A few good men

Wounded vets are in high demand among contractors

When Army Capt. Lonnie Moore was injured in central Iraq and his right leg was amputated he thought his chances for a career had been shot as well. Moore’s convoy was ambushed on the road to Ramadi. The injury led to some dark days in Walter Reed Army Medical Center as Moore, 29, began his recuperation and contemplated life outside the military.

Within months, however, he had received job offers from a munitions company, an information technology firm, and the Department of Veterans Affairs itself. And that’s without sending out a résumé.

“People tend to seek us out,” Moore said of the veterans, particularly those who have been injured, returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. “They know we’ll be an asset to their companies, and that we’re not going to let our injuries stand in the way. . . . Everybody I’ve known that’s gotten out, they’re not having a hard time finding jobs.”

Through broad initiatives and individual requests, corporations have been actively recruiting veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts, turning military hospitals like Walter Reed into de facto hiring centers.

Job offers aren’t being handed out carte blanche, and companies say talent and fit are still the main priorities. But executives seeking out wounded soldiers claim that many of the skills acquired in the military are applicable in the private sector — particularly within companies that serve the government. A soldier who has led a platoon into war is probably capable of leading a unit at a private company, executives say. With government contracting in the midst of a boom, the security clearances and knowledge that soldiers bring home with them are also highly valued.

“They’ve got to be able to talk the language. And you can’t teach a person that language, it’s a language you can only learn by being part of that culture,” said Paul Evancoe, director of military operations at FNH USA Inc., a McLean weapons manufacturer with about 350 employees in the United States and 16 in the Washington area. The company is among those interested in hiring Moore.

The quest to seek an injured vet was both company-driven and personal, said Evancoe, who received a Purple Heart after being shot in Vietnam. Many FNH employees are veterans, so the company’s atmosphere and values largely mirror that of the military, he added.

“If you take a guy and immerse him back into that culture . . . it’s going to be very positive. It’s going to help the healing,” Evancoe said. “It’s not like I can hire every single guy, but when I have a job, I’m going to search out a veteran.”

The Labor Department does not have statistics on the job placement rates of veterans disabled in Afghanistan or Iraq. However, the unemployment rate for veterans was lower than that for nonveterans in 2003, the most recent statistics available from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That year, veterans had an unemployment rate of 4.5 percent, compared with 5.9 percent for nonveterans.

The same study found that 9 percent of veterans suffered from a service-related disability; their unemployment rate was comparable to that of their non-injured peers.

Jeannie Lehowicz, a vocational counselor stationed at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, said she has a steady stream of inquiries from executives and recruiters — sometimes dozens a week, and typically more than the 50 to 75 soldiers she is working with at any given time.

Most of the companies are government contractors around the Capital Beltway, she says, but calls have come in from firms throughout the country. One day it might be a giant defense contractor from Bethesda, and the next a small biomedical firm from Montana, she said.

“It’s overwhelming. You want to respond and say ‘Oh here’s this guy I’ve got for you,’ but that’s not always the case,” Lehowicz said.

More than 11,190 service members have been wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to Pentagon statistics. Some have months of rehabilitation left before they’ll be released from the hospital, Lehowicz said, and others are more interested in going back to school than getting a job right away. Many are adamant that they will stay in the military despite their disabilities, she added.

Even if they choose another route, the prospect of having opportunities can be an important buoy for wounded soldiers, Lehowicz and others say.

Potential opportunities were on display at a career fair held at Walter Reed in December. Thrown together in a matter of weeks, the event’s organizers expected a dozen or so companies to participate. But more firms requested space at the event, and by the night of the fair, more than 30 companies, including BAE Systems PLC, Science Applications International Corp. and Oracle Corp., had set up booths to pass out brochures and collect names.

“The equipment that we work on and maintain for the military is the same as they would have used,” said Eugene C. Renzi, president of defense systems at ManTech International Corp., a Fairfax government contractor that sent recruiters to the career fair. “So when they get out of the military, we can put them right to work and utilize the skills they already have.”

