a and it -- it has made a commitment across the board. the bottom line is we will take care of our veterans and a matter what. we will do what needs to be done. to put them into meaningful employment, to get them jobs, so on and so forth. i want to be able to put that out there because i want you to know the commitment does not just come from one level. it comes from the top across the board. >> as of august this year, we haven't had -- we had 877,000 veterans unemployed. out of that, we have an unemployment rate of 7.7% is actually what the total percentage is right now. it gets up to about 26% for the

18-24-year-old at a certain level when they get out. after a while, that percentage starts going down. i was not prepared to give you that but i will help you. before i get started, i want you to understand who is our veterans. everyone of you know what our young men and women are going through right now. when i say young men and women, i am not talking about just the 18-24, 18-30 -- i'm talking about from the 18 year-old to the 60 year-old. for the person who has out there for all those years in needed to do what acnes to be done and put their lives out there for us and now find that they are 54 years old and they cannot find a job and have not had a job for 10,

12 years. they go into homelessness and different things. that is what happens. that is the reality of life. whether the economy is good or bad, it has happened. even during the bad times, we still had veterans on the street. that is a travesty. we should not have that. we should never have that. secretary solis is part of the homeless council and so is secretary sean second. they said in five years we want to eliminate the homeless. we're working on it as hard as we can. within dol we have certain programs in veteran employment service programs. we have hbrp which are reintegration programs. bringing in veterans' to a certain site and helping them not only deal with the fact they are unemployed and on the

streets but the first thing we have to do is we have to get rid of those demons. i will use chris for a second. i'm sure when he first -- >> i and the demon. [laughter] >> when he first transitioned in coming from such a hard life that happened to him, those first few months, and correct me if i'm wrong, were tough to get over. >> a little . >> he has not changed. you have not -- you have to be able to deal with all those issues, if you will, before you can actually get a person to move on, before you can actually do anything. i don't care if you are the best employer in the world. if you don't understand that, if

you don't understand that culture, if you don't understand where they are coming from, you can have the best employee in the world but you will not be able to retain him or her and you will not be able to make him work effectively. you have to understand who they are first. whether they are wounded or whether they are not and whether they were in combat or whether they never saw something being shot at them. about thisssionate as you can tell. i have four sons in the military. between my sons, i have 12 stores in iraq and afghanistan. i understand what is like to be parent waiting for a word from your kids. i understand what is like having one of your sons come back and call you at 6:30 and the morning

on a saturday morning and ask you,"hey, colonel, not using dead, calling you by your rank -- and saying "do you have nightmares?" " when you walk down the street, do you smell something that flashes back?" dealing with marine who was an f-18 pilot who is a phenomenal individual, you have a three our conversation and you spend five minutes talking out of that three errors. hours. that is part of what we are looking at. the other piece is -- let me give you the biggest thing that has happened to us that we have noticed -- we have noticed that

we have an education problem, not with our troops, but with the people who employ them. i have two gentleman over here to my left who i am very honored because of the fact of what they have done within their respective areas to help break that barrier down. there is a second problem -- the second problem is our troops, our people, our young men and women coming back. how many of you have served in the military? raise your hand, please. do you remember the day you walked into a boot camp? remember that day? or ocs? do you remember what that felt like? there were two things going through my head that day.

one of them is not to [unintelligible] the other thing was what in god's name did i do? whatever branch of the service you are, maybe not the air force, but everybody else [laughter] you understand what is like that first day. there is fear and apprehension. you don't know what to do. as the weeks go by for the time goes by, it gets a little better, the yelling you can understand. you could actually understand what they're saying to you. [laughter] you get a little easier and you actually moved a little sharper and you look a little bit better and so on and so forth. the moment of your life, the moment of truth is the day you graduate.

anyone of you who have served -- remember the day you graduate from high school or college? that feeling you had inside? your chest was a lot bigger, you spoke a little deeper, you were somebody. at that moment, you were going to conquer the world. that is our guys and gals. we have to make them understand that when they get out and they get rejected the first time by an employer, that we will bring them right back to the day the graduated gude camp u with their gudep, their voices, and the strength they can conquer the world. i ended the vietnam war all by myself. i did. a graduate from boot camp and i said i and and in vietnam.

