this, bagdad bombings, americans killed in the green zone, car bomb kills 100. it was a tough time to be in iraq. not exactly dc in the summer time and morgan was there and

saw it all. during her seven-month stint morgan witnessed it firsthand. she finished her deployment and a year later she got out of the air force and it left a mark on her. if you talk to morgan, she would tell you that she had a really difficult time reintegrating back into the normal world. she moved from job to job and never really had a place that she could call her own. ..

the good news is bad and 2013 while at a job fair morgan's trajectory took a turn. she met a u.s. aaa i.t. recruiter and at the time usa was looking for a few good men and women to join the new program that had been developed in concert with local colleges and the texas workforce commission. the program is called veterans for i.t., or that's it for short. over 200 people applied for this 22 week long training course that was designed especially for

warriors and transition to develop the skills needed for them to be a job a software developer. 22 people were selected. they joined usa as full-time employees and each week during their training was the equivalent of one semester in college. one semester focused on being a job developer. all 22 people graduated and they are still employed with "usa today." and i'm even more excited to tell you that we have a class that currently forms. we have 28 students in that class. they are all doing quite well and i fully anticipate that they are going to be graduates of that program and will join fellow developers in our i.t. shop. so at the end of the day when

morgan was selected and she joined this program, she started to flourish, because she was learning something new. she was surrounded by people that had similar experiences that she had. she was also working for a company that had a true mission that she could connect personally with and a company who she was proud to work for and that was caring. now morgan if you talk to her she says whenever she thinks about it, she gets emotional. because that sense of confidence that she had lost, well it had come back. this is a picture of the first graduating class of this program and there is the class leader, morgan. i love this dog nico, front and center. so she has done exceedingly well

and she is not alone because others are doing exceedingly well in this program. what worked for morgan was the fact that she was doing something meaningful. she was again surrounded by people that have the same kind of experiences that she did and it was just the lift that she needed to get back on track. now, at this point morgan is employed. she has graduated from the program. our work here is done, right? it's really not. remember we were talking about retention here so even at u.s. aaa when i sat back and looked at the numbers veterans still turn over more than any other population. here is what we have learned. we have learned that again not only do you have to make the right decisions but you have to

connect them to each other. now this vet-it program is one of the ways in which employees at usaa and veterans can connect with each other. our most popular is a network called that net. it's designed specifically to connect veterans and spouses. if you are a part of that network you get access to career mentoring. you have access to team teambuilding activities and learning events and it's really quite impactful. in a recent conversation i had with morgan because i matter on the very first day and i'll tell you she was very different woman right now. so i talked to her recently and she said she is enjoying her job she feels like the work she is doing is meaningful and she is looking for other jobs at usaa. and you know what, i'm fine with that. this is where most companies get it wrong. their focus just on the hiring but they are not focused on

retaining. so, if morgan who has been a successful software developer can go on and take other roles in the company and other veterans can do what she has, our organizations are going to be far better off. now, this is a difficult challenge and all companies today are equipped for it by what i would argue is companies that are successful can't -- can't team together and help others and that is what i think this conference is really all about. now, we believe that successful transition again is about retention, because the more people retain the less candidly we have to hire. we have proven we have to hire so let's focus on retaining. i would argue it's not just about the job, it's about veterans finding the right place

for them. so not just about the job but finding the right fit. i always ask myself the question could we do more? and the answer is yes. the question is, can you all do more and i dare say the same answer is true. as gerald macarthur once said no good plan ever survives, first contact with the enemy. there's a lot of great planning going on. there's a lot of data we can analyze and that's important work but make no mistake what i fundamentally believe in we believe is the company that allows their employees and their veterans in particular to learn about their organizations and then follow their own interests and attitudes and give them the flexibility to go. that's going to be the key for success. at least what i would tell you is it's one of the keys toward

success at usaa so here's what i challenge you to do. motivate your recruiters to go find the morgan's out there who are seeking their place in the quote unquote normal world. hire them. connect them not only to each other but connect them to the organization. develop them. and then watch them flourish. make it personal for you and your organization. that's what we tried to do. and when that happens, they, like morgan, can declare mission transition accomplished. thank you. [applause] ♪ ♪

