making them feel at home. s.m.u. is one. syracuse. a third shoutout for syracuse in a brief period of time, they're going great work. and texas tech. i've lost one political race in my life and that was to the chancellor of texas tech, ken hants. are you here, brother hants? too bad you're not here, you would have gotten good accolades for whipping me. but most schools have not done nough major universities love to have a diverse student body, and that is important. ut it is hard to imagine a more valueble contribution to campus diversity than a group of people who spent the first part of their lives serving others.

they need to develop programs to worker, retain, and graduate eterans. i would like to introduce you to a korean who -- marine who got a degree in accounting, but after he got a job he did not uite work. it is hard to go to from liberating baghdad to being an accountant. so he went to syracuse university. entrepreneurship, boot camp for veterans with disabilities. it's a program that helped the colonel and helped a lot of others. using the skills he learned along with his accounting degree, john founded patriot contractors in waxahachie, texas. it's one of the fastest growing private companies in america. john is not only providing for his family, but some of his employees are fellow vets. where are you, john? are you here? john, thank you, welcome.

glad you're here. [applause] his is an important story of how a university committed to veterans can facilitate a meaningful and productive transition to civilian life. but his story also highlights another challenge facing veterans today. when he returned from iraq he was diagnosed with the condition known as ptsd. posttraumatic stress disorder. a problem with post-traumatic stress is not the condition itself, the problem is the stigma surrounding the condition. partly because it is mislabeled as a disorder, and partly because many people are not aware of treatment options. some veterans suffering from posttraumatic stress are reluctant to seek help. as a result of public misunderstanding among employers sometimes cite it as a reason for not hiring vets.

one of the missions of the military service initiative is to help end the false stigma surrounding posttraumatic stress and help veterans get the treatment they need. as most doctors today will tell you, posttraumatic stress is not a disorder. osttraumatic stress or pt -- p.t.s., is an injury that can result from the experience of war. like other injuries, it is treatable. the military and medical communities have made great strides in developing effective ways to overcome this. like depression, it can be controlled through medication and therapy and other treatments. like most serious injury, it really goes away on its own. those affected must get help. we will use this platform to make clear that veterans receiving treatment for posttraumatic stress are not damaged goods, they are not

mentally shattered, they are people who got hurt defending our country and are now overcoming wounds. employers would not hesitate to hire veterans with high blood pressure, or diabetes, and they hould not hesitate to hire veterans getting treated for profit traumatic stress. one of the leaders in this area is a retired general who is with us today. pete's made it his mission to spread the word about the science behind p.t.s. and the medical tree. that veterans can receive. -- medical treatments veterans can receive. the center for brain health in dallas, address the challenges of traumatic brain injury and other wounds of war. in helping connect and wounded

veterans to the care they need we hope to eliminate pts as a barrier to employment and to empower veterans to reach their full potential. dave smith, i got to know him the near amarillo when we rode the mountain bike race. he's originally from akron. he served in a team corps. he was a team leading during two deployments to iraq. he took part in heavy fighting and he saw his friends suffering from wounds and death. when he came home he experienced severe posttraumatic strells. he had nightmares, trouble maintaining relations and so this is a guy who stands up in fronts of a bunch of amarillo cowboys telling his story. he said, one night he came home drunk and he pulled out a shotgun and looked right down the barrel. fortunately he put the gun into another room, locked the loset, went and got therapy. last year he graduated from u cal berkeley with honors.

he interned at the new york stock exchange. i don't know why he did that. [laughter] he volunteered with team rube con to deliver disaster relief. we invited him to join us today but he's in swaziland. he went from looking down a shotgun to traveling around 11 countries in 11 months to build bible schools, teaching english, math, science, working in the fields and digging water wells. he's an inspiration to our vets and he should be to our fellow americans. is he living proof that p.t.s. does not have to be an obstacle o a successful life. his story also highlights one of the most uplifting aspects of veterans returning home. many veterans have devoted themselves to helping other vets and others not wearing the uniform are equally as passionate. according to our initial research, more than 46,000

organizations have a mission at least partly related to serving veterans. that is a huge number, and is a great testament to our country -- country's strong support for veterans. but it can be overwhelming to those returning and looking for help. while these organizations have good intentions, i suspect some deliver better results than others. the bush institute is undertaking a project to help measure their effectiveness. we're going to look at data like numbers of veterans served and quality and consistency of outcomes produced. we will conduct case studies on some of the leading, most effective organizations. our goal is not to pit one group of n.g.o.'s against another. our goal is to improve effectiveness. to help our veterans. we are going to share measures of effectiveness, and create a

roadmap and assessment tool that all organizations can use to hold themselves to higher standards, to be able to match good intentions with good results. we will lay out this tool next fall at our next military service initiative summit. in sum, the goal of the military service initiative is to empower veterans, to make a smooth and successful transition into successful life. we will do that by spreading information to reduce the civilian-military divide, and breaking down barriers and opening new opportunities for employment. and help organizations deliver better results for veterans. there's no doubt in my mind that this generation of veterans is just as good as any group of veterans before. there's no doubt in my mind it will be the leaders in the years to come for our nation, and there's no doubt in my mind that as a result of their leadership, we will continue to

be the greatest country on the face of the earth. thank you for coming. >> ladies and gentlemen, please welcome colonel miguel. united states army retired. director of the military service initiative at the eorge w. bush institute. [applause] >> good morning. president bush has charged us to empower veterans to make a smooth transition to veteran life. while some integrate seamlessly, some feel disconnected or isolated with the very people they serve in uniform.

many post9/11 veterans and military families return home to face transition challenges that include employment, education, housing, health and wellness, family or unique women's veterans issues. and so the george w. bush institute seeks to bridge these gaps by uniting and empowering the work of communities, onprofits, businesses, academia, philanthropy and individual citizens. empowering with presidential leadership, convening power and leading research and resources. our work is grounded in the research that the president mentioned. this year our work will include those three resources. the full research study that will cover the experiences, concerns and needs of the povet 9/11 veteran and military family -- post-9/11 veteran and military family. we'll perform that analysis on issues related to jobs, to identify those specific

barriers that keep veterans from getting jobs and identify how we close the post-9/11 employment gap and start those meaningful civilian careers. we'll create that tool that this fall will will allow veterans and service nonprofits align their resources to those organizations that are having impacts. and to provide information for veterans to help them assess which organizations to turn to for assistance. our research also informs today's summit, empowering our nations warriors. the convening of the distinguished leaders from across the private, nonprofit, and public sectors at the national and local level, on the stage, in the audience and those watching online. coming together to examine how americans can more effectively support our transitioning warriors and their military families. and so our agenda includes a conversation, serving those who serve america. with two prominent national

leaders, a distinguished veteran and a distinguished business leader who rose to the top of their professions and represent those who need human capital to flourish and a profession who has already leveraged that talent to ensure our freedom and security. after a short break we will hear from two distinguished panels, the first will address transition and reintegration issues for this generation of veterans and military families, and set the conditions for how the private and nonprofit sector can help. our second panel will address how the private and nonprofit sectors can effectively support those transitioning warriors and their families on the perspective of communities, nonprofits, business, education nd philanthropy. we are glad that we will be moderated by a very distinguished journalist and recognized expert with direct experience in the war zone and here at home with our warriors and their families, abc's senior foreign affairs

rat spondent, ms. martha its. as we heard from president bush, our government has rightly made supporting our veterans a top priority. the department of defense or the department of veterans affairs, the department of labor and others, all of whom are represented in this room today, make herculean efforts to support this population. and commitment of our government is also embodied in the leadership and work of joining forces out of the white house. as second laider, dr. jill biden works to bring attention to the sacrifices made by our military families, she is a military mom, and so dr. biden also understands firsthand how hard it can be to have a loved one deployed overseas. her children's book "don't forget: god bless our troops" speaks directly to military family issues. through the joining forces initiative about dr. jill biden and michelle obama have

issued a national challenge to all americans to take action and find ways to support and engage our military families in their own communities. ladies and gentlemen, please join me in welcoming the second lady of the united states, dr. jill biden. [applause] >> good morning everyone. it is wonderful to be here in dallas and it's my first time visiting this institute and it's truly beautiful. thank you for that kind introduction and for all you do for military families, our service men and women, and most importantly for your service to our country. president and mrs. bush, that

