NEW CUMBERLAND, Pa. - The date “Nov. 11,” is tattooed on Matthew Brown’s right leg. His left is laced with a meter’s worth of scars from the nine surgeries it took doctors to save the former Marine after he was shot in Fallujah, Iraq, on that indelible day in 2004.
First Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment, was four days into Operation Phantom Fury when Brown’s platoon was tasked to move forward into Fallujah and clear a route for the rest of the unit.
“We managed to push about a mile ahead by nightfall, and when the sun came up the next morning, we were surrounded by insurgents,” he recalled.
The Marines fought off and on for hours, then Brown slipped into another room in the building the platoon was operating out of to help locate a sniper firing at a buddy. The sniper found Brown first. As pilots prepared to airlift the wounded machine gunner out of Fallujah, a priest gave him last rites.
In January 2008, after three years of physical and mental recovery that still continues today, Brown started his civil service career with DLA Human Resources Services New Cumberland, Pa.
Veterans like Brown make up a good portion of the DLA workforce. More than 600 veterans – 228 of them disabled – have been hired into DLA in the past six months, said Judi Bitner, Brown’s supervisor and a manager in the DLA Human Resources Services New Cumberland.
Bitner’s office helps managers understand the hiring flexibilities and the rules about veterans’ preference and appointment under the Veterans Employment Opportunities Act, which grant veterans preference when they are referred for federal jobs. Eligible veterans include those who are disabled or served in combat or during certain timeframes.
Veterans Recruitment Appointments also allow federal agencies to hire eligible veterans without competition. Eligibility requirements changed in November 2002 under the Jobs for Veterans Act, Public Law 107-288, and extend to: disabled veterans, veterans who served on active duty during war or in a campaign or expedition for which a campaign badge has been authorized, veterans who served on active duty during an operation for which an Armed Forces Service Medal is awarded, or veterans within three years of honorable discharge.
Veterans’ hard-won experience makes them strong competitors for jobs like those at DLA, Bitner said.
“They come into the organization with a sense of commitment because they’ve been our customers and they’ve been on the other end of the supply line,” she said. “Any veteran who goes out and does good things for our country … I feel like we should give them opportunities when we can.”
Her beliefs are shared by Hettie Holmes-Carter, program manager for DLA’s recruitment efforts and the Operation Warfighter Program. She recently began working with the Department of Veterans Affairs Vocational Rehabilitation and Employment Services Division to give service-disabled veterans on-the-job training or no-cost internships with DLA activities.
Through the VA’s on-the-job training program, a veteran is hired at an apprentice wage and the Vocational Rehabilitation and Employment Program supplements the salary to the journeyman wage. As the participant progresses through training, the employer gradually pays more of the salary until the veteran has reached the journeyman level and the employer is paying the entire salary.
“This is a new program and we’re just beginning to put information out, but I’ve learned that we already have some participants out in the field,” Holmes-Carter said. She is surveying managers now to determine how many participants DLA has.
The non-paid work experience program differs from on-the-job training in that placement doesn’t automatically lead to a permanent job, although managers are encouraged to hire veterans if satisfied with their performance and a position is available. The Vocational Rehabilitation and Employment Program pays veterans a monthly subsistence allowance for up to 24 months while they’re in the program. The program doesn’t guarantee future employment, but it does give veterans valuable experience, Holmes-Carter said, because “they’re learning how the civilian world works or getting experience in a different field.”
Most managers don’t need prompting from the president to support America’s warfighters, but on Nov. 9, President Barack Obama signed an executive order directing all federal agencies to establish a veterans’ employment program office and to train personnel specialists on veteran employment policies – two things DLA had already made progress in.
“Our outreach to veterans has always been very successful. There are lots of eligible folks out there, and we can easily reach out to veterans’ organizations to obtain candidates because most of them are noncompetitively appointable,” Bitner said.
Three of Bitner’s current employees are Purple Heart Medal recipients, though none of them outwardly exhibit the lasting effects of their war injuries.
Brown, now 25, began working as a human resources specialist by participating in an on-the-job training program, which matches new employees with trainers who help them learn tasks like processing pay and recruitment actions. His early progress was tempered by a brief hospitalization, “but he’s significantly better today,” Bitner said. “He’s gotten much more proficient at our business and is able to focus well on detailed tasks.”
Recovery is an elusive concept for Brown, who will never fully recuperate from nerve damage and muscle loss.
“There are days when I walk perfectly normal, and others when I have a visible limp,” he said.
Most of the pain is below his knee, and whether it’s the usual dull ache or an occasional sharp, stabbing pain, Brown said he’s learned not to dwell on the discomfort.
Like so many veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, Brown is sometimes haunted by anxiety and paranoia. The sight of a McDonald’s wrapper lying in a ditch might make him worry about roadside bombs; the sound of a car backfiring could take him back to the firefight that killed fellow Marines. Prescription painkillers and alcohol once helped him escape the symptoms of his post-traumatic stress disorder, but he has since sought therapy and flushed the drugs down a toilet.
“My PTSD will never go away,” he said, “but reaching out to other veterans and seeing how they’ve overcome some of the problems I’ve had helps. Really, the only people who understand PTSD are the ones who have it.”
Bitner has no military experience of her own to help her to understand Brown’s struggles, much less those of other disabled employees.
“Sometimes we, as managers, need to get past stereotypes and offer folks an opportunity,” she said.
The chance to prove himself at DLA has given Brown a new beginning, a chance he said he feared he’d never get after his military career ended. It also keeps him connected to the military he still loves and enables him to assist others looking for federal employment.
“It’s amazing, because my job gives me the chance almost every day to help a fellow veteran,” Brown said. “When it comes down to it, all of us at DLA are engaged in helping warfighters, and what better person to help current warfighters than a prior warfighter himself?”
More information on veterans employment benefits can be found through employees’ servicing human resource specialists or at: http://www.opm.gov/staffingportal/vetguide.asp#VRA-Authority.