they carry a chart around with me called the "failed assumptions chart." it shows the numerous times over the past 10 years where we made assumptions either about the war, projection, or structure and have been wrong. we have been wrong or 100% of the time. as the saying goes, expect the unexpected. we must also be prepared for a

scenario due to an unforeseen contingency for ground forces, soldiers do not have the time they need to rest and recover. we will need to find ways to help them as well. take a look at this next chart. as i mentioned, the vast majority of our wounded warriors are suffering from post-traumatic stress or traumatic brain injury. yet most of us do not recognize these injuries. in fact the injuries we believe are most common, mainly amputations and burns, which only represent 10% and 2% of the population respectively. the truth is because we cannot see these injuries affecting the brain, they do not receive the same level of focus and attention as deputations,

burns, shrapnel, and other visible ones. there is simply a body -- bias in the conscious or subconscious towards visible wounds and injuries towards those that are not visible. i would be careful in qualifying that bias. it exist everywhere, including in the medical community. part of it, i believe, is a problem -- lack of understanding of the physiology behind these injuries. they are, in fact, real injuries no different from bullet wounds, amputations, or severe burns. everywhere i go, i get a tanker's explanation of these injuries. i will spare you that today. a big part of the challenge is the validity of the symptoms. they may display symptoms including concentration

problems, personality changes, and memory impairment. we need to better understand how to differentiate between them and, at -- and most effectively treat them. recognizing that it very well may make matters worse if the individual is misdiagnosed. the lack of improvement or the worsening of symptoms can be incredibly frustrating for the patient and for his family members. another challenge we are seeing with respect to injuries of the brain is the latency of symptoms. unlike a broken leg or a shrapnel wound that is immediate the jig immediately apparent and, in most instances, can be treated and he'll in a short period of time, the latency of symptoms that is common to brain injury often results in diagnosis and treatment. unfortunately, the time between when the injury is incurred and

when it is actually diagnosed and treated properly can be fraught with related symptoms such as irritability, problems concentrating, anxiety, and depression. the onset of whatever the element, whatever the incident and it is the causes posttraumatic stress, it is 12 years before someone seeks their first treatment. a bunch of bad stuff happens in the 12-year interval. fortunately, many of our nation 's brightest men and women from academia, industry, and the medical industry, nonprofit organizations, and government as a whole are working tirelessly in this important area. together over the past decade we of made tremendous progress in what has been largely uncharted territory with the development of effective protocols, imaging methods, their peace, and

protective devices. we have also made great strides within our own ranks. among our many and others, we have created a pain management task force and campaign planned to adopt best practices army- wide. we have issued much needed guidance in critical areas such as pharmacy management and pain management. our medical command recently changed several policies regarding the number of prescriptions, medications, and the duration for which a prescription may be considered talent -- valid. this has led to a decreased use of prescription medication, specifically narcotics and psychotropic medicine. at walter reed, for example, psychotic usage has decreased from over 80% to 8.5% in the last year and a half among our

wounded warriors. this is a good news story. we are doing our best to replicate it at other army escalations. the problem is having people who are trained in alternative pain management who can work these reductions. this type of challenge will help us decrease the number of accidental overdoses, medication diversion, and drug abuse. these are important elements of the army's holistic medical campaign plan. over all we of that -- made great progress. although i could talk for hours about individual efforts, that is not to say there are problems where there is still significant room for improvement. the reality is we as a department and a nation will be dealing with the symptoms and effects of these injuries for decades to come. make no mistake, this is where your money will be spent.

if you are one of those people that that is the only thing that turns you on, okay. this is where it is going to be spent. when you looked at those numbers, when you looked at 66% of my most severely wounded soldiers, that is where you are going to be spending your money. we have learned many lessons coming out of vietnam. we have all seen pictures of veterans penniless, homeless, living under bridges. that was and is unacceptable. the reality is, these are not new injuries or injuries unique to this war. they have been around since before the civil war. we know this from research that has been done on the topic of post-traumatic stress. for those of you who have not seen it, i highly encourage you to watch the hbo documentary "war-torn."