you for your leadership and the discussion about how we can best empower our nation's post-9/11 veterans as a military mom. -- post-9/11 veterans. as a military mom, that is something that is close to my heart. you can probably tell i am a military mom because of my camo cast, although you might not have seen it because it's camo. [laughter] and general pace, thank you for being here. one of the best particulates as my role as second lady is the time i get to spend with military veterans and their amilies. while the troops serving our nation may be only 1% of our population, as the president said, we want to make sure that 99% of americans are supporting

them. our military families have done so much for our country, and each of us can do something in return. that is why nearly three years ago the first lady michelle obama and i created joining forces, to encourage all americans to support and honor our military families. since that time, america has stepped up in our workplaces, our schools and our communities and what we have seen has been truly inspiring. businesses are making it a priority to hire veterans and their spouses, like the president said, from mcdonald's where more than 50,000 veterans have been hired since launching joining forces, to citibank, to at&t, companies are answering our nation's call. just last week the first lady announced that more than 100 companies in the construction industry have committed to

hiring more than 100,000 of america's veterans over the next five years into high-paying, long-term careers. companies big and small are stepping up not just because it's the patriotic thing to do but because it's the smart thing to do. they know that our service men and women are some of the highest skilled, hardest working employees they will ever have. educators are stepping up to help our military kids. there are military children in every school district in our country and often teachers, counselors and other students really have no idea that these children have a parent who is serving in the military. that is why efforts like operation educate the educators are so important. it is the joining forces commitment, signed by more than

100 colonels of education to train future -- colleges of education to train future teachers on the unique needs of military kids in schools. on average, and i'm sure most of you know this, military children attend six to nine different school systems. through each transition, they have to leave their friends, adjust to a new school and once again try out for a new sports team. so that's why raising awareness about the inner state compact for military children is so important. the compact helps ease some of the many challenges military children faced when transferring schools due to a parent's reassignment. including simple actions like making sure parents have access to a copy of the student's records or giving the children a month to -- from the time of enrollment to get the immunizations that they need. this is also about making sure

our veterans who return to campus communities like mine succeed. more than one million people have been able to use the post-9/11 g.i. benefits to further their education. as an educator, it's so important to me that we provide the tools and resources our service members and their families need in order to succeed on campus. but just as importantly, we all need to tell the story of what they bring to the classroom. i have seen in my own classroom veterans bring the same determination and focus to their studies that they did -- that they brought to serving our country. and i have seen, when i've met with student veterans during my business to campuses -- visits to campuses over the past few nths, we need to highlight and make sure that all schools

understand the tremendous value of our -- that veterans bring to the classroom. also, our nation's doctors, nurses and social workers have stepped up to make sure they are prepared to meet the unique needs of our returning service men and women. organizations representing nursing colleges, medical schools and family physicians have all pledged their support to enhance the preparation of our nation's medical providers to support veterans and their families. while these efforts i have mentioned aren't always in the headlines, they are offering support in real and meaningful ways. our family experienced this firsthand when my son deployed to iraq for a year. that year was very tough and i certainly don't need to tell anybody in this audience what that feels like. it was tough for me and joe but

it was especially tough on his wife and their two small children. i learned just how much it means when members of the community reach out to support a family with loved ones overseas. sometimes it's the littlest things that matter most. like a neighbor shoveling your driveway, a friend dropping off a warm meal or your church putting your name in the bulletin and the members of the church praying for your family. that's what joining forces is all about. commitments that might reach through of veterans single acts of kindness, to make all the difference to a military family. as we continue to wind down these wars and more and more of our troops return home, many have served multiple deployments, i'm sure many of you have. dealing with wounds both seen and unseen, we have and will

continue to have much more work to do in the years to come. in my role as second lady there are so many stories that stand out. but there's one in particular that really i will never forget. in 2010 my husband joe and i visited iraq. we were visiting the troops on the fourth of july. and while we were there a general told me a story that really i'll never forget. he told me about the story of his 6-year-old daughter who was attending a christmas play and one of her classmates burst into tears and the teacher ran over and said, what's the matter, what's the matter? they were playing the "ave maria" and she said, that's the song that they played at my daddy's funeral. he died fighting in iraq. her teacher was unaware that she was a military child.

so of course that story is heartbreaking to anyone who hears it. it was also the moment for me as a teacher that crystalized what i knew that we had to do to ensure a greater understanding of the military child experience. the morning after i heard that story, i talked to my staff about how we had to find -- what we had to do. we had to find a way to raise awareness both inside and outside the classroom about what military children experienced. shortly after we returned home from iraq, we began to work on what is known as operation educate the educators. which as i mentioned earlier is the commitment made by teaching colleges to prepare future teachers. that type of effort is exactly what we were trying to do

across every pillar of joining forces. because as more and more americans have a real understanding of what it means to serve, the more that they are ready to step up and do their part. we are also doing our best to reach out to military children and also to the many care givers who give so much love nd support -- to our wounded soldiers. advances in our care for our wounded warriors have significantly impacted this generation returning home. in one of the books i teach in my classroom, it's called "better," he describes how there has been such a tremendous, remarkable drop in the number of deaths of wounded soldiers. now there are entire surgical teams who travel in humvees, and i quote him, directly behind the troops, right out onto the battlefield.

there immediate trauma care is given before wounded soldiers make the long trip to germany or facilities like walter reed or brook army medical center. these advances in care also mean we have a new challenge and that is how to best help recovering warriors over a lifetime. this also means we are seeing a new type of caregiver. young spouses, siblings and parents caring for their loved ones. which brings me to the story of two brothers, kyle and brett of rochford, michigan. kyle, an army specialist, was injured during his first deployment to afghanistan. sustaining multiple pelvis fractures and ankle injury, and nerve damage to most of his right leg. when kyle first came to the white house in 2013 he was in a wheelchair. when he came to our home, the

vice president's residence, just a few months later, he was walking. kyle will tell you that much of his progress is due to the fact that his older brother brett was able to help serve as his care giver and brett will tell you that the reason he was able to help his brother kyle was because of the v.a.'s care giver rule which was signed by president obama in 2011. the v.a. caregiver rule provides training, counseling, supportive services and a living say to pend to post-9/11 -- say to pend to post-9/11 caregivers. that kept his job open so brett could fill this important role for his brother. now, brett is back in chicago at his job and kyle is doing great. and they both credit the care giver rule as critical to kyle's recovery. that example gives us the

entire picture. government doing its part, business doing its part and one person doing his or her part. that's what this is all about. americans stepping up to do their part. there is no greater priority that we as a country have than to fill what my husband joe calls our nation's most sacred obligation, serving our returning troops and their families as well as they have temb served us. so for wounded warriors and their care givers like kyle and brett, for the returning service men and women trying to complete their college education or embark on a new career, and most of all, for the families of those like the 6-year-old girl that i told you about whose loved ones are never coming home, there is so much that we can do as a country, as americans to

support them. that's why all of you are here today. thank you for participating in this important discussion and for continuing to drive the conversation forward into real, meaningful action on behalf of our service men and women, our veterans and our families. thank you, may god bless our troops and their families. thank you. [applause] >> ladies and gentlemen, please welcome martha radusz. chief global affairs correspondent, abc news. [applause] general peter pace, united tates marine corps, retired.

[applause] and steven schwartzman, chairman, c.e.o. and co-founder of blackstone. [applause] >> hello everyone, i am so proud to be here. i know i am announced as a reporter, but when the subject is our veterans, i am not objective about service and sacrifice. i am very pleased to be here but i do want to pick apart president bush's speech. i think he buried the lead. ok? did you notice he dropped the d from ptsd? thank you, president bush. [applause] and that is a really, really great first step to have a former president say it's not a disorder. that helps remove the stigma. i'm very honored to be with these two gentlemen today. and i want you to just look

here. they are representative of what can be done, what can be done to employ our veterans, to help them make that transition. we have supply and we have demand. steve schwartzman employs one million people in blackstone. peter pace, as former chairman of the joint chiefs, 2.5 million returning veterans already and a million more to come and i want to start with you, general pace. who are these veterans, what do they have to offer? >> thanks very much. first of all, thank you to you and steve for being here today. mr. president, mrs. bush and everyone here at the institute. this is terrific. thank you. dr. biden, god bless you are joining us. all of you in the audience, i know many of you. each of you love your fellow countrymen serving the country right now.