♪ ♪ >> i hope that's not me. welcome back everybody. we are talking mission transition, hiring our heroes and magnifying your impact and i want to introduce you to our panelists and then we will jump into her interview. far on the other side here is barbara carson. she's the acting associate administrator for the veterans business development at the u.s. small business industry. it's nice to have you. she was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the united states air force. on her graduation day and she served as an intercontinental ballistic missile crewmember and

she's an evaluator for the peacekeeper icbm force while she served on active duty. she earned her master's degree in management from leslie university in cambridge massachusetts in 1998. she left active duty and joined the u.s. air force reserve and earned a second special public affairs officer where she is currently a colonel. she is with the sba were she pursues they officer training to promote policies and programs to support veterans small businesses. it's nice to have you with us. vivian greentree's neck to her, dr. greentree i should say. she joined as a senior vice president and head of military veteran affairs in february of 2014 and in this role she created first day to salute which is a companywide military engage them but strategy to provide the military community with access to career

opportunities and best in class education resources while offering premier business solutions to veterans owned businesses. before she joined she helped found blue star families the largest support organization in the country. it's nice to have you with us. >> you can just say my name. >> i want to give everybody a good sense of the context of our panel before we start our conversation. craig is a global service delivery and cheaper german officer. at usaa where he and his team are responsible for strategy and consulting procurement delivery enabling all internal business customers to better develop and implement and manage all other third-party relationships. he enlisted in the coast guard in 1984 and was able to have a wide variety of roles and experiences in his four-year career there. he joined usaa in august of 1997

bringing with him 10 years of information services engineering and experience so you know who is on our panel. let's get right to it. barbara let's start with you. what are some specifics on what the sba is doing to help veterans interested in small businesses? >> i would love to do that. i think you heard multiple speakers say the word entrepreneurial and i'm listening for it. i know i heard it. i'm very grateful that small business administration has partnered with the department of defense and the transition assistance program because there are service for military members and their spouses who can get a job. you can go to school where you can make your own job and that has been the choice for 27,000 people who have gone through what we offer business transition. there was something i would like to amplify. the transition assistance and we use the terminology, and what does it mean? the means to the minute they

walk in the door they are eligible. it's the best when you start thinking about what's next in the beginning of your military career. entrepreneurship takes a long time to plan to do well so quickly i will tell you what it does. capacity building, training them on what it takes to help them make the choice and learning what they must have in place before they do that. second is access to capital, getting money. i have partners in this room and financial institution's and the bank will take a bigger risk on veterans that and -- and military spouses. and finally we find opportunities for you whether that's federal procurement or supply-chain corporate partners that we have here or going back to main street in joining your community and a farm, family-owned business or franchise. this is something the sba is engaged in right now. >> what is usaa doing and what

are some of the challenges in the transition? it's really hard. it's a completely different mindset to be and entrepreneurs. what does usaa do for those workers and making a shift? >> we clearly want to do more. i think shon gave you great example of what we can do from the hiring side but from the procurement site i'm constantly looking for small businesses that have businesses that can align with usaa and a lot of what we talked about here today small business owners that have the same character and willingness to serve continued to serve through usaa so finding the right people to connect the procurement organization like the small business administration and minds of those sources is very hard to do. that's where we are at working with the rosing network and professional businesses trying to get into these networks where the small businesses and entrepreneurs live.