it provides an amazing account of the impact of these injuries on individuals in past wars. there is a segment of film where a group of world war ii vets that is especially interesting, particularly for someone like me whose father fought in the war and never talked about his experience. i would like to show you a short clip of humorous -- of humor. it is part of a retained by the late comedian george carlin. >> i do not like words that conceal reality. i do not like euphemisms or euphemistic language. american english is loaded with euphemisms. americans have trouble dealing with reality. americans have trouble facing the truth so they invent a kind of soft language to protect themselves from it. it gets worse with every

generation. i will give you an example. there is a condition in combat most people know about. it is when a fighting person's nervous system has been stretched to its absolute peak and cannot take any more input. it has either snapped or is about to snap. in the first world war, the condition was called "shellshocked." simple, honest, direct language. two syllables -- shellshocked. it almost sounds like the guns themselves. that was 70 years ago. then a whole generation went by and the second world war came along. the very same combat condition was called "battle fatigue at "four syllables. it takes a little longer to say. does not seem to hurt as much. fatigue is a nicer word in shock. shellshocked -- battle fatigue. then we get -- then we have the war in korea.

my lesson -- madison avenue was riding high at that time. the very same combat condition was called "operational exhaustion." we are up to eight syllables now. the humanity has been squeezed completely of the phrase. it is totally sterile. operational exhaustion. the supply something that might happen to your car. then, of course, came the war in vietnam, which is only been over for 16 or 17 years. thanks to the lies and deceit surrounding that war, it is no surprise the very same condition was called "post-traumatic stress disorder." still eight syllables, but we have added a hyphen and the pain is buried under jargon. i bet a crystal calling it "shellshock," some of those vietnam veterans might have

gotten the attention they needed at the time. >> the person who tried to educate america about battle fatigue after a war ii was none other than audie murphy. audie murphy got hooked on a sleeping pill and locked himself in a hotel room in denton, texas for over a week to get himself off of it. he went around to veterans groups talking about what was called "battle fatigue." he did not have a lot of success in raising awareness. to overcome the stigma that exists related to these and visible wounds and to avoid the same outcome on the other side of this war, we must continue to study and learn while raising awareness of programs and support services put in place to make sure the men and women who suffer from these are care -- cared for properly in the event they are injured or in need of help. this is particularly important as it pertains to our reserve

component soldiers. the reality is we are able to more effectively influence those soldiers serving on active duty and help them mitigate the stressors affecting this. it is more debacle to do this in the case of individuals not serving on active duty. they are often geographically removed from a support network provided by military installations. they lack the ready camaraderie soldiers and daily oversight and hands-on assistance of members of the chain of command. in many cases, these soldiers have limited or reduced access to care and services. meanwhile, they are more vulnerable to the challenges of an adverse stock economy -- an adverse economy and a troubled labor market, especially for our young people. we are continuing to work this issue very, very hard. we are not going to rest until

we learn how to bridge the divide in the reserve component. we are looking for further ways to expand the accessibility to programs that are positively impact in the lives of soldiers serving on active duty and their families. this is an absolute priority. that said, we recognize the best long-term solutions are at local level. with the citizens of our nation of the committees. towns, cities, support networks, colleges, universities, industry, and health care groups. there are private, public, updates based -- faith based whose sole desire is to care for veterans and their families. members of the fellow -- members of the military are limited by law, in what we can and cannot do with respect to supporting or promoting these organizations. we rely on others to help spread the word and rally around our

soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines, and coastguardsman. so that when a young man or woman least the military and regret -- returns home, we can be certain they will be embraced by the committee and given the support needed to integrate back into the lives of those they left behind i will quickly mention one final topic and open it up for questions and discussion. as i mentioned, after nearly a decade of war, our soldiers are fighting the effects and many will be dealing with the injuries they sustained for decades to come. this clearly represents a readiness issue. consider cents january 2008, the number of of soldiers in the disability system has increased 169% to write around 20,000. the reality is that number is actually probably closer to double that factor if you figure in the number of soldiers who

are not yet enrolled, but are, nevertheless, not deployable. some people are going to be given a p4, a prominent profile. they will have a profile for up to six months. they will enter back into that portion of the service we can deploy. others will not. they will remain in that population and finally enter the d.e.s. that is one of the effects of 10 years of war. that is what happens. 1% of the population fights a 10-year war. meanwhile the average time it takes to get an active-duty soldier through the disability evaluation system is 373 days. needless to say this is too long. the system is complex,