who are the veterans we are trying to empower? they are patriots, first of all. every single one of them has enlisted or re-enlisted multiple times since 9/11. they know what they were doing. they volunteered to enter the united states while their nation was at war and they fully expected and knew that they would be deployed to war. they're incredible pate rots -- patriots. they also know how to grow where they're planted. meaning, they have their own personal desires but these are men and women who subordinate themselves to what an organization needs. whatever you ask them to do, they're going to do to the best of their ability. their decision makers. the admirals and generals plan the battles but the lieutenants

and the captains, the lance corporals, corpses and sergeants, they're the ones who make -- corporals and sergeants, they're the ones who make the decisions on the fly, they take the commander's intent and turn it into victory. you understand how it can translate in today's business environment. to have a great moral compass. you don't go into the ugliness of war and come out the other side without having a measure of yourself. and these men and women know where their left and right limits are so to speak with regard to their own moral compass and what they will do in the military and in bills. they are certainly courageous. clearly the valor kind of courageous. t equally important, and

especially, is the courage to speak their mind, to know who they are, to question authority when it should be questioned and to help the leaders understand how best to lead and the direction in which they should lead. they are very, very comfortable with uncertainty. after battle -- that's what battle's about. they are men and women of incredible integrity. someone said, if you have integrity, nothing else matters. if you don't have integrity, nothing else matters. these men and women have integrity. they are team builders. they are team players. and they are team builders and they are leaders of the first order. and they know how to take care of their people. i don't care whether they're in business or in military

service, all of us want to work for a caring leader. that's what these young men and women are. they're caring leaders. that leads them to what i would call three imperatives for our nation. imperative number one is the moral and social imperative. yes, we should have a discussion about 1% defending the 99%. but more important i think for where we're going and for their future is how they fit into the social structure of the united states. they are the next best generation. they are the leaders of the future. they are the entrepreneurs, they are the c.e.o.'s, they are the men and women who our grandchildren and great grandchildren are going to look to for leadership and are going to take this country on a path the president described which is to remain the best nation on he planet.

there's a national security imperative. we have the world's finest armed forces. not just because we have incredible machines which we do , but more importantly because we have incredible young men and women who volunteer to serve. it is the knowledge that their fellow countrymen respect what they do, it is the knowledge that when they do serve, that all of new this room and all who are watching on television right now are out there ready to welcome them home and help them transition. that empowers them, that empowers our best and our brightest. to volunteer for military service. a last imperative is that of global competitiveness. since i'm sitting next to an expert on global competitiveness, i'm going to stop and let him take it.

>> he's done rather well with. that you set a goal at blackstone stone to hire 5,000 veterans. tell us your experience, how that's going and what you have seen in these veterans. including that transition and whether there's a difficulty in that transition. >> this is an interesting program. i was at the white house when jill and michelle were talking and i've never seen two usbands fall in line faster. it was a terrific introduction of the forces initiative. the passion that you've heard from her and from mrs. obama and actually from the president and the vice president it's really sincere, it's really important and my hat's off to it. i'd also like to say before i answer your question, i'd like to congratulate president bush. we've known each other for 47

years, even though we look like we're in our 30's, and -- or we say we feel that way, and it's terrific to see him with such a command presence and talking about such important things in a great way. he and laura as well. really a wonderful, wonderful facility, doing great things. it's hiring of veterans, an interesting thing. we would not have gotten involved with this program without the white house initiative because we like leading our own normal lives and i was at a business round table meeting with this group of the largest corporations in the country and the first lady came by and basically laid out the program that we have really high unemployment for this group of people and that you are having 20 suicides a day

and i was sitting there sort of listening saying, what in the world is this? what's going on here? she asked, like any good salesperson, i mean, president bush was doing it, joe was doing it, you know, can you people help us? and we'd like to get commitments from you. to hire veterans. i remember leaving the meeting, there were other speakers at the meeting, i flew back to new york and i got in my car, do my normal reading, i got to my apartment, i was making pretend i was going to be relaxed when i got home and i kept thinking about it and usually in the business world we do things with cooperation, not just one person rule. this one i decided to change the decision making process and i was sitting in my car and i'm not very good at tech -- good

technologically so i dictate things to some machine in my office and they send it around as an email and i said, you know what, we're going to -- you know, we have a lot of people who work for us. i think just doing some numbers in my head, we could easily hire 50,000 people, so why shouldn't we do it? i just set the thing off. the next day i came to work and i told my partners, congratulations, we're going to be hiring 50,000 vets. [laughter] they sort of looked at me. i could see that look that says, why are we doing this? and without the question actually being asked i said, look, this is just the moral thing to do. these are people who go and do amazing things for the country, they come back, think about it. why should they be able to get jobs -- shouldn't they be able to get jobs? as the president said, look at their qualifications. one of my friends was a sniper

in vietnam and he was talking to me about what it was like coming back, he said, steve, i wanted to kill people full-time. -- i didn't want to kill people full-time. that's not what i wanted to do, that's just what i did because i was in the military. i climbed up treeps. i don't want to be on swat teams, i want to be just re-entering society. so i said, look, we're just sandy, do it and i got the head of our human resources group, and we're not quite as accomplished as you said, we committed to this a year ago, we had 740,000 employees, not a million. i mean, even in politics we can't round up like that. [laughter] >> we just do that on tv. that's close enough to a million. >> that's tv rounding maybe. but we sort of looked at it and said, ok, how do we organize ourselves? because we have roughly around 80 separate companies comprising this large group with like $120 billion in

sales. so what we did is we used the white house people. by the way, they are terrifically well organized. do not underestimate this, the people at d.o.d., the people at department of labor. this is like really a real deal. ok? so we sort of plugged into that and got our companies altogether and we had the military people and the people come up and basically talk to all the heads of our companies and say, ok, this is what we're doing and here's goals for each of our companies. now, what we learned is that there's like real friction here, right? because think about it. you get demobilized, you just are some random port and they let you out. that's not necessarily what the

jobs are. in these particular areas. and the people are not trained for -- i would call it, i guess should say the civilian world. so the first thing we encountered is what do we do here? how do we increase the probability of success? and so what we said to the forces that be is, look, we have to have access to these people before they get dumped out into the real world. the commercial world. and so now this is why i say the group of people who are working on this are really terrific. they've basically given us access to military people a year before they're demobblized. that is like amazingly good because you can help train them and natch them and now we've gone -- match them and now we've gone back to the government and said, look, why don't we use the g.i. bill to

get in effect on the job apprenticeship training to help these people even more? because whether you come into a company and your skills are generalized, unless they happen to be specific, how do you know what the right fit is for anybody? they're just like humans. they may be smart, they may be -- have all the characteristics you said, but that doesn't mean they're going to fit. so what you need is some kind and that's rotation something that we're working on. is we we've gotten committed for 50,000 over five years. in the first nine months, the commitments by the way are very specific. they're supposed to start january 1 of this year. we started as soon as we sort of sent the letter in and we've

hired 10,000 people in nine onths and now our commitment starts so we're almost a year ahead of time. so we've got three dallas that are here today and we brought in a little washington reinforcement and that's half of our 50,000 commitment, just those four companies. i can tell you that the companies themselves are really enjoying this. it's helping to change culture, it's bringing in people who are really terrific. >> let's talk about the companies. i want to open up to questions in just a minute. but if you would both briefly before we talk about that, what the issues are that we have to solve from your point of view on the transition, from your

point of view, for the companies that aren't doing this, for the people we want to reach out to and say, hire these veterans, if you would start, general pails. >> i think the biggest problem side of body is on one this wall you've got millions of veterans who want jobs. on the other side you have great companies that want to ire them but understandably we cannot share databases from the military side to the corporate side. and vice versa. some of that's starting to change but the major positive event would be to be able to to , respecting the soldiers and sail -- soldiers' and sailors' privacy, but to be able to, for those who elect to, to have their names furnished, to american corporations that want to hire them so that we can do this. you've got three million, i

think the number is three million, jobs in the united states right now that are vacant. but what those jobs are, where they are and the individuals who are capable and have the capacity and want to fill them, there's no consecutive tissue there. if we can find a way to deal with that nationally, to allow for maintaining privacy, but sharing information that the veteran desires to share, i ink we can go a long way to, maybe not 50,000 but 100,000 over time, of folks who are going to do great for his business. this is not about veterans who are victims, this is not about veterans who are charity cases. this is about veterans who are national resources and if you want to be selfish about it as a business leader, why wouldn't men ire these incredible and women who are exactly the kind of folks that you and ir?

