‘Life With Honor’
null By James FreemanNov. 10, 2023 5:34 pm ETAmerican flags line the bluff in downtown St. Joseph, Mich. on Thursday in honor of Veterans Day this Saturday. Photo: DON CAMPBELL/Associated PressThere have been various laudable efforts over the years to encourage businesses to hire U.S. military veterans. The happy news this week is that many businesses need no encouragement at all. Just in time for Veterans Day, the Journal’s Callum Borchers reports:Listen up, maggots. What this company needs is more effort and less whining, and I know just the person to set the tone: a drill sergeant or somebody who survived one. So goes the thinking at the companies that are lining up to hire the roughly 200,000 people who leave the military each year. The last jobs report before Veterans Day showed the unemployment rate for former service members is 2.9%, a full point lower than the overall U.S. rate. Businesses’ interest in a Pentagon program that connects service members to companies grew so inte
Nov. 10, 2023 5:34 pm ET
There have been various laudable efforts over the years to encourage businesses to hire U.S. military veterans. The happy news this week is that many businesses need no encouragement at all. Just in time for Veterans Day, the Journal’s Callum Borchers reports:
Listen up, maggots. What this company needs is more effort and less whining, and I know just the person to set the tone: a drill sergeant or somebody who survived one.
So goes the thinking at the companies that are lining up to hire the roughly 200,000 people who leave the military each year. The last jobs report before Veterans Day showed the unemployment rate for former service members is 2.9%, a full point lower than the overall U.S. rate.
Businesses’ interest in a Pentagon program that connects service members to companies grew so intense over the summer that the Department of Defense temporarily stopped taking applications from companies to join the ranks of private-sector partners... Veterans and companies that recruit from the armed forces say vets’ appeal is rooted in hard work, humility and attention to detail.
Speaking of attention to detail, Mr. Borchers explains that a power plant operator, for example, is comfortable hiring people who have refueled jets on an aircraft carrier or maintained nuclear weapons. But attitude might be the greatest asset that retired military folk bring into the business world. Mr. Borchers quotes Navy veteran Brandon Gillum:
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About this article
James Freeman is assistant editor of The Wall Street Journal's editorial page and author of the weekday Best of the Web column. He is the co-author of "Borrowed Time: Two Centuries of Booms, Busts and Bailouts at Citi," recognized as a New York Times Editors' Choice and a Financial Times Business Book of the Month. He is a contributor to the Fox News Channel and a host of "Deep Dive" on Fox Nation. Before joining the Journal in September 2007, James served as investor advocate at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, where he encouraged the transformation of financial reporting technology to benefit individual investors. He is a graduate of Yale.
Follow James on Twitter @FreemanWSJ
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