disjointed, and confusing. dod is working closely with the department of veterans affairs along with the military services to make needed improvements. i will tell you that i am pleased and encouraged to see the level of collaboration to date. the new disability evaluation system is not perfect, however, it represents a step in the right direction as we work together to address these issues. all of them affect our readiness. we must address them accordingly, not as an army or department, but as a nation. we recognize it will be a requirement to reduce the size of our force in coming days as we work through forecast and budget cuts and the drawdown of forces in iraq and afghanistan. that said, we must make these reductions smartly. whatever the size of the army, it must remain trained and

ready. we must not accept anything less. history has shown us to expect the unexpected. we must always be ready and prepared when called upon to meet our obligation to the american people and that is to fight and win our nation of three wars. i appreciate the opportunity to join you. thanks for what you do each and every day. i will be happy to answer any questions you might have. [applause] >> thank you. questions? >> in the panel before lunch we had a wounded warrior tell us they thought one of the things that needed to be done was for the services medical system to talk to one another, -- talk to one another. there has been a lot of the of the talking to a va.

that has some ways to go, but what about the services talking to each other? >> and general amos is who i started with on this long journey. the protocols affect all services. general dunford is my partner today. i do not think the relationship between the ground forces has ever been any greater. the air force and the navy are, in fact, asking us and they have participated fully in the development and implementation of the protocols. like anything it takes time to do those things, but i think we are a lot further down the road in ensuring that as a joint force we recognize posttraumatic stress and brain injuries. we like to, beat up on ourselves. the problem is the things

associated with this thing is civilian life. it is real. i am talking to 500 people in this room today. 400 of you really get it and really believe it. 100 of you are saying, not really. they are just plain the system. i know that is true because i briefed every formation that these in the united states army. it is like when you talk to the reserve components. no matter how wonderful the army is towards the reserve components, there will always be 10% that believe they are not getting what the active component guys do. on the other side, the research at the same problem in looking at the active component guys. it is just the way human nature works. the stigma associated with these is very difficult to get people to understand when you cannot see that injury. we can see with imaging

techniques. we are starting, at least i am hearing in the research i am reading, that we can see images of the brain. the issues are huge. i am really thanked -- i really think we have come a long way with all the services looking at these, but that is not to say there are not still falls out there that just do not believe it is real. sir? >> sir, one of the things i am wondering is is there any thought of coming up with some special line items to cover these costs you are going to incur because they are born to be enormous relative to what they have been in past -- they are going to be enormous

relative to what they have been in past wars. that line item, no one is going to insist that you reduce i would not think. >> you are exactly right. we are just beginning to understand the second and third order effects of 10 years of conflict. we are just beginning to understand the second and third order effects of fighting for 10 years. there have always been volunteers in our forces, but we've never done it with all volunteers. we have done it with all volunteers and we have at -- as opposed to do it multiple deployments. these are real costs that we are going to incur. i think the absolute think i would ask you to do is if you see anybody cutting back on

brain research, you raise up like a phoenix and attack them. that is really the problem. get on google and find an article or the services are criticized for not taking proper care of folks to of lost an arm, leg, or limb grid all you'll find is the wonderful job we are doing with prostatic innovation. but every week there is an article on how we are uncaring critic comes to the care of prisoners -- post-traumatic stress and brain injuries. the problem is the science is so immature. there is no file marker for a concussion yet. we are about a year and a half away from having a file marker using a device not unlike what a diabetic use -- uses it to

inject blood sugar. it will say definitively for us this individual as a concussion. do you know how to use that will be? that we know that they have a concussion? or do not have a concussion? what we need to do is continue to push for the research in this area and understand the brain. i believe that will help with a lot of our other problems. if you are familiar with what and the key is doing up in boston. she is looking at the mutation of protein at collection in the brain and people who go through significant contested events, like football players and sponsors. that has a tie to what she things -- i think she thinks. i do not want to put words in her mouth. could have a direct connection to alzheimer's. what happens to folks with alzheimer's?