another thing we want to do is help build entrepreneurs as well. so i'm actually -- somebody mentioned the american corporate partners earlier. i'm on my third mentorship right and the gentleman i'm working with is a young enlisted guys he was 18 months out so four-day deployment roadmap peacemaking ahead. it's awesome that everything we are talking about is a mentorship is not about going to find a job. it's about starting your own business and i am at a loss almost to do that. by either connecting to the right places where you can take the passion and skill and go develop it so whether that's a bunker or other excelerator software that can help them strive and doesn't private organization come back and procured a resource with them afterwards. >> i was just going to say craig i've got some resources for you. and i won't take too long, i promise that in every community

sba is bear on everything from marketing to how you differentiate yourself and legal advice so that's where you fit in. >> first data has been leaving the charge with coalition business which is the first of its kind national platform that supports veterans and military spouses by helping them through entrepreneurial education and training. small business products and for commerce and supply-chain and it was built upon much like the 100,000 jobs program who wanted to hire veterans and military spouses bringing companies together. many of whom are represented in his room. we would like many more in this room see represented. we are certainly represented very well hiring our heroes usaa and sba are founding members which allows us to say that we

will provide unparalleled and unprecedented access to education resources and training to veteran and military spouses and businesses. >> we have a challenge because clearly there are lots of ways to provide an interest in providing training and education but where have you seen the hurdles and what are you doing to get over those hurdles? >> i am way out of my league on this comment but the whole transition which i think someone mentioned earlier today as well, when someone self declares they want to be a small business owner or an entrepreneur even they don't even know they want to be a small-business owner yet, they have an idea so where can i start to think about how i do that, access to capital, access to excelerator or am i just going to sell my idea to a private company in san notch is coming with a job i'm coming with an idea. what we are trying to do at usaa

is create those opportunities. it's now into innovation -- innovation. if we can't use them ourselves at usaa we have a supplier network that is rather large and had we offer them up to our suppliers as well? >> what kind of pressure cannot be put on suppliers and is a challenging conversation? is an easy conversation? >> i had a great conversation just today. we have seen a entrepreneur. these are great people that companies want to bring into their supply chain to do business with so we are asking corporate america to be a good citizen like those you are about to higher. when i had a call to action and i said what can you do i will tell you what you can do. you can pay your vendors within 15 days of getting a valid invoice from them. that would show your commitment back and he accepted that challenge. we need pathfinders like this

and corporate america. that's one of the conversations we had and i'm already seeing results. >> is there an argument beyond being a good citizen that you can point to, your supply chain and say this is a really brilliant business decision that's going to help them make a lot of money? >> i will talk about first data as a supplier. when general roland declared we were going to hire 30% of all new hires i turned that to our supply-chain and said not only do i want you to do it, i would like you to do that as well not because you are a supplier of usaa but -- and i found overwhelmingly on most every supplier we worked with said we want to do that as well because we see the value of doing that but then the question was how to weigh doing it? so much over the last couple of years has been about teaching

people how to higher veterans and their spouses and now we focus on retaining them in their careers. now we are moving into the other part about bringing -- as well. >> we have on any given day 6 billion clients in 70 countries who use their products and services to transact, 2000 transactions per second so leveraging that network and leveraging the resources and access to capital from our coalition partners supply-chain opportunities like with usaa and walmart we know that the supply-chain across the country is something that veteran entrepreneurs and military spouses are very interested to explore but they don't know how to go by. bring bring everyone to the table to veteran upper nurse -- entrepreneurs that need resources to training a network and mentoring with the companies non-profits and federal agencies

went to dislike the next wave of the hiring thing. we know from sba statistics that 25% of servicemen and women transitioning out want to be entrepreneurship. we want to do everything we can to engage them wherever that is they want to be. >> it sounds like navigation is a challenge as well. the knowing and the actual doing. what are you doing to help people who are transitioning is a big life change anyway and then trying to transition to another big life change. what does the sba offer? >> transition to military families and partners is a big part. getting the word out is the biggest thing we need to do. i think there are businesses out here and military members that don't know we save $8.6 million on loans to veterans and

military spouses are eligible for those too. i'm counting on partnering with them to make that connection. those of you who don't think they care about us i guarantee you will run into a -- he does and he will have heard this today and you will be able to connect them. that is what i need from you. >> would be finding is the best strategy in terms of public and private partnerships to make this happen? if you could completely write the book on how to do it where d.c. the gap and what would you recommend be changed? >> you know it's the mission of the coalition for better veteran on business but access to and are now training and small business resources and opportunities in commerce and supply chains in the business to model. reaching that critical mass will be the next great thing that we do for this next greatest