-- i'm ending vietnam. that is the culture and have to understand that. for the employers, understand that these young that men and women bring to your table. whether it your small-company colombian company or a large company. how do you bring them into your company and make sure they see themselves in that company? how do you make that work? wal-mart has done a. it by having an employee group of veterans. by turning around and talking to each other, camber has done it by reaching out to other people making sure the other chapters understand what is going on. we've gotten together with sherm to make sure that the

resource managers, the actual hiring people, understand what an 11-brother is. bravo is. i didn't understand what that is. that is an infantry that in the army. we have to teach the human- resources individual to ask the question. if you don't ask the question -- a presume will get to the interview, the interview get you a job -- if they don't ask the questions, you are missing an opportunity. with that, i will stop. >> first of all, barbara and paul, i realized we are up here with three marines. [laughter] >> exactly, sir. >> i think things are about even. [laughter]

i am gary profitt, head of the military programs at wal-mart. the thing i would like you to know most about me is that i have been at wal-mart for about three years and the reason i accepted an opportunity to join the wal-mart team was two fold. this is not about wal-mart feeling good about itself or me feeling good about myself. this is absolutely about the prospect of creating positive business outcomes. i think the military community constituencies represent arguably the largest diverse talent-rich pool in the world. if as most of us believe that the future will belong to those who win the talent war, if you are not operating in this

space, you are probably missing an opportunity. it is about business outcomes. for me, the personal aspect of this was a chance that i get to give back in terms of career opportunities and contributions to family financial security to those with whom i have had the privilege -- privilege of serving. that is enough for me to share with you. you can ask anything you would like of me afterwards. when i accepted the invitation to come and be with you today, i wanted to make sure with the organizers that they understood that i probably was going to gain more from this opportunity than i was going to contribute in value. i think we are in the early --

very early stages, on the threshold, if you will, of our commitment to wounded, ill, injured veterans and their families and caregivers. let me just share some of the things with barbara's suggestion that i think we're doing in this space. let me offer some context. for those of you who may not know, our relationship with the military dates to u.s. army intelligence officer captain sam balton who served during world war two and that relationship has grown dramatically over time. i think that is important because that allows me to talk to lots of people about the compatibility of the wal-mart culture for those that have served in uniform. our three basic beliefs use many

of the same words as i remember from army values. if you can have a cultural foundation that begins that transition, i think it is very helpful. others have said this - i don't need to tell you about the challenging economy, the difficult employment market but we at wal-mart feel a certain urgency to act now. as i was talking to kevin about earlier, the prospect of a continued to draw down in iraq and a tennis fan and the fact that there are dramatic fiscal pressures on fore-sizing i am not sure we can feel confident it will get any easier sooner. a big we have to accept a certain that of urgency. we also need to recognize that

this is very much a marathon. we need to be in this for the long haul and we need to get it right. i hope one of the things that you recognize is the fact that i am gratified and i tend to be a half glassful kind of guy -- this is a growing and deepening public-private partnership. we all need to work this together because nobody can sell on their own. i can talk at some length about the fact that we feel a responsibility because of our size and pervasiveness to lead with respect to civic and social responsibility. it will not foundation does a lot of work and they're one of my greatest partners and they are doing some very cutting edge work that i can talk to you about in the wounded warrior cup community. -- community.

wal-mart is mostly everywhere. on like what paul was sharing, we think we can make an impact in communities across the nation which is what kevin is doing hiring our heroes of the local level which is important to us. the reason we have been very deliver it in the subject of today's session -- i learned when i visited with my wife at walter reed during the last active assignment every 90 days, this is a very vulnerable population. we cannot make any mistakes here. we have to get this right. urgent, yes, but a place where we can mistakes, i think not. i think kevin will probably talk about joining forces. i will not do much of that other than tell you that one of the things that is very important

there is what the white house and the president and the first lady have done is raise awareness which is a big thing. they have done a lot of things to educate people that i think is important. i heard this in the panel this morning about portability of jobs and turning jumps into careers. one of the things we thought was important is the part of an announcement where we highlighted what we call a military family promise which essentially guarantees a job for a spouse who has been moved to another part of the country because of her uniform spells being pcs'ed or transferred. trying to turn jobs into careers is an important thing for us to