we need to be forcing everybody to continue all the research and good stuff that is being done to understand the brain. positron emission tomography and what that allows us to do at looking at concussions. put up the slide real quick. the first one about brains. this is a picture using positron emission tomography. three brains from three different in individuals. this shows us this is an injury. on the right is your normal brain. 20% of the energy created by your body. that is what it looks like when it is functionally normal. 15%-25% of the energy created by the body is burned in that brain. the brain in the center is an

individual that hasn't comatose for five days. that is what their brain looks like. he a soldier is comatose on the battlefield, we are getting them to medical care. with two minutes in 42 such as much to go on a field 100 yards long -- somebody told me it is 55.79 yards or something. clusters the with 55. 55 yards wide with cameras and ankles and doctors and everybody who rush out and bring him in at halftime and say, "you are good to go. to apply the second half." he is stressing out that night. somebody comes up to him and says, "if you have any symptoms tomorrow morning, i want you to come to the emergency room. that was a pretty nasty hit you got." guess what? he went in. they went to the doctor and explain these systems. the ticket picture of his brain

using positron emission tomography. that is what is brain looked like. that is the problem. at that individual goes out and receives a second concussion before the brain has returned to normal, the chances for cognitive impairment grow exponentially. we need to continue this kind of research so we understand this more. i would ask you all to force that point home. tied for one more question, i guess. you guys have to get back. the real food is out there now. >> my name is andrea sawyer. i am the wife of a medically retired soldier. he was 70% permit. my question to you is is there in the works in a system that would financially protect us when we are forced to be medically retired?

for a lot of us, we are not getting put out of the military with our husbands on able to work. we are having to leave our jobs to take care of them and our financial futures are threatened. my husband was put out at 70% permanent. that is a $1,300 check. while we wait for that the a rating, we are burning through our lifetime savings waiting for something that has already been decided on one side of the house. we do not have any financial protections in that situation. we are in it -- at the mercy of a va system that says "wait for us." is there a look at reforming that wages for people who are permanently disabled and not going back into the workforce?

>> the whole idea upper ides reform is one that is very difficult for people to tackle. it is a huge issue. i could go on for a long time. when you get a chance, come up and asked the congressmaen. there are so many antibodies out there. they believe any form of reform is try to take away from soldiers rights that they have. somehow after 10 years of war, the country and decided it is too expensive to do the kinds of things we are doing. we also has a system that rewards those individuals that do not want to get better. i have run into soldiers at the military training facility who say, "why should i rehabilitate now?

all i am going to do is lower my disability rating." that, to me, is a flawed system. it is a system that was designed for a world war ii army, not an all volunteer force. we need to slow the whole thing up and start all over again. but it is probably one of the most -- that is the correctly -- pete corelli thinking. i think it is a system that needs to be reformed. but i do want to say, we are closer with the va in trying to get away from the kind of situations that you are describing. the partnership has never been better than it is today. i am doing a video teleconference once a month with the va, my mission commanders,

and my medical commanders to make sure we are all over this. but it is a big problem. the problem is huge and there is always. to be stories like your story -- there is always going to be stories like your story. >> with the medical benefit -- when we are leaving active duty because we are being malik but -- medically retired, we didn't become way down the list. then we have to transition into a va system, so we have a rating. we are level 6. while there is supposed to be some transitional help, we are not seeing that it is available to service members. is there a bigger push -- i understand the active duty component should have priority, but "one day we are priority one

on active duty and there will are pushed out and our bottom level priority. >> i would really like to talk to you about that. you fall in line with all the other retirees. let me take that one back. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> sir, do you get time for another question? >> there is a neurologist on staff at the university of florida with the va medical center in gainesville who is conducting a study on t.b.i. in soldiers. you can google it. they are really trying to work hard to make sure these cases are brought to light. i wanted to say earlier we

talked about how the military branches are not talking. my husband was placed in for morgan. he is actually air force. we did not have any place for him to go. he went to fort gordon and was their fourth three months. when he left he was given a form from the army that said he was medically unfit for duty. we took that back to our home base in georgia, gave it to our commander, he looked it up and said, "this is an army form." they would not accept it. we had to go to the whole evaluation process to the air force again that we had already done with the army. obviously, people talking is not happening. i really would like work to be done on that because there are people down the line whose husbands have just been injured and they need not to get to go through these castles.