generation of veterans and their families. >> i think we need role models. >> how the main? >> not the folks who join organizations and advisory groups, though i think that's important that we need role models of young enlisted folks, men and women who have failed out of college and got into the military and gotten their license squared away and gone on to do something where the people can say wow they have done it and i can do a too. i don't think we communicate that enough around our industry. you are not going to be a senior vice president tomorrow. you are not going to leave the military and go to earn this title. they want to work for but they are looking for role models who can connect me to resources and you can prove to me that it works. i may fail and that's okay and that's part of it but there are

some other enlisted person in the military and i can do a too. maybe that's part of our challenge. >> what is the platform for telling those stories? as you know there is much maligned media at time. let's be honest, honestly the stories were people achieve great things that are while models i could not tell that to anybody and get it on tv tomorrow. you tell me something that is gloom and doom and ended badly i would say we the newscast with that so how do you tell those stories? world model type stories is what can motivate people but they're also hard to get our platform. >> i would love to show you and small "businessweek" will be the first week in november this year. we are partnering with public broadcasting system and with imd effort to get the stories out.

whether you are a patron of the business are on the business i need you and your community to know where that is so we can become aware of it, elevated and open up more for them. also many of you in the military have seen the hometown greeting hi from wherever i am in the world. we are going to try to do that for small businesses. it's a little snapshot so it will lease get people curious about what they can learn about and then build and to the pier to pier which is an incredibly powerful mentoring. is preferred over commander above, lower entrepreneurship. we want to see somebody just like us who has gone ahead and done it already. >> what are you seeing in retention? what are the talents of there are and what is working? not everybody at once. >> i think that's the next level of conversation. it's not about to say we are going to give you this opportunity. it's saying that all the way

through and again i think that's a challenge. >> inside the corporate world it's hard to take someone who has entered usaa at a lower manager level job because we wanted to work for usaa and they i assume they're going to be able to just run right through the chain. and then two years say it's not working out or you haven't developed the way we expect to develop. that's on us as leaders inside the organization to take these highly talented people and use their skills appropriately but it's also an indication of a poor h.r. function we have a lot of times. i don't want it to be special for only vets and spouses. we should be able to do that within our own organization we have to be more proactive. >> we know for small business owners on the hiring side no one wants to hire military spouses

more than i do because i'm a military spouse. that's our team feels. it's the same as small veterans owned businesses. if a flagstone hires 50,000 and small as this is higher one at the same. it's the 50,000 veterans being hired and military spouses. again no one is more committed to that cause than a fellow veteran or a military spouse. i'm going to return retention into business mortality and how long a business lives. veterans are 45% more likely to start a business and then they completely flip the percentage on how likely they are going to be successful five year sow. they are 65% more likely to be be -- then a civilian counterpart so it's where you belong. seven out of 10 jobs are made in small business. veterans military spouses have the skills and values as

president bush said to create opportunities for themselves. imagine how much more successful they will be when we bring to bear the capital training education resources from the leading companies in the country targeted towards veteran and military spouses. they are that much more like he to raise that percentage and start the american dream. >> and going back to your idea of role models. what a great statistic to know. i appreciate it very much. a big thanks to our panel. >> thank you. [applause] ♪ ♪

♪ ♪ [applause] >> a special round of applause for the wonderful team at this incredible event. [applause] i see my clock is ticking and i know everybody is probably hungry for lunch. i thought just for fun everybody request your uber at the same time. [laughter] my name is jim ray.