do. we are engaged throughout the spectrum. we have direct transmission point of engagement. kevin will probably talk about hiring our heroes and the important work they are doing with the uso and hiring heroes. usa. we think spouses are just as important as the uniformed member. we are very much involved in the military spouse employment partnership. we are just beginning some work with the wounded warrior project that we think is very promising and has the potential to scale so that wal-mart would feel like it is impractical. impactful. we are beginning in the northeast and california and washington to get lessons from that. we will actually migrate back to

the other parts of the business. let me talk briefly about the wal-mart foundation. some of you may know that the last veterans day we made a commitment to address unmet needs for military families and veterans at $10 million over five years. in a space that bill solomon gave at the american legion at the end of august, we doubled the to $20 million. it is important because the philanthropic peace with the corporate peace is something back goes hand in hand and specifically, there is a great program as of you may know that is led by my haney at syracuse university and is called entrepreneurship boot camp for veterans with disabilities.

there is a companion effort that deals with families and represents a consortium of universities that are devoted to make entrepreneurs out of veterans with disabilities and their families and make them successful. if you don't know much about it, i would encourage you to learn about it. it provides some of the flexibility that we think this population needs to not have necessarily typical career with wal-mart or anybody else but they would want to start and on their own business. i heard some discussion about my good friend barbara bandell and the work she is doing. it is very important to us as we go forward with our work in this space. one thing we realize is that we must take away any of the hindrances four leaders and

hiring managers. with the support of her network, advising her people -- our people and some of the issues they may confront as managers, we think that is an important effort. the work in the community blueprint is exciting stuff. the coming home series that the american red cross just announced which is all about reintegration and some of those things that we think is pretty important -- a couple of observations and i look forward to your questions. to add something to my friend jr., we have a great challenge on our side. i spend 50% of my time teaching the military about wal-mart and the other 50% teaching wal-mart about the military. we cannot expect our associates to understand this space for

which some of them have no exposure. we are very interested in making sure we do that. an example of that at a very high and is captain and mrs. scott he smiley will spend veterans day with us. for those of you who don't know them, he is still the first and only blind army officer serving in active duty. we did a live broadcast on this throughout the wal-mart network throughout the united states and

streamed it on the web. we want people to see the caliber of the people we're talking about. we want to put a face on all of this so that is one of the ways we do it. also, i think it is very important that we do work on the military side to better prepare our soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines, coast guardsmen to transfer from active duty. i think we have a transition assistance from work that is very mired in the past. the whole discussion about boot camp and those kind of things are very enlightening and i think we ought to give some serious consideration to that. there is a communication problem here. people leaving active duty looking for a second career cannot express to us with their career aspirations are or why they should be considered with the portfolio preparation experience they had and conversely on the other side, the people listening don't know what they're hearing either.

i think we have to do some work on both of those areas. the final thing i would say is that we at wal-mart believe that when we see an impediment to hiring veterans or or a military family member, we must take on immediately. today, things get viral pretty quickly. it is true inside of organizations as it is outside. we address any of these things that arise pretty quickly. i think i have taken more time than i should. >> we have like 25 minutes left and we want to get to questions. don't feel any pressure. >> i knew that was going to happen. at least i got lunch today. [laughter] >> i was going to help from some of the issues you brought up with numbers. i was a marine for 20 years and a retired in 2009. i was fortunate when i left the marine corps. i had a mentor, a guy named jim

jones, who was the national security adviser. i was at the right place of the right hon. i was very lucky that the chamber understand the value of hiring a veteran. he had an active duty marines for several years and a program americorps has called year out program which was an internship program. it taught people in the private sector as nog's and nonprofits about hiring a veteran. he was always part of that and not every veteran is that lucky witches really the reason we started this program. there are 12 million veterans and the work force, 1 million of them are unemployed. people say that is roughly the same average as the national average. i have to bite my tongue as a veteran myself. i want to give them an answer, "are you kidding?