thirdly, -- >> if it was the air force career wrote up a soldier for the same plane, you take it to the soldiers base and the doctor would say, "that is an air force form." >> i agree. we talked about the wars in vietnam and korea and how we are only hearing about traumatic brain injury and ptsd with this war, but i would like to remind everyone that our military has the most effective body armor and weapons systems available. that is why more of our spouses and family members are surviving these types of horrible incidences' is because the army, air force, marines are trying to take good care of them on the battlefield. we appreciate that. i am painful that my husband is alive, but when he comes back home and he has these wounds, i

need him to be taken care of at home as well. >> i appreciate that. i am sorry for what you have had to go through, but i hear these stories time after time after time again. i honestly believe it relates back to the stigma issue. the medical community is as much stigmatized by these injuries as anybody. you make it sound like somebody really had this affliction before. i do not believe that. i believe that post-traumatic stress is a no-kidding injury. but if you got 10 psychiatrist in here, you have six or seven who agreed with me and the others would say i was nuts. the stigma is everywhere.

it is throughout the service. we still have a problem. it is throughout the civilian world and not the route the medical community. that is why unlocking the secrets of the brain will help us really understand these things. it is absolutely critical. that will change so much of how this is handled today and stop folks like you from having to go to the pain you have had to go through. >> process, general. >> thank you. >> statistics showed the unemployment rate for male veterans ages 18-24 is as high as 26%. a former warner -- war veteran -- war veterans, and business leaders discussed ways to find veterans employment. this discussion is moderated by barbara star and was part of a daylong forum on the challenges veterans face when in the --

reintegrated into civilian society. this is one hour and 20 minutes. >> i am please to begin our next discussion. are we really committed to hiring wounded warriors? barbara star is an emmy award

winning correspondent who as for been reporting from the pentagon since 1998. she has profiled numerous wounded warriors and reported on section 60 at arlington. we are honored to have hurt with us today. currently with cnn, she has also work with abc news. it is an important discussion for us this afternoon to talk about the action that goes with some of the realities that we talked about this morning. to discuss the challenges and the barriers, providing a meaningful employment opportunities to our wounded warriors. i get our panel, we try to construct a corporate, government, and a veteran's perspective. i would like to introduce miss barber star print -- miss

barbara stark. [applause] >> i am totally biased because i think peter corelli as one of the best officers in the military at the moment. it was maybe a year ago one night i was looking at my blackberry before i went to sleep and i suddenly had a long, torturous e-mail from a young army captain that i had come to know. he had served in the olive province in the worst of combat. you have to wonder how many americans would know what trying goal of death means. i had met him at fort hood. he was suffering from a good deal of post-traumatic stress. he had been involved in an incident recalled in a strike.

it resulted in a number of civilians being killed, but the investigation had fully cleared him. it was a series of circumstances is unit was put in that led to this. he e-mail me saying tonight is the third anniversary of my event. i knew exactly what he meant. he had a new baby. he said, "my son is five weeks old. tonight i wonder if i deserve to have him." what do you do? after all these years, we have come to know so many troops. what do you do? what you do is you cut and paste at 9:30 at night and you e-mail peter corelli and say, "i need help. this young man is in trouble." the general is also on e-mail in

the middle of the night. he immediately got this as a young man what he needed. i had to share that because your one speaker is a remarkable officer. we will come back full circle on that in a minute. you start looking at as a reporter for the numbers. how many veterans are unemployed from the wars in iraq and afghanistan? you find a lot of different statistics out there. they are all different, but the latest round i found this morning was younger male veterans, 18-24-years old, face unemployment rates as high as 26%, nearly 2.5 million men and women have left the active duty military since 2000 -- since september 2001. that is 2.5 million that need meaningful work. 9/11 veterans a generation more

likely, by all accounts, to be employed in things like construction, mining, transportation, utilities, information services, professional and business services, all the sectors of the economy one has been told has experienced employment declines. less likely to be employed in health services and education. some of the questions we want to look at today are the basic ones -- basic ones -- where are the jobs? all these statistics are meaningless to the young veteran you meet who says i need a job and where do i find a job. all the statistics in the world, all the training programs in the world, while they have tremendous value to someone who needs worked, that is what they need. we will talk about some of that. we will talk about some of the

cases i am sure we have all run across of young veterans coming out of the military looking for work. i would give you two examples of veterans i stay in touch with. i think that will give us a bid of the scope of the problem. a marine home for many years now cannot find work. posttraumatic stress. fell into not only joblessness, but homelessness. nowhere to go. it has taken him a number of years. i saw him last month in san diego. he has turned his life around. he is. to start manufacturing his personal hot sauce recipe and it will be marketed at whole foods. this is a kid who was sleeping in a park when he came home from being part of the first marine corps reconnaissance. on the other hand, i can tell you of another young marine i know who is an amputee.

