Retired
Retired
Posted on May 8, 2015
Is SFL-TAP (formally known as ACAP) a complete waste of time? What changes would fix it?
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The author of the below essay is a CSM recently retired after 30 years. While I have found my experience with the Transition Assistance Program at Fort Campbell to be a little different than his, he and I have talked and are in agreement about how much time and resources are wasted by a program that seems to be "checking the congressional mandated block", while not really setting anyone up for success upon transition. While it is focused on his experience, and has his SOF background as a bias, I feel it is an extremely accurate voice from the retiring Army soldier community. What are your thoughts and experience?
The Army’s Transition Assistance Program is not for you
May 7, 2015
I recently retired after 30 years of service in U.S. Army Special Forces and found the Army’s Transition Assistance Program (TAP) to be incredibly underwhelming. I entered the program wanting to learn a couple of things and decided to give the entire program a chance. I was very disappointed. If you are someone who has any accomplishments in your career and a network of colleagues who have already transitioned, then the Army TAP isn’t for you either. Don’t be fooled by the “Senior-level TAP” either. This training is the same training given to everyone else; the only difference is the rank of the class members.
TAP is not a program to prepare retiring professionals for transition, it is geared toward the single-term, junior enlisted Soldier whose plan is to ETS and return home and live with their parents. If this is you, then by all means use the TAP to focus your transition. As a parent, I can tell you that your parents don’t want you living at home while you figure out what’s next. Do that while you are still on active duty! If you find yourself in anything but this category, TAP will frustrate you, but not much else.
Your attendance in TAP is mandatory. Making something mandatory does not make it important or worthwhile, but somehow this point is lost in the Army. Generally, when the Army makes something mandatory, it’s because nobody would participate if it were optional. Think about it. How many of you came away from any mandatory training in the Army thinking, “that really made my day?” Did you ever get anything out of your safety briefings before long weekends, or the annual Anti-terrorism or information awareness refresher training? No? Well the TAP will be very much like that. Here is a rundown of what you can expect:
The 5-day Transition University: This covers a multitude of information in a very short time. You will get the Transition Overview, MOS Crosswalk, Financial Planning Seminar, VA briefings 1 & 2, and the 3-day Department of Labor workshop. Again, all of this training is mandatory and it seems that signing in at the beginning of class is the most important part. Someone is counting.
Transition Overview: The program claims this course is designed to prepare service members financially and emotionally, but its delivery is juvenile at best. It starts out by getting you to think differently, more like a civilian. They tell you this during a mandatory “death by PowerPoint” presentation just like all the other military training you’ve sat through, brilliant. They also attempt to get you to think about your transition and…wait for it, talk about your feelings. Honestly, if I needed therapy, I know the route to get that. This was completely a waste of my time.
MOS Cross-walk: This is supposed to help you identify skills, education and experiences gained in the Army and then “cross-walk” them to civilian opportunities. Perhaps I would have learned something if I came from a technical background, but for a 30-year SOF guy, it was a wash. I already have a good idea of my background and experiences and where they will and wont apply to the civilian workforce. Again, your personal professional network is much better suited to advise you from their experience in transition.
Financial Planning: Remember the training you set up for your Soldiers who had problems with managing their money or over drafting their checking accounts? That’s your transition financial management training, and its mandatory. You are asked to fill out a budget and disclose some personal financial information during this training and “share” it with one of the counselors. There is nothing wrong with the lessons in this class, but at 46 years old and having a checking account since I was 9, it did not apply to me. If you have successfully managed your money, a family budget, and/or managed large operating budgets for your units this class isn’t for you either.
Department of Veterans Affairs 1 & 2: These are the only beneficial classes offered by this program and I recommend that you attend these briefing as many times as you feel necessary to absorb the material. I’ve attended them twice. Disabled veterans who really care about you and your transition deliver this full day of training and make themselves available to answer your questions.
Department of Labor Workshop: I really expected a lot out of this and the counselors make it sound like it’s your one stop shop for preparing your resume, beginning networking, and finding your post military career. That’s not the case. The instructor spent 30 minutes discussing which days of the newspaper to subscribe to so that you would get the newly posted classified ads containing employment. I didn’t meet anyone in the class who was interested in searching for employment in the local newspaper classifieds. He also wanted us to spend a full hour walking around and talking about ourselves to the others in the class, something my dad used to have me do in church when I was about 12. I left after the 2nd day and we never did get into anything that resembled a resume. Good thing I already had a completed resume when I showed up. Speaking of that, it was a requirement to submit my resume to my assigned counselor, a 20-something military dependent with a Masters Degree. This was the second time I had done this; the first time I received no response. Her response this time was that she didn’t have time review my resume that week, but I could make an appointment with her to go over it later in the month. Her overtly displayed apathy toward my transition reinforced that the Transition Assistance Program wasn’t for me.