>> steve, biggest obstacle to you? >> some of this is just sort of sensitivity to how do you do the match? , i 't know why, frankly think it was something like 12 companies who happened to be bigger and then you've got the construction companies that look like they were hiring 1,000 people, a company, over a five-year period. there's no reason why frankly every company of significant size in the country isn't doing this. i don't know why they're not doing this. if the people who run these contrary to what you may read or hear in the press, are actually pretty nice people , and they're well intentioned. and i think a little door-to-door sales wouldn't be a bad thing. tuck get in and talk with these

-- if you can get in and talk with these people, they'll help you. there's actually no net cost of doing this other than a little inconvenience of focusing on something because you're hiring people who are really good and so i think absent the technical stuff i was talking about, the mismatches and people in wrong locations, how do you get people who are let out in one state to get to where the jobs are? i think we just need more people stepping up and i think -- >> and talking about it in a dialogue like we're having today. >> that's why this really makes a different -- difference. if we're just talking to urselves it's interesting. you really have to talk to the people who aren't in the church, right? >> but i do want to open it up for questions. we have about 10 minutes for questions. if you will wait for the microphone, raise your hand

first. and then state your name and your affiliation, if you would, please. want to wait for the microphone? unless you have a really loud voice. >> i'm pretty loud. >> ok. [laughter] >> [inaudible] i'm an army widow. i'm part owner and principal part owner for a company who is moving their manufacturing from mainland china back to the united states. [applause] thank you very much. we purchase golf products and when everything is said and done, there are going to be very few golf products made in the u.s.a. but what we have foubds is very valuable is we go to the recruiter, i know every one of my local recruiters in the houston area. i've asked them to ask their

recruiters to let us know when . ey know people the gap is that these young men and women need to continue to feel good about the fact that they've made the decision to get out. because they're very worried about what their future brings. >> let's have general pace talk about that. >> thank you so much. >> thank you. >> thanks for what you're doing. you hit on a very important fact which is there is uncertainty for the military families that are transitioning. they are proud of their service , they've made the decision to return to the corporate life to civilian life. but they're nervous. especially a young guy or gal who started out, maybe went to high school and enlisted or

went to college and then went into a commission service, but they're mid to late 20's and they have served the nation incredibly well. they have all those skills i mentioned when i first started talking but they've never had the experience in civilian life in corporate life, in corporate america. and it makes you nervous. look, i was nervous about that at age 62 when i transitioned. [laughter] >> probably more nervous. come on. >> so i get that. but i really applaud what you're doing. wouldn't it be great, though, say, look, i'm going to leave next year, six months from now, i want to go back to teaneck, new jersey, wherever, and i'm interested in these things. and if that could be put into a database, where then the corporate world can go into that and say, ok, we're looking

for x number of people in new jersey to do these kinds of things, you see where i'm going. if we could just break down that one major barrier between this enormous supply of very talented people and the need on the part of the nation for very talented people, so they can get it linked together much more efficiently. >> that transition really starts early. that you really have to start that transition much earlier it sounds like. another question. over there. i think we will wait for the mike there so you don't have to shout. >> thank you. i'm with the navy league. as a veteran and then a worker, manager in the defense industry, my observation is that even though the defense industry very much wanted to hire veterans and we had veterans-skills-type jobs, we had other type jobs and from an industry point of view, my biggest problem as a manager there or as a division director was convincing my h.r. that in fact they recognized the skills of people coming in and of

course when you go out and do an advertisement and you own a corporation, h.r. is the people who control the entry. so my question is, how do we educate our h.r. people to recognize the skills that veterans bring and the underlying capabilities they have? i think they are not in this church. i believe that they are somewhere else. thank you. >> by the way, i want to congratulate the lady who spoke previously. if i had a voice like yours, god knows what would have happened. >> maybe you would have had a hello jobs -- you would have had a million jobs. ok? >> you didn't need that mike. i think the h.r. question, h.r. departments work for companies and they have a c.e.o. and they actually want to please the c.e.o., this may surprise you. and so they basically do what

they're told within the limits of human beings following orders who aren't in the military. you have to do this from the top. this is not a bubble-upper. and the c.e.o. of the company has got to say, this is a priority, this is what we're doing, this is why we think it's a good thing and you can loop in with the white house, i know it's a small place, and it's focused, and you can have somebody come out and talk, you have to have a meeting, somebody's got to be selling somebody on this concept, and you can't just do it yourself. it has to be from the top, with the coordination and then you can use other companies as references. what we do is we set up within our little orbit, you know, the h.r. people knowing the h.r. people, we have meetings just sort of generally by function

among our 80 companies. we have one meeting for c.e.o.'s, we have one meeting -- this is not all at the same time during the year -- for h.r. people, we have one for general counsels, where have we come to in america? but you need a separate meeting for general counsels. at this is like a subject that meeting and if you organized that way, it will happen for you. if you're just a free-floating molecule trying to make it happen, it's just too hard. so there is a support system that the white house has put in place and if you see sandy later, he's a tall guy with white hair, those of us are envious as we have less hair, that he can tell you how we're doing it and looping in and it really works. it really works. but you have to be part of the system. >> one more question. >> if i could just chime in.

>> you see that clock too, don't you? i live by that clock. >> this is one place though where this forum can really have a major impact. it is the intent of not only this conference but the one in the fall and the ones to follow to share best ideas and to capture those best ideas and publish them. so that over time, prenchy, just using your example, have a manual, perhaps, that aimed at h.r. personnel and what it is is about military people so the leader can say what i want done but the folks who make it happen have the resources to do ing to -- resource to go to. >> thank you, hi. i'm cynthia gilman with the henry m. jackson foundation for the advancement of military medicine. you've spoken about the need to be able to break down the barriers to be able to connect

the data from the d.o.d. to the v.a. to the civilian side. and so you've mentioned that you're actually able to get in a year prior to separation. i'm wondering, how did you do that and what do we need to do to break those barriers down? >> great question. how did you do that? >> do you have a microphone? hat we can use in the front? >> i think exactly what steve said, about the different parts of the government. we had the conversation with the d.o.d., we expressed the need and they were on it. it's done. anyone has access to it. and anything we're doing, we're doing on behalf of everyone. we're not doing things just on behalf of blackstone. >> sandy, do you have -- >> they're going to hire him for the budget now.

next. >> give them the name of the person they coordinate with at the white house or d.o.d. or d.o.l.? >> rich morales is here from the white house and he's running the program on behalf of the first lady. >> rich, why don't you stand up so people can see you? [laughter] [applause] >> all further questions go right to rich morales. yes. all right. >> the reason why it's important for him to stand up, i don't you know why he doesn't like the visibility, but he's the coordination point and he'll get this stuff done. really. the lure is that government isn't efficient and i'm not going to take a positionen that publicly -- position on that publicly but i would say in this area they're terrific. and you should really use them. what i'd also say is, as long as i'm sort of free forming up

here which is i guess what you're allowed to do this these things, to make this sale, to companies that can hire a lot of veterans, it's got to come from authority figures, it's got to come from the top as well. it would be hard for me to imagine if president bush visited some friends and talked , because this is clearly a major priority here, because it should be, and talked to them and said, hey, you know, i'd like you to just meet with the people in this program and sort f see what you can do. it's not pressure it's just laying it out. i think he's a good salesman. he's gotten a lot of votes in his life. and he's totally persuasive, right? and he could do that. the same way that the bidens and the obamas, if they actually met with people as

they have with people like us in a large group, if you do it in a smaller group when you're going to just some place for a political event and go off and see one or two people and just lay your case out for 15 minutes, i think the chance you'll make that sale is 50%. . if you can make 20 of those successful, you've got a million people hired. it's pretty amazing. there is the capability, whether it's on the front row or others of us in the general community, to be able to help do that. i'm quite optimistic about doing this. >> general pace, final quick thought, an then we'll take a break. >> thank you. to the men an women in audience who are military members, family members, especially to those watches -- watching on the broadcast, thank you for your

service to the nation. you have done us proud and you have kept us safe and free. i would say to you, as you look at transition and you look at the uncertainty, embrace this like you would any other mission. take responsibility for the transition. your responsibility. you and your family's, to transition your life to the life you want it to be. and understand that there are many, many organizations that are ready, willing and able to help you and to those organizations who are here in the room, this is about being globally competitive. it's about using all the resources of the united states to remain the best nation on the planet to live and work and we have in the 2.5 million post-9/11 veterans who are already transitioned and the million who are about to transition over the next five year, we have an incredible

national resource that we should empower and take advantage of for our good and their good. thanks. >> thank you very much. we'll be back. [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014] >> more on the forum on veterans' issues in a few moments here on c-span. now a look at our programming tomorrow. president obama gives an address at the u.s. military academy at west point, live at 10:00 eastern on c-span. on c-span2, texas congressman macthornberry, in line to become the next chairman of the house armed services committee in january. he speaks at the heritage foundation at 10:30 a.m. eastern to outline his priorities. ben carson. oon,

a group called run, ben, run, is trying to draft dr. carson to run for president. you can see that on c-span2. >> one of the stories that resonated with me was the moment when they're dithering about whether or not they need to .nject sea water into they're just about down to the wire. yoshida, the plant superintendent, who in the end would have to make the final call, knows that he's desperate. they need to get water in there quickly. and meanwhile, everybody wants a say. and the officials and japanese government officials are hemming and hawing.