one of the% disabled. he is enrolled at harvard, looking at getting a joint degree in business and law. for those of us who consider it a good day when you drag yourself out of bed and get to work in one piece, the stories are remarkable. i am going to stop there. it would be useful to talk about the programs, the trends, but never forget there is a young veteran out there who needs a job and all the washington talk may be fairly meaningless to them when they are looking to pay next month's rate. we are going to start with our panelists. i am not going to introduce them. they are going to introduce themselves. we are going to move right down the line. they are going to talk about who they are and what they are doing with their company or other government organization to answer this question -- where are the jobs?

>> my name is chris. nice to meet you. do you have my bio? [laughter] my name is chris. i am a retired capt. on april 13, 2004, i was in an attack and sustained in excess 20 our species. one killed my daughter and one ripped off the back of my right 5. dead in the water. a driver got us out of the kill zone only to end up having the engine sees because the rocket went through my leg went through the engine department. we were dead in the water in enemy territory. the ambition forced that hit us now pursued us on foot. our marines bailed out and set up a hasty defense.

i was pulled from the track and drug into the house. a doctor put a tourniquet on my leg. there was a liaison with a force that had to fight their way into come get us. i pretty much lost all my blood. bled to death. underwent a field transfusion. my doctor was not screening blood packs. i do not remember any of that. i just remember waking up on some heavy dope. spent 75 days in the army medical center. it took me about six months to learn how to walk again. i eventually retired in april 2007. during that course, i did not feel like doing anything. i was pretty young.

i was 36. what -- always a 36-year-old retired do. i was kinda like forest gump. he ran, i hand cycle. i started putting my aggression to the road and am currently trying to win some races. that did not solve everything. at some point i realized that as a male, i saw myself as providing for my family and working. i figured at some point i would have to go back to work. i started interviewing with a lot of companies. i started working with military recruiters. i was having a tough time. i even had one recruiter lookit my career path and all my education and he goes, you are not a typical candidate.

i was like, if you do not have the intellectual capacity to understand that and our pg through your leg might change things, i certainly do not what you representing me. goodbye. i was hopefully able to provide him perspective after i reprimanded him. the point is we have to work together. i interviewed with other companies. eventually came across operation impact, which is a program for hiring severely wounded service members or their family members. i have had a lot of success. i grilled the operations manager for three weeks before i accepted a position with northrop grumman.

i had to grill her about a lot of concerns. in my experience in seen a lot of organizations that say they want to hire women veterans. that is great, but sometimes it is like a trophy piece. i am not a truth the peace. i want to work. yes, i am where did, but i am not a rock star. i just want to give back to work and provide a functional aspect to society. some companies have a lot of great programs, but they are immature in their experience. i was the first marine officer to be retained on active duty under the commandants retention of combat winded. a great program, but what really are we going to do with capt.

ayres at this point? i wish some things would have been different about the program, but i was a sick individual, and healthy, and they accepted my medical retirement. i got out. here comes northrop grumman. as i said, i drilled karen. she eventually put me at ease. what was good about karen is she is married to a marine corps in vietnam veteran who lost his leg through vascular surgery from agent orange. having a program manager like karen can be -- who can be a liaison between the veteran and the family member and also the corporate organization to get the support they need to implement a program like this is key. it was huge. even within the program i am not going to pay a pretty picture.

i have had my ups and downs, but it is a great program. northrop grumman has really supported me and help me out. if you want to have a decent program, then if you have a program manager that can be that liaison that understands the veteran and to be the liaison between the veteran and the corporation. the corporation be to give the program manager at the support. you go through basic training, you grow up through some other training, you go through some other school, and then you go to j.t. if you can implement those types of programs within your companies, that veteran is. to take the shirt off their back to do anything for you and they will accomplish anything you put in front of them. operation impact -- if the veteran is to severely disabled

to work, they will also hire family members. that has been a tough crowd. usually if the veteran, the spouse, or a parent is taken care of someone so severely disabled, it is tough for that individual to work and perform. but we do have those. as part of our program as well. i was handed over to you, sir. it is short-term. >> now i know what your first to speak. i am the ceo of c.a.c.i. i would like to begin my comments, not with my own words, but those of a disabled veteran who works for our company. "i was a little worried about being a productive member of such a high level technically diversity team, but i had on the job mentoring that let me hit the ground running.