and the co-founder of passports. those of you that don't know who br we have a technology platform that matches veterans and civilians and two great jobs in the trucking industry. we also have the great honor are fighting the technology and the leadership for the hiring our heroes trekking track. the trucking track mission is to get 150,000 veterans hired in the trucking industry. five years, minimum. now i have a reliable source that this is the first time here and when eric asked me to present the idea of what he would like me to talk about at this conference the idea of selling the infantry to veterans , your industry does a great job and i think would be great for you to tie everything together and help everybody go out in the world and sell your industry and i want you to talk convoys. we can even talk about -- that's

a rubber duck there've you don't know. i was like i'm not sure i want to do that. i have my biggest partners in the room and they are going to kill me. this is not the way we want trucking display to the world but if you think about it it's genius. the whole way hiring heroes they taken industry approach. if you think about it you are a veteran, what's the first thing you ask? you don't even know what industry to go into so the idea of taking an industry approach and selling your industry, so it's hilarious to think trucking is the only industry that has an image problem. look at the biggest industry in our countries. think about manufacturing. to all of our workers on the assembly line. or dealing with lasers and computer design and robots. when you think about american

agriculture are we often on tractors or are we blending science and efficiency to see the end -- to feed the entire world. i'm at the starbucks guy and i have to bring them up. i bring them up a lot. are they only hiring buries those? are you going to be part of the most extraordinary companies in the world that reaches supplied corners on earth. let me talk about how trucking is misunderstood and let me tied to some of the things we have talked about. veterans homelessness. in our business this is a bizarre content they discussed at the opportunity and are industry. today in the trucking industry we have 30,000 positions open. every year just to replace our truck drivers and other positions that are retiring we

need 100,000 positions for the next 10 years just to keep up. that's a million positions. we have starting salaries that go from $40,000. we have jobs not just trucks by the executives to salespeople. it's nothing better veterans haven't, nothing like they imagined. and president lush said when they came back from vietnam we treated our veterans shabbily. i thought that was a perfect word. we not only treated them bad, some people do treat them bad and some people didn't do a good job treating them well. the trucking industry when i was a little boy and when i was in my dad and grandpa's terminals those people in the terminals came from the vietnam war and they started in the trucking industry and a one on two on their own tracks. really a lot of them are still checking today because we have

some pretty old truck drivers. we have a long history of applying veterans. i'm not sure i want to try to talk about the idea of how many veterans commit suicide. it's because they don't have a good connection to their community. so the general population in the united states is 1% on terry veterans. in the trucking industry is north of 20% and nearing 30%. our entire staff are filled with the community already ready to accept them in. so we are a great model when you think about your industry and how we are going to do it. last year i think we had done great. eric and the team we have been changing perceptions and where hiring more veterans in the trucking industry than ever before. i want to come up with some specific tips so my first tip is when it's time to cite industry you won't need people to circle the wagon. you will need to take that industry approach. our concept was let's get 12 of

the coolest companies that we can think of in the trucking industry that have great jobs that are innovative that really show us to the world. here are the folks that stood up within a month. these companies stood up almost immediately to do this job and there's a practical reason this is important. we also get 80 great minds from these companies that we work with every day through this effort. even if your industry doesn't have a huge number of players get your players together and work together. the next tip, solve for the whole industry true teamwork. when i was growing up in trucking i saw these companies compete like you wouldn't believe. my grandfather would probably roll over in his grave if he actually saw how well these companies work together. the best example in our industry we go to these wonderful hiring

fairs, you will see a -- proudly walk over a recruit which is unheard-of because they know well we didn't have the best job for jb hunt and jb hunt might walk it over to transport america. i've never seen anything like it. you would not believe in the trucking industry and is that concept that if you work together like this a rising tide will lift all of our boats. i think it was sandy the talk about, sandy was talking about the public-private partnership for the trucking industry. it sounds like a little washington mumbo-jumbo but we have found it really is the real thing. gerston with the department of labor and the va has helped us a lot and the department of defense is help us a lot but i want to call on the special group that has been incredible. colonel rock and his team,

fantastic. if you want to work with -- these people are incredible. they have traveled with us to advance to talk to veterans and employers. they have our own software. they help us design our mentoring program from the ground up so these companies that support us provide 30 mentors around-the-clock for veterans to talk to. we have talked about a lot today. we have some guys that are having trouble, what do we do? we went to soldiers for life than they connected us to the right people and that company put together program internally to say hey if you guys are having trouble it's not going to hurt your employment. incredible stuff. the next thing is courageous leadership from industry associations. there are two industry, probably

the biggest industry association is the american trucking association and the american trucking association committed to hire 100,000 veterans and their membership. the tca which doesn't have as big of a membership because there are different segment of the industry hiring another 50,000 veterans. what is courageous about governor gray and not just that they made this public statement, it's that they dug in and created big efforts to get the word out to educate our employers on how to do it to promote the program and even go down to the veteran died to veteran level and tap them into the program. in closing, i'm going to recommend my last recommendation. the convoy.