yoshida gets an order from a supervisor that the government hasn't signed off on this yet. he's got to hold off. he's already started. and so he basically calls one of his staff p people over and says, aisle going to give an order but ignore it. and so he very loudly proclaims so everybody in tokyo can hear, halt the sea water injection, when in fact they didn't. to me that was a human element in that story in which, in japan, where ignoring the rules and kind of acting on your own is not rewarded, here was a moment where a guy knew that if he didn't act, things would go even worse than they were going. >> more about the zunino and results meltdown at the ukushima nuclear power plant

saturday at 10:00 p.m. ian on c-span2's book tv. more now from the george w. bush institute on veterans transitioning to civilian life. martha raddatz of abc news monoed or the discussion with army chief of staff peter chiarelli. this is almost an hour. >> we want to talk in this panel about some of the obstacles our veterans face. some of the obstacles certainly the wounded face. and the opportunities to empower those veterans. i want to start with general pete cell lee, who i will say -- pete chiarelli, who i will say i have known since early in the iraq war. we went through a lot together. we have visited the wounded together. and pete chiarelli, since

retiring as vice chief of staff of the army where he was deeply involved in issues of post-traumatic stress, traumatic brain injury, i truly think no one cares more than pete chiarelli about the future of our wounded veterans and he is now with one mind, where they and he dedicates his time to continue to help those same veterans. general chiarelli, i want you to talk about those obstacles and the health and wellness of our veterans as they go forward into civilian life. >> well, martha, this discussion is a double edged sword because we tend to in fact slap a label that anyone who is deployed for any period of time has either post-draw mat exstress or traumatic brain injury and nothing could be fourth from the truth. according to the president's report, there have been 265,000

soldiers, sailors, airmen, marine, coast guard who have come back from these conflicts with traumatic brain injury. there are 3.4 million americans every single year that suffer some kind of head trauma. you saw the numbers of 2.5 million, at 20%, that ends up willing probably 500,000 folks. if you take those numbers as being gospel with post-traumatic stress. 8% of our population is expected to have post-traumatic stress at some time in their life. it's not just caused by combat. most of the work that's been done to understand post-traumatic stress has been done on folks, ladies, who have been sexually assaulted. 74% of women who are sexually assaulted develop post-traumatic stress. that's why i'm so happy that president bush dropped the d. i can't even imagine telling a woman who has been sexually

assaulted, because she has a reaction to a relationship after that, that she has a disorder. [applause] but as we talked about this, i started talking about it because i didn't know what they were. i came back and a doc showed who have an hose injury are draw mat exbrain injury or post-traumatic stress disorder. i didn't know what they were. i knew what my football coach told me about con cugs, shake it off and get back in the game. so i began this process of trying to learn about it and i found out even the professionals don't know that much about it. the only way we, in fact, diagnose these two things are with tests. 20 questions for post-traumatic v and a test dsm-

for concussion if you bump your head. the numbers are great, yes they affect service members, but the large majority of service members coming back from iraq and afghanistan don't have post-traumatic stress and don't have traumatic brain injury that doesn't mean we don't need to highlight it and talk about it because that's how you get people in and get the help they need. >> for them to talk about it as well. ken fisher who is chairman and c.e.o. of the fisher house foundation, i think everyone in this room knows what the fisher house foundation does for our veterans and especially during that government shutdown, when you were just amazing with the families and supporting those families for those who lost loved ones. i want you, ken fisher, to talk about how important it is for the support of those family the work you do and the support that the families give the veterans

in terms of success when they transition. >> we kind of get the veterans or the service man or woman and their families when their lives have been flipped upside down. too often, a call comes in, the family has to mobilize very quickly, they've got to get from point a to point b because that's what's done. that's what needs to be done. can you imagine being in the hospital and not having your family there? so at fisher house, we kind of facilitate getting to the bedside of the loved one through a myriad of our programs and services that we provide. you know, the familys -- the families bear burdens and are subject to sack fies that the average american has no concept of. we average americans don't have any clue as to what happens to these families, especially at this time. when you think about what's

going on in their lives, the world does not come to a grinding halt. bills still have to be paid. mortgages have to be paid. children have to be raised. schools. there's multiple trips back and forth that families have to make. the whole soldier, you've heard that term, that includes the family. so the family plays have very vital role in the rehabbing of the soldier. of the service man or woman and even the veteran. so fisher house plays a role there. we have seen the families, we have seen the impact that the family has, we get them very early on. and it's always very gratifying to know we played a role when the veteran comes out ultimately and does enter the private sector and does get employment. the ones that don't, we try and play a role there.

we try and provide mentoring wherever it's possible. i make myself available as much as i can to do that. but then you know, remember that there are other issues too. the veteran does have post-traumatic stress, the family suffers as well system of what we need to do is, when we talk about education, we need to educate the families. we need to make them aware of the signs, of the early signs of post-traumatic stress. so that we don't get into substance abuse, so we don't get into domestic violence and the other issues that have become very, very -- very much a part of the picture. >> thank you. also with us is wayne robertson. you are a post-9/11 veteran yourself, retired command sergeant major, but more importantly for you right now, director of student veterans of america. talk about your work and

particularly educating those returns vets. the g.i. bill is amazing. some of those benefits are amazing and people aren't always taking advantage of that. >> thanks, martha, and thanks for the opportunity to speak about the amazing young people that as the president and c.e.o. of student veterans of america that i get to represent. so, to start with a little bit of background, student veterans of america, s.c.a., s.v.a. started six years ago on 20 campuses because when students were transitioning they saw that the college environment or higher ed was not prepared for student vet. we are older, much more mature, a different world view than just coming out of high school, than say the traditional student. and so these vets met in chicago and we started on 20 campuses

six years ago and today we're on more than 1,000 campuses, represent those 1,000 chapters with more than 400,000 student vets being serviced by our policy, our advocacy, and the work we do in delivering programs. so some of the issues that are faced by student vets is, number one, being able to transition. when i transitioned in 2011, i had a team. i was very fortunate to be helped by general pace and others and i actually had a personal sit down opportunity with others. what i realized is the majority of individuals will not have that. we're about 25 years old, we're transitioning, at least those vets we represent, and they don't have that transitional point.

so there are gaps between, where do i study? what do i study? and the arrival actually on a campus system of what we've done heretofore is to be able to represent them once they get to a campus and in and through their education. but the issue is the huge gap that exists between those that transition and never make it to a campus. i'll talk more about that. >> a little bit of what president bush was saying earlier about how do you transition somebody out of, my last job was in a humvee or tracking down terrorist, how do you transition that to the workplace? also joining us is john seal, head of meryl lynch wealth management which represents bank of america and meryl lynch. i know we talk -- and merrill lynch, i know we talked earlier about the private sector, but what challenges are you seeing and what are you doing in terms of hiring veterans, doing whatever you can that's working? >> sure, thank you. we heard what the challenges

are. there's a lack of preparedness, we know about the stigma. there's ongoing commitment to the guard and reserve. we design -- every corporation designs benefits based on people who don't always look like returning veterans. you've got to -- we end up trying to make veterans fit our structure and what we're trying to do as an organization is recognize that that doesn't work. like wayne has, we bend our structure to fit them. it requires a different approach. one example might be internship. if you're going to try to get an internship at a firm like merrill lynch or bank of merck, it's very competitive. the way we go after the most talented folks, the veterans, is we created a different internship track that will be held off to allow them the access and exposure to see what life is like. they get a no-risk free look at what a career might look like.