i do not expect to be treated differently and i do not let my disability keep me from doing the job i enjoy." if i could leave you with one thought, that is what our program is all about -- helping people find meaningful careers that they enjoy and brings out the very best in them. i hope you are experiencing that at northrop grumman, chris. this journey began in 2007 when we decided it would make sense for us to do our part to not repeat the complacency and disdain shown to a returning vietnam veterans that started in the '70s, but really continues through today with too many veterans that have never been really integrated into our society. many of them never fully treated or diagnosed for their symptoms and their wounds.

sadly making comprising, a disproportionate percentage of homeless people in our country today. one of the great shames of america, in my opinion. we decided that this generation of war fighters needed better help in oriented trading. we lost a program by offering meaningful employment. we call our program "deploying talent and creating careers." we set a goal in 2007, which seems small now, but then seemed pretty good, to hire 10 disabled veterans of that year. we assembled a team of people who were committed to this idea from around the company. as you might expect, they are mostly headed up by our human- resources and recruiting people a few managers, some of whom are out of the vietnam era and

understood the problem and wanted to help. we started working with walter reed and bethesda. later we were with the medical folks at quantico. initially those interactions were met with some suspicion because there is a lot of interactions that happened around wounded warriors that is as much about publicity or feeling good as they are about real efforts to help in the recovery process and the reintegration process. cause stands for comfort for america's uniform services. we worked our way into their good graces. there we began our program along with the other medical facilities i mentioned.

we also work with a number of other organizations to build a network that would provide a resource in a people who were interested in employment. we worked with the wounded warrior foundation, navy safe harbor program, the department of labor became a good partner of ours, and the marine corps did warriors. we also worked with the n.r.o., where they have an intern program where they bring wounded veterans in and give them job training. we also work with mcguire air force base at fort dix and built our network. we'll also joined a network of some 60 other companies whose share job needs and resonate --

and resonates for disabled veterans. after four years, where are we? i think the word is out both externally and internally within our company and up here amongst the veteran community that we are serious about this and anxious to help. we met our goal that first year -- 10 disabled veterans. since that time he program has really ramped up. we now have a 4% of our population is disabled veterans. 500 people. 90% of those do contract work. we have developed an intern program of our own and a mentoring program. the intern program helps disabled veterans in terms of acquiring skills on the job. the mentoring program helps them to integrate into our culture

and make that transition. our rate now is over 100 disabled veterans are be hard -- hired by our company a year. we are proud of what we do and are proud to be associated with so many other companies. if we could get the fortune 1002 all take that kind of challenge to have 4% of their population be disabled veterans, we would not the heck out of this issue. some of the challenges we found along the way that others have experienced as well, finding the right skills that match the job requirement and the right clearance levels as well. also, location is an issue. many returning wounded veterans aspire to the back to their home towns where they feel

comfortable and can get restarted in their lives. many of the jobs we have to offer are in this area. it is a little more difficult. another problem is there is not much flexibility in the job skills sets that we are issued by our government clients. there is not much ability to react those to give somebody a start, to give them the benefit of the doubt. we have to take on the burden of helping these people -- acquire the skills themselves. >> as we come up on at you and the rest of the panel, broaden it out a little bit for us as vital as employment is for the disabled combat veteran. broaden out to us for all veterans coming home who are impacted by the recession, the

economy, the lack of jobs, what you are seeing in the department, what works, what does not work. my suspicion is that mr. profit and mr. segle will have broader topics. >> anything else you want me to do? [laughter] >> that would be nice. >> i can write some other stuff to if you like. >> you can quote some statistics if you like. >> think you all for being here. i appreciate it very much. on behalf of the department of labor, i want you to know that although we are the only piece and all the department of labor that handles veterans specifically. i am honored to be part of that. i am honored to be part of that.