people leave their families for one year and we don't transitions?" we make the business case for hiring a veteran. even though veterans are suffering on average about 9% unemployment, there are specific populations of veterans that are really suffering. if you look at iraq and afghanistan veterans, it is roughly 13%. in 18-24 ages, it is close to 30% unemployment. that may be affected by people in school right now but trust me, it is double digit and it is nearing 20-30%. if you look it guardian reservists. 18%.re suffering from yes, we are at 9% but we're at a moment in time that if we don't do something about it now, that 9% will grow to 10, 11, 12% for the whole population. if we draw down the force and we

have 100,000 guard reservists coming back, that number will grow. we have to do something about it now. when i came to the board in 2009, i was the chief of staff and i heard hundreds of fortune 500 c's say that you are a veteran and ask how to get more veterans and their company. tom donahue helped me connect two things for it when i left the marine corps, i served as the head of enlisted and simons. -- had enlisted assignments. it seems to me that if we are seeing this problem in our society and you have ceo's hiring veterans, you might as well addressed the two. it has been a successful program because this is not about washington talk. the chambermaid a mistake in hiring a marine to do this

because this is all that action on the ground. it is not going to happen in washington. it is nice that we meet and talk about this but if you looked around the room and saw everyone raise their hand, most of you have served and get the issue and most of you understand why it is a good business proposition to hire a veteran. this will happen in the local communities. if we're going to have an impact -- if you talk to 95% of the kids to leave the service, they have no idea what they're going to do next. they talk about where they are going. if we're going to solve this problem, it will require it moved across the country where companies like wal-mart, companies like fedex,, tr is likei-west who have a presence across the country can impact problems on the ground. we will not sell that you're talking about it in washington. the chamber started a year-long nationwide initiative to do hiring fares in 100 communities

across the country. i will be the first person to say that a hiring fear will not get hundreds of thousands of people in jobs. at the end of this 12-month period, it 15-20,000 veterans and military spouses will have a job. this is not just about the number. this is about creating movement. when we leave those local communities, core groups of leaders have stepped up and they will go to the next adjacent. cities. we don't have to worry about that local timber because when they see this we never have to go back to that city again. next year, we will be in 500 communities. i can say that with confidence because after we did the first five events, 13 chambers that were not on the list of the first 100 called me and said they were doing their on. they just one of their -- our logo. we're on the verge of creating a movement. i am confident that with the

chamber, with companies, with the government, because we are doing this with the department of labor and the employer support of the guard reserve, we will create a movement. we're also working on those populations that are suffering the most. the chamber has a program for student veterans we have. a program for iraq and afghanistan presidents. we focus on guard reservists. we have a program for women veterans and military spouses. we create a network of 10,000 women and business mentors because those populations have issues, too. my wife serve with me for 15 years. terme say don't use the here as. spouses, 93% our wives, are the heroes and people cannot forget that. any program that helps matters should also help spouses get

jobs because most of our men and women leaving the military have to have a dual incomes. we're working on a program for wounded warriors which is why we are here today. the chamber will do this in a very measured way. there are lots of people talking about doing programs for wounded warriors. many of them are not doing it for the right reasons. we have decided we will do pilots and work in a very targeted way to address the population. it is significantly different from all the other populations we're talking about. we're working with the u.s. 0 and higher gear as the usa at fort belvoir and fort carson and we do targeted workshops to get them ready and we do mock interviews with them so they don't feel the intimidating environment of a big job fair and they get the care from the companies committed to doing this. we also a d engageod. it is great we have a program called operation or fighter but what about doing that in the private sector? we want them to have an

internship. we get 30 companies to mark to sign up to do that if theyndaa will start that as early as this spring. we believe it is important we educate employers and we will look to s work withherm on that. ptsd is not just a stigma in terms of what general corelli address. in doing a service to our service members in terms of telling the about ptsd, would also create a stigma in the employer community where people are not hiring because they are afraid they will get a people p withtsd. there are many who are fully functioning and the need to educate human-resources management about that. the last thing we are doing is we're creating a network for the local chambers so the local chambers of commerce across the country can be connected with other chambers when a wounded