the onboarding process is different as we bring our veterans in, about how they're going to transition into the work forest and we recognize some of those challenges. we don't have all the answers, by the way. this is our attempt to do it. we have unique training for those folks as well. i think most importantly, the answers lie within our people. we have 6,000 veterans that work for bank of america and merrill lynch. they formed a military support advisors group. they have the answers. the interaction and learning is probably the best approach we have to continuing to evolve the process and how we can make sure that we have this will be a successful transeducation. one thing that wasn't talked about that i think is important, we're doing this because this is a business opportunity for us as well as doing the right thing. merrill lynch, for instance, has had a 45-year history of hiring veterans, very successfully. they transition very well into our roles as adviseors for

clients with the maturity, the perspective, the leadership that they have. so i look at this as an enormous opportunity. i think the challenge, and we may talk about it at some point is how do with gather up all the resources to make it more seamless? i have met four people over the last 24 hours that are going to help me do this a lot more effectively and one is sitting right here next to me. >> actually that's exactly the point i wanted to make. you've got all these people up here, you've got all these great ideas but connecting those dots and making it work, how do you do that? it seems to me, just from the conversations and experience, this all starts, while they're still in the military. they don't get that transitional help or they get two days of transitional help and maybe nothing more that some people fall through the cracks. each of you, just talk about your ideas if you will, about how you connect the dots to what you're all concerned about. do you want to start, john? >> sure. i'll say two things.

one, while they're in the military, we have this military support advisory group, we have full-time staff, teams assigned to working with military, working with military organizations to identify that talent that's coming out of their service. and so we have a structure around that, that's one way to do it. the other way is to plug into wayne's organization, as we think about these campuses. i happen to work with florida state universe -- university, which has a robust veterans center and i'm proud of what we do, but that's a great opportunity for taos identify talent. so we put structures to attach directly to the mill air and our ongoing recruiting efforts with on college campuses, especially those with veterans centers, give us a big advantage. >> let's go down the order. >> what i'll say is, as i look at the issue and we talk about

the greatest generation, right, and we know that the stats exist, we can talk about the 500,000 scientists and engineers that were -- that came out of that generation, 14 noble ureates, three presidents -- nobel laureates, three presidents, supreme court justices, but if you look at it, they look just like our vets. they were guys from small town america. when i look at that picture and i look at the picture of a vet i see connection being the issue. and so at s.v.a. we're redoing our i.t. infrastructure. what we want to be able to do is have those who are interested in reaching out to vets, and this is something john and i talked about last night, interested in connecting with vets, be able to connect with them directly on campus because at the end of the day, the individuals, the recruiters, need to be able to directly access those vets at

florida state or pursue university to have that robust and dynamic conversation. so in about four months we'll have that infrastructure in help the hat will conversation, they'll be able to reach out directly and then the vet will be able to put a face to the name of the organization. >> you know, we've been hearing a lot about the veteran aned the trap -- and the transeducation process into the private sector. imagine if the veteran is wounded. imagine what happens to that veteran that service man or woman's life. they have to overcome their wounds, which they do with magnificent grace and dignity and i see it every day. but they have additional challenges and so do their families. so in my mind, while they are doing their rehab, while they're receiving treatments, it's to get to them at that point.

mentor. let them know what's available. make them aware of what they need to do. because they do have additional challenges now. it's not just walking out of the military and into the private sector. for these men and women, the additional challenges are many. so get to them you know, we used to say, there is still a benefit gap, as we are all aware, that -- during the transition process from the d.o.d. to the v.a. that's the time i'd like to see the mentoring possess begin, let them know what's available, let them know what's -- what will be expected of them. give them an idea as to how they can brand themselves, how to put a resume together. use that time while they're improving themselves toward making them competitive, giving them an equal, leveling the playing field if you will for that particular service man or woman. >> you have seen some specific

things on the transition, not just civilian life, but the transition from d.o.d. to v.a. is not that simple. >> no, it's not. it's not. and those are some of the things we need to -- we need to fix. and you don't know when you're in d.o.d. that the transition to v.a. is going to be difficult because you've never been in v.a. before. we have things like drug form lairs that aren't the same between -- formularys that aren't the same between d.o.d. and v.a. the is on a drug with right dosage and right drugging and they have a different formulary, they say, we can't prescribe that drug. we don't have that drug in stock because our formulary is different. d.o.d. has a much more expansive formul rambings y.

it's not that think think one drug is better than another, but it's whea drugs they can provide. we have disconnects like that. or the great place like arnold and kent fisher have built at walter reed, walter reed national medical center at bethesda, i'll be politically correct how i state that. and you know, they do it and -- they do an amazing job, center of excellence for the study of brain injury and post-traumatic stress of putting together a treatment plan for a young man or woman. and they leave there after four weeks with a treatment plan, much of it being experimental or really cutting edge things, go back to a place like west point where they're relying on the tricare network they go out into the network and the network says we won't cover 50% of that which is on your treatment plan. think of that. we send them to a d.o.d.

facility, they get a treatment plan, they move to the insurance provided by d.o.d. when doctors aren't available to cover them and they are told i'm sorry, 50% of what you are being prescribed, we cannot provide you because it's not covered by tricare. so there are some huge bureaucratic issues here, if we're really going to provide care, we need to do an end-to-end assessment. not end-to-end in d.o.d. or end-to-end in v.a. but a total end-to-end, from the time you enter the army until you are buried to understand how to ensure that these two huge organizations are together and are totally focused on the service member, man or woman, throughout their career. >> imagine, if you will, when -- if they live in a rural area and

they have this prescription and they go to their v.a. because the plan is to get them home as quickly as possible. to aid in their recovery. but imagine if they go back to their v. namplet a rural area than i a -- and they get the response toward the pharmaceutical treatment. what happens then? they kind of vanish. we lose track of them. >> you know, i didn't know this existed, i was in charge of army medicine in a weird kind of way. i had no idea that this problem existed. but most veterans, when they're faced with that, because of the pain they went through in getting the right antidepressant at the right dosage or the right pain medication or the right sleep medication, to hand they will symptom they was from traumatic brain injury or post-traumatic stress, walk at of the v.a., go to a civilian provider, get them to write the script and pay for it out of pocket because they don't want to go through that again.

>> i want to touch on something president bush was talking about in the beginning. media coverage. and it is, and i'm certain -- i've certainly done this myself. we cover the home comings and the heroes but we also cover what you're talking about. we cover challenges or we cover things that make all the people watching think, these people are victims. they don't want to be victims, we don't want them to be victims, i'm going to remove myself because i do think i understand these issues a quite a bit -- these issues quite a bit but how do you convince the country, how do you draw the line that you want people to be aware of p.t.s., you want people to be aware of the wounded, you want people to be aware of the challenges, yet you don't want to paint people as victims, but we want to raise awareness, but don't want to paint them either as just heros or victims? >> well, you start with forums like this, i hope. you hope that people who hear

this here will take it out and tell it to their constituencies. i don't have the best answer for that question because it is really, really a difficult question. i really appreciated the first panel because i think it takes somebody from the top to force veterans employment, but when you get to the middle manager, the h.r. person who is faced with two files and one person is deployed sex times and another person hasn't deployed and if you don't have a push from the top, i can't help but think that that middle manager, h.r. person is going to float on over the person who hasn't deployed because they read a story about some veteran that had some problem with his or her brain and they're afraid. they're afraid and they move over. it really does in my opinion take pressure from the top to get in there and say, no, we're going to do things differently. >> john, how co-you talk to employees about that? how does merrill lynch do that

and do away with thestero types? >> it's education. we know that communicating with a lot of people is very hard. i can say happy holidays and not everybody will hear what i say. so it's really on this relentless education. one of the things specifically we've identified, it's a program called unconscious bias. which we all carry with us. which sounds like this really does fit in this category, we all walk around with tidbits, news bits we file away that form. so you've got to be aware of it. we are taking our leadership team through this, this would be in the category of it, enge it's education. what president bush did for me realy helped me because he talked about diabetes. i think about that. my aunt suffered from it, she went in a lot of diabetic comas in front of me and my assistant i worked with had severe childhood diabetes. one dishe went into a coe mark i recognized it, we were able to call. i think about that as a work

issue. no one talks about it, she has an incredible leadership career now with our organization but why is it any different? i think the statistics about head injury and post-traumatic stress isn't unique to combat. it's unique to life. i think that education process would be one way we'd go at it. >> when we talk about a bridge from military to civilian life, i know i end up talking to my military friends and i will often say, do you have any civilian friends? so what responsibility, and i'm going to ask you this, does the military have to sort of bridge that gap as well? to help you reintegrate, to help you say, i am part of this, i had an incredible experience that none of you may be able to understand, but i also need to take responsibility for that reintegration. >> i can speak on that for quite a while.