some of you do too and we talked about that. i want to tell a trucking story that demonstrates this. maybe you can come up with similar stories. december 12 with every year 70 trucks in a small town in maine. each one of those trucks are filled completely with christmas trees and a travel down the east coast of the united states. as they travel this convoy of trucks there are people writing in the roadways waving flags. they show up at arlington national cemetery and deliver these reefs to the hands of 20,000 volunteers that lay these reads on every single grave, 400,000 graves.

how many other cemeteries recover and how many trucks about 189 tracks in total, 1000 39 cemeteries. [applause] so folks, that's our convoy. i want to leave you with a short video. i had a hard time picking which one because we have a lot of cool videos in her business but i like this one because it shows how important we are with the industry. what happens when their national disasters and what happens when our towers fall and we to haul away the wreckage. so enjoy it and have a great lunch. thank you very much, everyone. ♪ ♪

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♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ >> think everybody. we would like to close by thank you for your leadership. over the last five years or government leaders, are non-profits and business leaders represented in this room and beyond have had an impact, have moved the needle, have had dramatic effect in terms of addressing the crisis and

veteran planet. now is not the time to take our foot off the accelerator. now is the time to an institutionalized the great public private partnerships and leverage the lessons learned and best practices and apply them to the gaps that remain. so we thank you for your continued leadership in this effort and we ask you to help us in power and arm the men and women that need to map out and better navigate through that process and meet your requirements in your businesses through that roadmap. thanks. >> thank you all and we really appreciate your support and really look forward to continued the collaboration with. thank you. [applause] [inaudible conversations]

former senator bob dole announced today that he is endorsing jeb push for president bob dole will be the national veterans chairman for the bush campaign. >> two things are very different today. first of all we have a justice system that does not help according to what we would consider it to be modern law. innocent until proven guilty had not yet, was not yet in place and there were no voyeurs by the way i should say at the time. the courtroom is an extremely and really place so that's one piece of it and also we don't have the ability to prosecute witchcraft today. >> the interesting part about the accusations especially given the way we think of salem is

that wealthy merchants were accused of which is and sea captains were accused of which is and homeless girls were accused of being which is. this is not an incident where all the victims are female. we have a minister and we didn't burn the which is, we hung them. there was so much encrusted in meth insomuch understanding that i felt it was important to dispel it. >> there are 102 members of congress who are military veterans and that seven fewer than the last congress. the house has 80 to veterans, 62 of whom are republicans and 20 democrats including three female members by the senate with 20 veterans made up of six democrats and 14 republicans. including one female senator vitter coverage of veterans day continues.

c-span interviewed some members of congress who served in the armed forces. democrat seth moulton a harvard graduate did four tours in iraq and served with general david petraeus. congressman seth moulton you are one of a number of new members in congress who are also veterans. you find a lot of camaraderie between you and other new members who are veterans? >> guest: yes, you think that is a point of commonality and the place where we find common ground. i have gotten to know several veterans across the aisle by the fact that we share that common experience and they will find places to work together where otherwise we might not have a place to start a relationship. >> host: did that surprise you at all when you came to congress? >> guest: i've seen the numbers and of course as a whole we have fewer veterans in congress than we have had in the nations history but we are

starting to see some of the younger members of congress. the chairman of the armed services committee, sometimes he reverses seniority order because he said some of the veterans in front of some of the youngest members asked the bus questions. >> host: you joined the marines straight out of harvard in 2001. what motivated you to become a marine? >> guest: you know i had a pretty good life. i grew up in a middle-class family. i was able to go to good schools with the help of scholarships but when i look back at my life in college i said i really haven't done anything to give back. i was influenced i meant terse especially the school minister at harvard who was larger than life moral person on campus. yet one of the most popular graduate courses and he talked a lot about the importance of it's not enough just to believe in service and support those who serve you want to find a way yourself to serve and give back. so i looked at it different