warrior is getting ready to leave so that when we test these pilots that weakens kill them and a significant way once we look at what works and we will skillet to the 1700 chambers of commerce we have across the country. the chamber is not going to stand and be happy with what we do in the first year. we will create a private sector , a veteran employee advisory council comprised of the 25 biggest companies in america -- and othersm, tri-west are involved. they will drive this issue in the private sector and we will tell the public sector what we need to do to make an even bigger impact in the years to come. e will create an ip architecture so veterans are held the day before and the day

after and we will develop a small business strategy. this is not just big companies. the chamber has 1700 local chambers as members. we have 3 million small businesses. if we can get 10% of those 3 million small businesses and 10% of the 3.5 million veteran-owned businesses to hire one veteran, by 2013, we can cut the unemployment rate in half for veterans and that is something the chamber will be working on with our partners. we will drive this for as long as it takes to address the issue of veterans on employment. thank you. [applause] >> i think we have heard some really good practical items that these companies are working on. we have about 50 minutes left and i want to get in as many questions from the audience as we can. please move to the microphone

and to the time constraints, if we can keep the questions as sure as we can and we will just start red over here. >> i want to thank all the presenters. i'm here with an organization called bright star technologies and we hire veterans. we're interested in this forum because we really need the information that you are sharing about how to make a workplace work and integrate the lives of veterans. i have two questions. what can we do to put some additional pressure ve ont centers and department of labor's to provide better employment readiness programs for veterans re-entering the workforce? with that, what do we need to do as an organization to provide a

truly integrated and supportive environment? water the top three things we need to have in place? >> deval speak at once. >> the first was difficult because i get my opinions about thetap process which i think could be much more. we recognize, everyone in this room understands that there are some things we need to work out and that is the beauty of this. we're talking about it and trying to better the process. it boils down to leadership. that is on the veterans side and the employer's side. >> any way you can think of that an employer can be vocal or support of local labor departments? >> working with who? >> as an employer, we had some

difficulties in getting of veterans end when we have the added them to perform our work process these. we do high-tech consulting and records test combined management and we are trying to work with local service agencies to get employment ready people into the organization. >> i was thinking about marine for life and there are other organizations. one thing i want you all to take away -- veterans employment training services also has what we call our force multiplier and work with the state work force agencies. the agencies have specific one- stop centers which is what i think you're talking about. >> yes. >> there are specific individuals who have their job to help the veterans who come

through. one of them is the disabled veterans average personnel and the lever is the local employmentrep. the lever is the one that reaches out to you and asks what you need go. >> tcha. >> the problem that arises is that the one-stop center takes care of everyone to include veterans. what they don't know is that veterans have priority in that one stop. the lever is supposed to reach out to you and ask you what you need. what are you trying to achieve and who are you looking for? they then want to be able to match that with what you need. if you don't have that, i can provide that for you. we have about 2000 throughout the country in every single state. i can provide that. >> a follow-up in the back of

the room. >> i military family advocate. we worked with kevin in a recent national launch and the chamber of commerce's across the country who are spectacular in helping us with that effort. with theebv and evbs, when you talk about the education of it from the spouse side, the service numbers side, and the actual companies themselves, that will probably be the most important and that has to have that mental health aspect to it. i think the peer to peer type opportunities you have in these companies fostering those will be one of the most important parts of all of this. if you can get us in the door, and you were talking about the

challenges of trying to get the spouse's in if they are caregivers, one of the most valuable things we can provide to you as the care givers and wives with that experience and living with 10 years of war because we have an entire generation that don't know any about war, you can use this as consultants and how to communicate with these veterans and how to communicate with the spouses and get the best out of them. everybody is so well intended and i have seen some much money and some much passion flushed down the toilet because no one seems to be keeping track of once you get these spouses or veterans, what is actually happening. >> you make a great point. the education piece goes to say that the person you have implementing that and being the liaison needs to be engaging and outgoing individual and can

execute. if you hire somebody that does not know it and put them in there, it will fail. having that liaison -- you have to put forth an effort to make sure that individual is a performer and can execute. >> we have six people standing and wanted it to everyone's questions. to the end of the room -- >> i am from the vietnam veterans of america. i want to thank all of those representing the private sector up there for all you are doing, particularly the u.s. chamber, and wal-mart because much of the ingredients that were missing when we came home from vietnam many years ago after the peloponnesus and wion war [laughter] picà monday for what you are doing because it will take that kind of leadership in our society to get the job done. i am concerned about what is not happening in the government --