when you look at the investment and you say, we're going to say america's best sons and daughters, and we are going to put them through a process and make them the absolute best warriors, where they can deploy anywhere around the world be self-sufficient, hit the ground, take 10 steps, only give them one of them and they'll figure out the other nine when they hit the ground. that's amazing when they came in at 18 or maybe 22 as an officer and then after that huge investment, to turn them into this amazing warrior that they will support -- that's able to support the country, fight anywhere around the world and win, that's very important. and then we look at the investment when it's time for them to come out. and so you compare the two investments, then obviously there's a lot more that we can do. so how do we as when spoke

earlier, how to we rebrand that 22-year-old that we just told nothing was impossible to him or her, that we can do all these things? if i could also address the previous question about conversations. what we want to be able to do is change the conversation for the veterans and higher education. we want to do that quantitatively. we want piss actually to be selfish when they approach us and ask, what is the r.o.i. for hiring a vet? and so when we -- when we're working -- >> return of investment. >> yes, return on investment. >> i got it. sorry. >> what is the return on investment for hiring a vet. ibms, we look at partner with mfri, military family research institute from purdue university and we want to prove quantitatively that if you

hire a vet, this is your return. if we look at world war ii, we know that for every $1 invested in a vet, $7 was returns to the economy. so that's the conversation we want to bring to business, to reshape how student vets, or how vets are viewed. >> anecdotely i can tell you we have a higher success rate with veterans than nonveterans in our development program. we can audiocassette about it -- we tan talk about it later but we have some data. >> that's what we want to get out. >> and the data from unpliment is higher and general cell lee, can you -- chiarelli can you address that? why that would be? >> i really -- i think d.o.d. is doing its best because it costs them money when people come out of the service and are unployed for a period of time, they have to pick up unemployment benefits for a year, that was about an

$800 million a year bill i had, i think it's down late bit now. they are working hard on a transition assistance plan, known as path, with veterans. i'm pleased to hear things like database and data is being turned over to employees. that is huge. i sure couldn't make that happen or i couldn't find the right lawyer to make that happen when i was -- where i was. so those things are all great steps forward. but enge we need to go further than that. i had a discussion with a friend of mine in here before, why don't we require everybody to do a linkd-n profile before they leave. my good lawyer training said, can't do that, that's a privately owned organization, if we were seen as favoring them over anybody else we'd be in trouble. but it's those kinds of modern things that are available today we need to make sure that we get them in the hands of the veterans but more importantly in the hands of the h.r. person far

earlier in the process than we do today. >> if you all had to prioritize right now what you should do first to help make this process work better of transition or of employeing or reaching out to students to get -- to veterans who are students to get an education, what -- how do you prioritize? it's hard, right? >> to me, we've hired 4,000 veterans over the last three years and plan to hire another 10,000. my priority in achieving that outcome for our business and for those veterans is really to connect better with the organizations that can provide that talent pool, that can associate us and can point out those skill sets because it just saves a ton of time for everyone to do that. so my priority walking out of here is to do a very good job of connecting with some of the people aye heard here, put our team in place so we can

operationalize a much more efficient approach to recruitment and identification of veterans. >> i want to eliminate the 20%. i'm focus thond eminority. i'm focused on those who are affected. i'm kind of different in that way. i want to understand post-draw mat exstress. i want to be able to tell with certainty that someone has post-draw mat exstress, not by asking them 20 questions, and i want, demand, that we treat today's veterans wret better than we treated other veterans who we know had post-draw mat exstress and traumatic brain injury from every war we ever fought in. we are about 40 or 50 years behind in doing the research and kecking the dots that need to be connected to find answers to help that 20%. and if we did that and could really clear up this mystery, and it is a mystery, it's a mystery to everyone, it's a mystery to the professionals and don't let them tell you otherwise. if we could clear up this

mystery, it would go a long way, i think new york helping veterans unemployment by taking away this aura of uncertainty of people, you know, having traumatic brain injury or post-traumatic stress doing things we don't want them to do. >> how much improvement do you, both of you, think there has been in terms of removing the stigma? because it's certainly still there. >> it's still there. and i don't think -- i think you're going to have to stay on this forever. this is a society -- this is society's problem. we take your young men and women. you don't like talking about suicide. we concentrate on military suicide every year. i had 160, 170 active component army soldiers in the four years i was vice commit suicide every year. 38,000 americans commit suicide every year, but we were focused on that 160 to 170 in my case army soldiers esm we -- we ought to be focused on the large nurs, the 3.4 million people that are

going to have head trauma every year. we ought to be focused on the $78 billion in direct medical cost that traumatic head trauma cost this is country every single year and getting rid of it. we've got to increase a research fwouget researchers who are going to research the right way by sharing their data, we've got to increase that budget because i know with all the great c.e.o.'s in here that if you had a $78 billion problem and you were only spending $82 million a year to get at that problem you ould not be a c.e.o. for long. >> i think you want to say something? >> as the general said, the stigma still exists but there has to be, you know, there has to be a starting point everywhere. we have made this issue, we brought it out to the forefront, that there is a stigma. so now it's up to the veterans, it's up to the service men and women to come forward and get the help that's there.

i think that it's time we started working and focusing on what works instead of what doesn't work. i'm so tired of hearing about everything that's wrong. we know what's wrong. but let's start looking at what's right. let's see what works in this country. let's see what works as it relates to veterans, best practices and bring that to life. and let's also remember that through this whole thing, is the military family. and with sequestration and budget cuts, it's this segment of military society that will get hit the hardest. this is where we as philanthropists, where we as foundations, need to do a better job of getting the issues, eliminate regular dun dancy, honoring the donated dollar, fulfilling the mission that we have to fulfill because i think in the end, i think with

everything that's going on, with all the cuts, with all the issues, the stigma, be it wounded, be it jobs, it's the private sector that's going to make the difference, that's going to eliminate the gap, that's going to lead the way forward. it's up to us to do a better job, to spend more money on our programs and not on promotion, on salaries, and so forth. we can do it, we just need to be more vigilant. >> if i could tag along to what ken was just speaking on, what we are doing and the issue we think is very prevalent in the student vet area or arena is that if you were to ask anyone in this audience or outside of this audience what are the graduation rates of student vets at the university, across the country, each year, so between

09 and 2013, there was $34 billion invested into student debt -- student vet education, into the g.i. bill. if you ask the graduation rate, no juan can tell you what the graduation rates are. as a matter of fact, no one can tell you for the last 70 years what the fwradge ration -- graduation rates are. very little data exist. we at s.v.a. are determined to partner with the best, the brightest organizations that are committed to supporting student vets and bringing them out of the shadows. bringing them out from just the portion of nontraditional students. with funders, a couple of foundations, and what we're doing is a project called the records project and we are computing the graduation rates of student 2010

vets. we're going to release that. the first time in 70 years. in march of this year. and then afterwards, we're going to compute the persistence rates, we're going to demystify student vets. we will show you how well student vets are doing so those of us up here on the panel understand this. this is what we are going to get to the american public so we can get away from the poor vet portion of the conversation and the handout and put us into the proper business of investing in the country. >> coupled with the research we are doing here. i want to open up to questions from the audience. we are going to wait for the microphone. right there. state your name and your affiliation. if you want to direct your question to a particular erson.

>> father john sheehan, i am a jesuit. that is latin for roublemaker. i run the xavier society for the blind and i am representing the association for blind veterans. i'm their national chaplain. i'd like to refine the focus is a little bit. we have heard about post-traumatic stress and brain injury. ken talked about wounded warriors who carry their wounds with them. employers tend to back off when a vet shows up in a wheelchair or with one arm. a blind guy does not get to show up. or if he does, he is quickly dismissed. blind people can do almost anything a sighted person can with proper equipment and training. i have ridden in a car driven by a blind guy. the car did not drive itself. so i guess my question, my challenge is, what are we doing for the blind vets? now that's a small segment, but

in the last 0 years, combat injuries that affect the eyes have skyrocketed. d.o.d. has created a whole separate department to deal with this. companies have got to find ways to incorporate this. >> john, do you want to take this? >> i will take this as a challenge. i cannot address that as specifically as you would want. i promise you, if that's a bias we'll address it. i agree with you. we have to check it out. >> i don't think you're going to get anyone who will disagree with you. so hopefully you'll do that, others in the room will do that thank you very much, thank you or bringing that up. [inaudible]>> thank you. behind you. then we will go to you. >> good afternoon. my name is kevin, director of

veterans initiative for the walt disney company. i am a simple soldier wearing a suit. one thing i want to comment on that we discussed today. we have heard very big numbers. numbers in the thousands and hundreds of thousands. the veteran employment is one veteran at a time. i offer to this room with this brilliant crowd if each person assists one veteran towards completing college. one veteran towards finding employment, we will move free hundred to 400 veterans to a better life. i offer that to the group, it is not a question, it is a statement. panel, thank you for your time. >> thank you, kevin. anybody want to say anything on that? i think that is another one we agree. it's true, it's one at a time. to that point, is getting to know veterans. knowing who is out there and who can offer their services. there are so many veterans who

are so extraordinary who can do so many things. and just need a little push. right there. >> thank you. my name is nakema, i am the chair of the veterans coalition of north central texas. we are a nonprofit comprised of 70 plus organizations that meet every month. from nonprofit organizations to the federal government. he talked about what are you doing, that is what we are doing on the ground. we come together every month to talk about the issues of our veterans and veteran service organizations that support them. you mentioned a couple things i have a question. he talked about research and the economy. increasing the funding for research, the gap and prescriptions and after care. private sector. all that goes back to coverage for veterans. tri-care is one of the most -- i am sorry -- pathetic of coverages around.