option. i looked at the peace corps and teaching overseas but at the end of the day i had such respect for 18 and 19-year-old people who served. >> host: this was months before 9/11. how did your veaux -- >> guest: they were not pleased. they were very antiwar and didn't have an experience with the military so they didn't really understand my decision to serve in that way. >> host: tell us about your experience. 9/11 comes along. what was your service like? how many tours did you do a? >> guest: i made the decision to join before 9/11 and 9/11 happened and i was training thereafter. when i was going to training in 2002 this was when we were in afghanistan and it sounded like afghanistan was going to be quick like the first gulf war

and i had i no idea what's going into iraq. i got to my unit just before we deployed for the invasion of iraq. >> host: one of -- what are the moments you are the most proud of in your marine service? >> guest: well i think some of the worst days of my life or in iraq and some of the best days were there too. every single day in the midst of that war even though i disagreed with that i was able to have an impact on the lives of other people through the lives of fellow americans and the lives of iraqi's and i was able to have an influence over the way that war was being fought. frankly much more influence than if i had to spend back on complaining about it. >> host: so you serve from 2001 until when? >> guest: i started in 2002 after september 11 grade that's when my training began and i did three tours in iraq.

working as a special assistant to general petraeus in 2005 in the field with the iraqi security forces and then i got out. i was ready to go to grad school and i had gotten into harvard is the school but then when general petraeus was asked by the president to go back for the surge he asked me to come with them so i opposed on grad school and put the uniform back on and went over for a fourth tour. >> host: you are in iran for the sixth district in the "boston globe" said something that during your campaign you never mentioned accommodations, the medals he received. why didn't you do that and what were those medals? >> guest: you know first of all i think there is a healthy disrespect for those of us who serve on the frontline for people who go around telling war stories. there aren't awful lot of young marines who have done heroic things and haven't been

recognized properly. so i didn't think it was ever appropriate to talk about my awards or brag about them in any way. i think that's a common view among many veterans so i don't think it actually makes me that unusual. maybe makes me unusual in the political world but certainly not my fellow veterans. you mentioned the armed services committee. how does your military experience and addition to your service on the committee how does that help influence what you do on capitol hill? >> guest: if you lessons i learned in iraq during the war one of which is the value of leadership. the amazing impact that even some of the youngest people in our country can have on the lives of others if you are willing to stand up and lead. for example when i made the difficult determination that the best way to prevent iran from getting a nuclear weapon was to

support, not that it's a great deal but after serious examination of the all-day alternatives i thought it was the best position we could be in. a lot of people advised me to step back. this is politically dangerous. there are a lot of divisions but i remembered i wasn't elected to sit back and take an easy course. i was elected to lead so when i got out there and explained why i thought it was important, i was the only politician in massachusetts during the month of august to be able to explain to them to justify my position. and here their criticisms and complaints and answer their concerns. i also think there is a real value in having the courage to come out and say what you believe and we would be a better country and a stronger congress if we had were people that strain -- explain the truth to

the american public even when they know what might be unpopular back home. >> do you think the american public understands, you serve on in the armed services committee, understands the needs of veterans? guest star but he supports veterans today and i have tremendous respect for the vietnam veterans who had to come back from a tragic war and face more tragedy at home on the homefront when i got home and were treated poorly just for their service. i feel lucky as a veteran of the iraq war that i've been treated well but the problem is there is a real divide between the half of 1% who served in our wars and the other 99.5% you barely realize there's a war going on. it's not the american people don't want to care about veterans but i do think there's a lot of work to restoring understanding between veterans and our country. >> host: you served under