at the government level. the work force investment act is supposed to have priority services for veterans and it does not. there has been no enforcement for the last 10 years. frankly, the tax credit that the president is talking about is part of the jobs for america act. that will not tip the decision to get people to hire veterans. they will take it from the back and but it has to be money up front. we can take work force investment acts and if there is the political will, forced those service delivery areas to start putting veterans in and use that money an ojt. we can also take the federal comte tracked jobless listings which doesn't help anybody at the moment because they seem to be engaged in finding employers more than a thing else.

it is not supposed to be a revenue enhancement. it is supposed to be a behavior- changing mechanism for federal contractors to get them to list and higher protected courage beginning with disabled veterans. what is the department of labor doing to ensure that veterans' prairies service is in force and implemented in every service delivery. in the country working with employers have ojt programs that are funded? what is the department of labor doing to make office of federal contract compliance not an onerous burden on employers but to help people change their behavior is so they hire veterans, particularly returning wounded betts, thank you. >> wow, i am on the hot seat across the board. we have discussed this before.

i cannot speak o forsccp in that light. i will have to go back and actually find out a lot. unfortunately, i cannot answer those questions to you directly but i will be more than happy to go back and check. >> a keg. >> i haven't heard much about this morning is the faith based communities. this is an untapped resource that is begging to find an opportunity to serve in the reintegration but also to employed. rinse veterans. this seems like this is an untapped resource. i had 60 more families son of this and the asking what they can do in my small program to

help working with the walter reade -- the new walter reade wounded warriors. i would like all of you to consider this on tap resources specially when you consider the u.s. chamber and wal-mart that could be very much integrated into the community. >> i think you make an outstanding point. three years ago, i grabbed my wife by the throat and lifted her two feet off the ground and was arrested for domestic violence because i was a sick individual -- i educated myself all lot on ptsd. i still had to get into something else and i had a th definede lord and that is where it started my healing process. [applause] at the end of the day, the accountability august -- on me as well as the veteran. i have to stand up to the plate. it does not give me a virtual

impunity to have certain behavior's. at some point, i have to get off my rear end take accountability for my actions and everyone else needs to take accountability as well. >> it would not be too hard in northern virginia to grab four churches and come up with 30,000 people. we have large congregations. 40,000 -- 40% of the volunteers come from faith-based organizations. >> i know it is upcoming. there has been some work with and the marine corps and a senior chaplain in the marine corps of those turning to drugs and alcohol for returning veterans. >> let's see if we can squeeze in our last four. we will go from some short questions and short answers.

veteran anditary intelligence professional. what a the most important lessons learned from the latest word is culture. as you alluded to, the great cultural divide between civilian and military culture. only 1% of the population actually serves in the military and that makes them particularly isolated and vulnerable. is there a restores, maybe a handbook for field manual, that bridges the cultural divide and educates service members so that they can own their own psychological adjustment and well-being for belonging and getting back into employment t?

luck is not a reliable source. >> let me tell you something that is important to us. before we hire anyone at wal- mart whether it is a senior person or a very junior person, we feel very confident they can make -- that they will be comfortable in our culture and that we will feel comfortable and confident that they will be successful. the most important asset that we have in that regard, frankly, is our cultural foundation and what we understand to be service cultures. the people that are the purveyors of that on our side are what we believe when we finally get the results of some polling is well north of six

digits of veterans at wal-mart. they are the best people to be able to take care of that for us. >> let's move on. we will run out of time. i am being the bad guy. >> i'm nine-year marine and marines bows. spouse. what are specific examples that companies like amazon or wal- mart -- what has northrop to help make you successful? >> one was workplace accommodations. i moved my family up here and i retired in texas. we have three girls and the oldest has down's syndrome and i am disabled as well and i was working full-time with northrop grumman.