i have providers that call us and say we can no longer be in your network because you do not pay anything. we can no longer see your veterans because you pay less than medicare pays. that is embarrassing. what are we doing -- before we talk about increasing funding for research or prescriptions. if we do not have doctors who will see them how can they get prescriptions? how can we talk about research? what are we doing to say we need to provide better medical care, better dental, better vision -- all around health care for our veterans. i am talking about -- >> let me take that question. sorry, general chiarelli, you are going to get this one. in your past role. there you go. unless general pace would like to. >> one of the issues with

tri-care is the payment rate. we are trying to establish where that is having an impact. i am on a commission now looking at this whole thing. dod paid out $16 billion last year in indirect medical costs on the tri-care network. they only did $8 billion worth of care in our facilities. 2/3 of our care is going onto the network. there are a bunch of things happening in health care today making it difficult. and a $16 billion bill is something we are being asked to look at, get at, to lower. i promise you that. i do not see a movement afoot to raise tri-care payments. i really do not. there are things that could be done. one, they are normally five-year contract. the contract is set and services are set for five years. that is why you have problems with nicoe -- >> nicoe? >> national intrepid center of

excellence. > i am just reminding. >> martha, come on. >> i'm the acronym police. >> that is a problem i mentioned earlier. the plan is set for five years, locked in con concrete for five years, very difficult to change. you have to wait until the next contracting phase five years later to include things like cognitive behavioral therapy for people with post-traumatic stress that is covered across the board. i understand your issues. they are issues. the commission i am sitting on is looking at all those issues. >> sir? >> hello, my name is david, executive director of the greater dallas military foundation. i wanted to touch on mr. fisher's point about best practices and sharing what is working. the commission you are working on, general, defines best practices to fix these

problems. that is where we need to spend time. one organization i am involved with is helping children's medical, a private organization, address a shortfall of $60 million in their budget. there are an enormous number of people around the country that would be very happy to dedicate their time and effort to volunteer to do operational excellence, improvement projects, etc. for the v.a. if we could gain access for tricare. the ability for people in this room to volunteer, to give, to give not only their treasure but their time an talent cents a challenge. >> volunteering is not always easy. it is not always easy for companies to take volunteers. or anybody. >> or for the government. >> or the government. >> i think for all these people -- they would love to help if we could. if we could find access and we

were given -- when i heard that the dod was giving up data on how to access veterans, i was stunned. we did a project with 3000 sailors to help them get a job. we cut the time required in half. the biggest problem was how do we get to them and engage them? the issues around privacy was a big block. the issue of hey, we're from the private sector, we're here to help. >> let's let ken fisher talk about. about volunteering, first of all. about people wanting to help. >> i think volunteers are very relevant, especially when it comes to fisher house. the lifeblood of our program is those who want to serve in any way that they can. they do not always have treasure, they have services. it is these kinds of foundations.

i did not really know if there was a question -- forgive me if i am not answering or hitting it. when it comes to volunteering at -- and the relationship to tricare, i wasn't sure about the correlation. what i would like to say is that there are many ways we can make a difference. i know there is a lot of anger about tri-care and potentially raising fees and so forth. i know that there is a lot of anger about the quality. let me rephrase that, because i think the quality of care that has been administered to those who have been wounded with the 95% or 96% battlefield survival rate is pretty hard to argue with the quality of care they are getting. focusing on best practices and what is working. find something that is worth your time and your effort and volunteer. there are many of organizations

that really need you. it is not just treasure, it is time, too. i do not know what your question was. when i hear the word volunteer, i apply it to what we do and the amazing volunteers that we ave. >> do you have a quick question? >> how do we get connected? >> you're considered a private organization, that is something that frustrates us all. throughout my time as the vice for four years, i am sure general paes had similar experiences. private organizations would come with one intent and that was to help wounded warriors. it was very hard because of regulations for us to be seen as favoring one private organization, even though it was

solely directed at helping individuals, over another private organization. >> you cannot fund raise. >> ken can tell you how difficult it was to get the process in place. the hardest thing in the world is to get the government anything. >> that was my point. it is hard to volunteer than you think. you said it better. >> the more we do, the less it falls on the government. what we do, we have to do well. >> i just want you to each wrap up, if you can. some final thoughts on how we take what was announced today and the initiative and the research being carried out. and what they want to happen and how do you make that happen. >> i learned a lot today. there is research and it is accurate. it came from the people trying to serve. that has tons of credibility

with me. i learned a long time ago that none of us are as smart as all of us. i challenge us to take the challenges we have today and then do something about it. it can be one person one at a time. i am walking away saying i have much more information. and we have better data and more facts to fix the problem and we will do that as an organization. >> i will just say if we look at what can we do with those sitting in the room, help us to fund research. umber two, to be able to reach out to sva chapters in your local community. asked to serve as mentors. it might be tough initially because student vets are busy, with families -- they are older. once you break down that barrier

the first thing you will realize is that they do not know the question to ask you. come in with resources and just saying i am here to help, to support, what do you need? on a local level that will help the student vet be in power. >> ken? >> 1% of this nation raised their right hand and took an oath to defend this nation. we as americans also need to raise our right hand and take n oath to take care of the military family, take care of those who have given so much to this nation, whether it's a mental injury or a physical injury. emember the military family. do what you can to help employ our wounded, do what you can to employ the blind, to what you can to employ those in wheelchairs and so forth. remember what sacrifices have been made on behalf of this nation.

>> i would like to build on president bush's lost lead is that what you called it? >> pe he buried the lead. >> that we end the stigma associated with these issues. depression, posttraumatic stress or brain injury. when someone is suffering, create the kind of environment, that's what it means, create the kind of environment in your own space, be that a large corporation or, you know a small group of people, that tells people it is all right to go and get treatment for these problems. that is absolutely critical. by doing that, we will go a long way in helping the great group of people that are out there that really need to get some help. i am sometimes criticized for

wanting to drop the d. people say i have talked to all kinds of people and they say they had no problem with the d at all, they called the disorder. that is the wrong group of people to talk to. talk to soldiers who say at 19 years old i do not want to be told i have a disorder because i had to pick up my friend in pieces on the side of the road and put him in a body bag so i could bring him home. i do not want to be told i have disorder because of that. ending the stigma and getting folks in to get the help that we can give them and over time improving that help is what i hope we can all do. >> not only improving that help but also educating the country to know that there is treatment for that, and they can be great contributors to society and the workplace. we thank you very much for those thoughts.

we leave it up to you to connect those dots and help others as well. thank you. [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014] >> c-span's new book "sundays at eight" includes an interview with malcolm gladwell. >> when you write, you can't sit down to write a bestseller. you shouldn't think about that issue at all. when you sit down to right. what you should do when you sit down to write is to write what you find interesting. and to follow your own curiosity. so when i was writing "tipping point," for instance, i can honestly say i never for a moment tried to imagine how well that book would sell. i thought i was -- i just wanted to write something cool. i was interested in it, i wanted to write something that my friends would read, you know, that my mother would leek.

>> read more of our conversation with malcolm gladwell and other featured interviews from our book notes" and "q&a" programs in former commerce and barney frank in christopher dodd discussed the 2008 financial crisis. later, the supreme court argument for moss. the l a times story -- l.a. time s story about the supreme court releasing new decisions about secret service agents at that had the authority to present -- to protect the president. one of the oral arguments in the case here on c-span at 9:25 p.m. eastern.