david petraeus under the surge. >> guest: i think he is widely respected for being a fantastic military leader and a great academic. he can talk about the politics as well as the alternative strategies but frankly he is the best boss i have ever had. he was an incredible leader and a great person to work for and i feel very honored to have had the opportunity to serve with him. >> host: now you were not only that congressmen but the boss of this office where we are talking today. what is a typical day in like for you in this office on capitol hill? >> that's one of the things that makes this job so interesting but to succeed in washington you did take your vows carefully. you have got to work very hard and we have a team that is smart and hard-working enough to do that. we had 1000 applications for the 15 positions in the office between washington and the district and we work together as

a team. we have a videoconference every single day said the district and the d.c. are in the page. we have the cream of the crop became to work for us and we also have an incredible team of interns. we have a tremendous number of intern applicants as well. we pride ourselves on working hard and doing a good job but fundamentally being focused on service and bats and abiding purpose which is fundamentally why i'm here in the first place to serve the country. amidst all the meetings in the committee hearings and the visitors that come into the office we always carve out time to have leadership and value discussions to remind everybody and her mind ourselves why we are here. at the end of the day we are here to serve the people of our district. >> host: typically what time does your day start here? >> guest: i usually get up at 5:30 and commend you to do work or go to the gym early on and honestly at the end of the day

last night i had dinner with several colleagues. there is always some dinner whether its fund-raising or other goodies so the average day probably start around 7:00 and ends around 10:00 or 11:00 at night. >> host: your district includes your hometown salem massachusetts. we are talking to you a couple of days after halloween. what is that they like? >> guest: it's crazy but salem has this amazing maritime that is unfortunately overshadowed by the whole halloween season. salem has the highest per-capita in america in the year 1799. it has an extraordinary history with overseas trade and their relationship with foreign countries. that's my favorite part. >> host: what are your constituents like? >> guest: we have an

incredibly diverse constituents and one of the things that's great about my district, i think it's the way a lot of people -- we have small towns with real characters. this is not a district of highways and strip malls and chain restaurant where one is no different than the other. every different town has unique identity. unique folks who live in different business drinks in interest. and my number one party for the district is economic development but in gloucester it has a lot to do the with the fishing industry. and when it's about how we can adapt it to the changing economy and take those businesses growing out of the universities of boston and cambridge and bring them to the north shore. every character, every town has a character that is unique and special. >> host: clearly you love history by looking at the books and you are talking about

canonical history of your district. we noticed a book about general john glover the marblehead mariners. what is so special about that? >> guest: first of all it's special because it was a gift. i grew up in marblehead. >> host: joe dunford? >> guest: that's right and the joint chiefs of staff. he came in and learned that i grew up in marblehead. it's the first place of marine aviation the first pilots flew out of marblehead but i went to the glover school growing up and when you're an elementary school to see the form is -- famous portrait of washington crossing the delaware the teacher says it is not really accurate because he standing up. he couldn't be standing up because he would rock the boat. that's wrong. he absolutely could have stood. every one of those rowers was from marblehead and -- i'm very

proud that general dunford knew of this book. i did not. he found a copy and give it to me and i probably have it on my bookshelf. >> host: tell us about your election 2014 purdue took on long-term incumbent john tierney. what motivated you to run and tell us more about how the primary went with congressman tierney. >> guest: i'm not someone who grew up in politics. i've never worked on a campaign or a pen and a political club at school or an intern on capitol hill so i come at this from my experience in the marines. i feel when i was in the war i thought the consequences of leadership in washington and i think washington didn't know what they were doing when i got us into iraq and they didn't have our backs while we were there. although there are huge number of issues we deal with every single day in the office both of which have nothing to do with the war, i wouldn't be here if

not for that experience in the war and experience in the marines. as a practical matter i was recruited out of a project in texas after business school when i received a call from a new nonprofit trying to recruit veterans to run. they called and said you ought to take on the incumbent in massachusetts who is having trouble and i said no but they were obviously persistent and i eventually decided really two things. one this was a place i could make a difference. i could find that sense of purpose that i had in the marines and frankly missed since getting out. second it was a race i could win. i ended up being the only, the only democrat incumbent in the entire house of representatives last year so it turned out to be a very difficult race. fundamentally i think being able to get new leadership in washington is the kind of change we need.