Joe Davis, spokesman for the Veterans of Foreign Wars, said outreach efforts among government contractors is partly driven by executives with military backgrounds. There is a de facto alumni network, he said, and a collective memory of the way disabled veterans were treated after previous conflicts, particularly Vietnam.

“Who runs the country now? It’s the Vietnam era and they vowed never again, and so you got all the corporations, every nonprofit, all the associations and lobby arms doing everything they can,” for this generation of soldiers, Davis said.

Contractors like ManTech have another incentive to recruit former soldiers, regardless of disability: Many have security clearances that are in short supply in the workforce, but necessary in order to do an increasing number of government projects.

“If you have a security clearance, you are miles ahead of a person applying to a company without a security clearance,” said Edward F. Lawton, head of the Washington area chapter of the American Military Retirees Association. “And even if you’re missing a limb, that doesn’t mean you’re incapable of supporting the military through a company.”

But it may mean that jobs are more readily available for soldiers with technical skills and for those willing to work in the Washington area, where many government contractors are based.

That proved to be the case for Brian Garvey, an Army Captain who met his future employer at the Walter Reed career fair.

The platoon leader and father of two young girls was deployed to Iraq last March and for months worked at the Baghdad airport, processing human resources files for soldiers stationed throughout that country.

On Sept. 18, Garvey’s unit was assigned a different task — to show a contractor a damaged fence on a highway bridge between the airport and the heavily guarded Green Zone. After assessing the damage, Garvey had just given the signal for his soldiers to return to their vehicles when a suicide bomber drove a car onto the bridge and detonated an explosive — killing two of the crew and wounding 13.

Three days later Garvey was at Walter Reed, recovering from a series of surgeries to repair his hand and remove dozens of pieces of shrapnel from his skin.

“I would say a lot of the time was spent thinking ‘What am I going to do? What is the best avenue for my family,'” Garvey recalled of his four-month stay at the hospital. “Up to this point I had been somewhat selfish. It was what I wanted to do. My wife and kids had been making the sacrifices.”

Garvey had already been thinking about looking for a private-sector job when he stopped by the career fair, hoping to pick up a few business cards and some ideas. Like most of the 150 soldiers crammed into the hall, Garvey was without a résumé or firm career goals.

He grabbed brochures from such big contractors as Northrop Grumman Corp. and Raytheon Co., but spent the longest time talking to a representative from Alliant Techsystems Inc. (ATK), a Minnesota company that makes weapon systems and munitions. He filled out a card with his basic information and three days later got an e-mail from ATK, asking for a phone interview.

A day-long interview at the company’s Elkton, Md., site followed; just before Christmas, Garvey was offered a job. Soon he’ll become a program manager at ATK, acting as a liaison between the company’s engineers and its primary client — the U.S. military.

“Mentally it does me a lot of good, knowing that I’m not out there searching frantically for a job,” said Garvey, who is now back at Fort Hood, waiting for his unit to rotate back from Iraq in March before he will be discharged. “It gives me a sense of security. I know what my future has to offer.”

That sense of the future is what a lot of recently wounded soldiers are looking for, said Lehowicz, the VA vocational counselor. When they first return from the battlefield, many focus solely on getting better to return to their unit, she said, but over time they often start thinking about other options.

Moore, the Army Captain, says thoughts of his future now absorb much of his day at Walter Reed. Some days he thinks he would like to stay in the military, to resume life with his friends and become an example for other amputees. But some of the job offers have topped $70,000 and he worries this opportunity may not come around again.

“Veterans are getting good jobs right now,” said Moore, who will likely remain in the hospital through March. He recently had a second interview with FNH USA, where he is up for a position as deputy director of military operations.

“I’m not sure if I stay in [the Army] for another five years, if the jobs will still be here.”

www.hireveterans.com
www.hireveterans.com