Military Transition Training Needs Transformation

2014-09-15T11:19:32-04:00

The military has transformation down to a science. For hundreds of years, it has transformed our citizen civilians into citizen warriors. The Marine Corps’ Recruit Training program is thirteen weeks, the Army’s basic training program is ten weeks long, and the Navy’s is eight. Newly minted service members then attend training in their primary military occupational specialty (MOS). These schools range from 6 weeks to several months. In fact, from the day I checked into flight school to graduation was 25 months. And I have to admit: my military training was transformational. I’m different for having gone through it.

This training adequately prepares us for our official military duties, but the truth is most of us will work after the military. In fact, the majority of Marines serve less than six years! One would think that significant effort would be put into returning soldiers back to society.

In late 2012, the Transition Assistance Program (TAP) was replaced by Transition GPS. This replaced the mandatory three-day program with a mandatory five-day program. The most successful transitions I witnessed were planned years in advance and took longer than five days to design! But this five-day period often comes in the last 6-12 months of someone’s service and amounts to “too little, too late.”

I don’t even want to guess how much the course redesign cost, but we do know a few other cost figures. For Fiscal Year 2014, the DoL budgeted over $250M for veteran transition programs, including $14M for the Transition GPS. Every year about 160,000 service members transition off active duty (not including National Guard or Reserve), so that means the DoL spends about $88 per service member on outbound training! The other $236M is spent fixing the repercussions of a broken transition mindset.

In late 2012, I attended a Transition GPS test session. I can say it misses the mark. Not once during the session did we talk about the “gig” economy or the sharing economy, both of which constitute the new employment landscape. Veterans will quickly learn about this tectonic shift when they are out of the service, but why not start early?

Beyond that, this is a fertile space for veteran entrepreneurs to innovate and start businesses. There are a myriad of online services that disaggregate a lot of the back office functions that often deter enterprising young people from starting business.

Employment is just one area where Transition GPS falls short. Education is yet another. During the transition program, young enlisted were encouraged to join local community colleges then attempt to transfer into full four-year universities. That plan is appropriate for many, but no mention was made of Massive Open, Online Courses, or MOOCs.

Software is changing the way we fight wars and it changes the way we work and educate ourselves, but Transition GPS remains anything but digital or Web 3.0. Transition GPS does not prepare transitioning warriors because its foundations are rooted in 20th century employment and education paradigms.

Ways Ahead

First, senior leaders at EVERY level in every service must acknowledge that most of their troops will work after the military. Transition prep should be a continuous and often addressed issue.

Second, design a transition program that lives in the digital age. One that spans more than five days and involves in-person training, experiential learning, and online education.

Third, the DoD and DVA should support and promote a strong alumni network like universities and private firms. Paying for and supporting an online platform would go a long way. These networks can be leveraged to support field based transition experiences and to place transitioning talent into roles that fit.

These are just first steps. The goal is to change the way that we, in the service, think and talk about “the transition.” That we do so in a way that is rooted in real-time and infused with our values, a way that is as transformational on the way out, as our experiences are on the way in.

Response by SFC Private RallyPoint Member made Sep 15 at 2014 4:57 PM

2014-09-15T16:57:05-04:00

This article relates information from 2012, and over the past two years, the transition programs and processes have greatly increased their tech levels and efficiency. I personally attend the Army Career and Alumni Program (ACAP) virtually. I was able to be a virtual presence to conduct my transition research, job searches (on both civilian and government career sites), and transition classes over my remaining year of service. Name any Fortune 500 company that even offers transition assistance a year from the separation date. In just that aspect alone, the military far surpasses their civilian counterparts. The level of tech available has greatly improved the woeful transition (T-GPS) system described in this article. There are even entrepreneurial training classes available.

"In 2013, the Department of Defense launched a TAP virtual curriculum through their Joint Knowledge Online (JKO) learning management system. This TAP virtual curriculum is designed to provide service-members who are unable to attend the TAP in-person due to military exigencies with the ability to fulfill their TAP obligations. The Departments of Defense, Veterans' Affairs and Labor were informed that providing the TAP curriculum to veterans and spouses of service-members might be helpful to them too, so the JKO system now provides the full TAP curriculum to anyone who might benefit." You can access the TAP curriculum by clicking the following hyperlink: http://go.usa.gov/kb5J.

While I agree that transition to the civilian sector will occur for all service members at some point in their future, I differ in my opinion as to the focal point of how important and when to implement transition assistance from the stand point of a recent retirement transition after 26 years of Active Army service.

The military trains the individual to do the job signed on for initially and not for their future career, although their training could lead to a civilian career in some fields. Even still, the military training received will still better equip nearly all who serve far greater than the civilian sector can for any career, on any given day.

My recommendation is not to focus on the looming transition for the military member during their career but mentor them on life skills and career planning while they are serving to better themselves immediately. From the Army standpoint, higher education is available as soon as the initial military job training has been completed and they report to their first unit. Education access: check. Leaders that mentor, greatly increase their troops exponentially! Transition will come but my troops will be prepared.

As for senior leaders acknowledging that most of their troops will work after the military. It’s a law, and was before 2012. “In 2011, Congress passed and President Obama signed into law the "Veterans Opportunity to Work and Hire Heroes Act of 2011" (VOW Act). The VOW Act requires, among other things, that separating service-members must attend the Transition Assistance Program (TAP). The VOW Act also required that the Department of Labor redesign its employment workshop, the largest component of the TAP curriculum, to be more applicable to the realities of today's job market. VETS fulfill this requirement for DOL and manages the implementation of the employment workshop at hundreds of military installations worldwide for thousands of separating service-members.” http://www.dol.gov

Thanks for the article and inspiring me to add to the conversation.

Response by LTC Andrew Loeb made Feb 5 at 2015 12:52 PM

2015-02-05T12:52:02-05:00

I posed a similar question on LinkedIn last week and got a few responses from case managers who defended the program and from veterans who had similar feelings of being treated like a box that gets stamped as it comes through the door. The resource is valuable and should be afforded to every separating military member, but there are a few points that could be refined through a thoughtful program evaluation.

- A simple recommendation was to make regional services available to service members (> 6 months past separation date) not through the VA but through the TAP office and case manager
- Allow Veterans to attend TAP at a regional office that they intend to relocate after they leave the service. If a Veteran living at Fort Drum plans to live in Pittsburgh PA, don't force them to attend training at Drum but allow them to attend a regional TAP near Pittsburgh PA.
- Increase the quality and quantity of case officers at the TAP offices. Assign a community outreach director that can form partnerships with local employers and nonprofit employment agencies who can come in and offer translation skills training to Veterans. Instead of bringing in under qualified contractors or VA reps that read a little bit of the book and brief power point slides to me all day.
- And be realistic about measurable outcomes, not every Veteran will want this assistance. Change the perception of TAP from being "Voluntold" to attend to one of value that separating service members seek out before leaving the service.

Just my 2 Cents.