my wife might as well have been a single mother of three. it was tough so i chose to move my family back, got permission from management. i work i in healtht. i can do most of my work remotely. when i travel, i can visit with my folks in the program. they've been able to accommodate me there. the program is not perfect. i can get ticked off and said that i met with the program and leaving. two wrongs don't make a right. i can sit down and say i think we have some areas where we need to improve. i could get my input and cultural differences huge. i came from a military culture organization and i went into the corporate world with new acronyms.

i was an education mismatch. i had a legal degree, not an it degree. seeing management understands that and provides the link with a mentor with in the program that will work with me for the next year in program management -- in taking actions like that and text -- and stepping up to the plate and bring your 50% ever on both sides will really help. >> limit at the last two people way over there on the and. >> we have heard that there may be as many as 85% of g.i. bill users dropping out of college. what work in all employers do to build a stronger bridge between education and employment?

>> as you might imagine, we have a pretty aggressive campus relations program generally. we have a fairly long relationship with the veterans of america. we are actually looking to better integrate the military aspects of what i have done into our campus relations program that we think will be more integrated. we have a very aggressive intern program. we take it pretty seriously. how we interact with the intent -- academic community on many fronts. i don't know that completely answers your questions but we're pretty aggressive. >> one other thing we need to do is if you look at the force that

is leaving, when they make their decision, they have to understand what path they will have to go down to get the qualifications they need to do what they have to do. in our transition process, there is no bridge plan for these young men and women leaving said they make an uninformed decision. veterans will hold three jobs in the first three years they leave because it is not being assimilated in the culture. these are smart young men and women but they need to make better decisions. maybe we need to push community colleges to start. we absolutely have to show them the path and give them may be 20 or 30 options of what they can do to get to what they want to do in their second career as. >> they are not getting the leadership and they don't have a plan as to what they are supposed to be executing when they leave. being part of the transition is huge. >> will make you the last

question, sir. >> i am with the wounded warrior project. everything i have heard here today, everything, is read on target. i would challenge labor to do one thing -- revisit the apprenticeship program and make it work. i would challenge the chamber of commerce one thing -- we had a summit in d.c. three years ago. one thing that came out of that was a veteran-friendly concept. come up with a branding program and stick to it and make employers responsible for hiring veterans in a standardized format that they can police themselves, thank

you. >> i will take the reporters prerogative and ask the last question my question will be to the audience. as i have listened to everybody, i want to know, is there an unemployed veteran in this room? that needs a job? i don't see a single hand. that tells us, of course -- is there a military spouse in this room that is here to look for information because they need a job? i don't want to miss any hands. military member that will be transitioning out so on. that is why i came to find out what is out there and what is the. available i have no idea what the heck i'm going to do. i've not look for job and almost 11 years. >> did you learn anything today? >> almost certainly. thank you very much. i'm a u.s. marine.

i am first lieutenants ke robertith and i am staged -- stationed in camp >> marine was enough but i am biased. [laughter] >> we wish to the best of luck in are glad you learn something. there are many resources today. >> i will give you my card after this. >> we will all give you a card. [applause] >> a couple of months ago, i went with admiral mullen to a meeting similar to this in detroit. then we went to cleveland and then we went to a few other places. everywhere we went, it was businessmen and bankers and organizations and all kinds of people in the audience but there was always one or two if you only open your eyes and as in the back of the room who came

because they read about a meeting and they need a job and they need work and people will do what they need to do, veterans will need to do what they need to do and go to any meeting to find that job. mostly as a reminder to me when i said in a large meeting room in washington, real people, real veterans, real mates. we thank you all for coming and which everyone the best of luck in thank are vietnam veterans in the audience for their service, some of us are old enough to remember the peloponnesus [laughter] is. i guess we will be back next year. >> thank you, barbara and thank you to all our panel members. [applause] "washington journ[captioning pey national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011]

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>> the head of the american association of university professors says that tenure and academic freedom are in jeopardy. and need to be protected. >> tenure creates an atmosphere on campus where people can speak freely, not just in their teaching, but also in terms of university governance pretty dull like a proposal that the board of trustees or the president makes, you have to be able to speak freely about it. administrators should be able to do that as well. that shared governance speeches what academic freedom for tax. without that, you don't have the expertise of the faculty available to you. >> cary nelson tonight on c-span "q7a." >> this morning, we take a look at property and america, and how the face of poverty has changed