Individual Transition Plan Review: This is a one-on-one review of your transition plan with one of the young counselors. You must declare that you are seeking employment, going back to school, or planning to start your own business. It’s a formality, but like the other steps it’s also mandatory. They review which of the classes you attended (by the recorded sign-in sheets), and give you a “go” or “no-go” for your individual plan. Despite already having a few job offers, and being enrolled in a Master’s degree program, my counselor gave me a “no-go” because I refused to disclose my personal budget to one of the counselors. The result was that I had to go find a Captain (any Captain) half my age to sign my packet before I could clear and sign out of the Army. Typically, a Command Sergeant Major (CSM) advises and seeks approval for actions from Colonels and General Officers with an in-depth knowledge the situation. However, in this case, the TAP staff chose to treat accomplished CSM as if I were one of the first-term, junior enlisted Soldiers that the program is really designed for.
Transition assistance is important for service members who are ending their service and I think the Army has really missed the mark. Making TAP mandatory is evidence of that. The absence of career professional Soldiers serving as mentors to transitioning service members is another strike as the counselors I interacted with were very young and had never experienced the process themselves. There are many organizations that are actively helping service members make the critical decisions in their transition. One quality transition program I’ve found is the Syracuse University Veterans Career Transition Program, (VCTP) which has a goal of not only teaching you industry specific language, but also will pay for you to get certifications that qualify you for employment. Check them out if you are struggling with figuring out what’s next.
The Army’s Transition Assistance Program is not for you
May 7, 2015
I recently retired after 30 years of service in U.S. Army Special Forces and found the Army’s Transition Assistance Program (TAP) to be incredibly underwhelming. I entered the program wanting to learn a couple of things and decided to give the entire program a chance. I was very disappointed. If you are someone who has any accomplishments in your career and a network of colleagues who have already transitioned, then the Army TAP isn’t for you either. Don’t be fooled by the “Senior-level TAP” either. This training is the same training given to everyone else; the only difference is the rank of the class members.
TAP is not a program to prepare retiring professionals for transition, it is geared toward the single-term, junior enlisted Soldier whose plan is to ETS and return home and live with their parents. If this is you, then by all means use the TAP to focus your transition. As a parent, I can tell you that your parents don’t want you living at home while you figure out what’s next. Do that while you are still on active duty! If you find yourself in anything but this category, TAP will frustrate you, but not much else.
Your attendance in TAP is mandatory. Making something mandatory does not make it important or worthwhile, but somehow this point is lost in the Army. Generally, when the Army makes something mandatory, it’s because nobody would participate if it were optional. Think about it. How many of you came away from any mandatory training in the Army thinking, “that really made my day?” Did you ever get anything out of your safety briefings before long weekends, or the annual Anti-terrorism or information awareness refresher training? No? Well the TAP will be very much like that. Here is a rundown of what you can expect:
The 5-day Transition University: This covers a multitude of information in a very short time. You will get the Transition Overview, MOS Crosswalk, Financial Planning Seminar, VA briefings 1 & 2, and the 3-day Department of Labor workshop. Again, all of this training is mandatory and it seems that signing in at the beginning of class is the most important part. Someone is counting.
Transition Overview: The program claims this course is designed to prepare service members financially and emotionally, but its delivery is juvenile at best. It starts out by getting you to think differently, more like a civilian. They tell you this during a mandatory “death by PowerPoint” presentation just like all the other military training you’ve sat through, brilliant. They also attempt to get you to think about your transition and…wait for it, talk about your feelings. Honestly, if I needed therapy, I know the route to get that. This was completely a waste of my time.
MOS Cross-walk: This is supposed to help you identify skills, education and experiences gained in the Army and then “cross-walk” them to civilian opportunities. Perhaps I would have learned something if I came from a technical background, but for a 30-year SOF guy, it was a wash. I already have a good idea of my background and experiences and where they will and wont apply to the civilian workforce. Again, your personal professional network is much better suited to advise you from their experience in transition.
Financial Planning: Remember the training you set up for your Soldiers who had problems with managing their money or over drafting their checking accounts? That’s your transition financial management training, and its mandatory. You are asked to fill out a budget and disclose some personal financial information during this training and “share” it with one of the counselors. There is nothing wrong with the lessons in this class, but at 46 years old and having a checking account since I was 9, it did not apply to me. If you have successfully managed your money, a family budget, and/or managed large operating budgets for your units this class isn’t for you either.
Department of Veterans Affairs 1 & 2: These are the only beneficial classes offered by this program and I recommend that you attend these briefing as many times as you feel necessary to absorb the material. I’ve attended them twice. Disabled veterans who really care about you and your transition deliver this full day of training and make themselves available to answer your questions.
Department of Labor Workshop: I really expected a lot out of this and the counselors make it sound like it’s your one stop shop for preparing your resume, beginning networking, and finding your post military career. That’s not the case. The instructor spent 30 minutes discussing which days of the newspaper to subscribe to so that you would get the newly posted classified ads containing employment. I didn’t meet anyone in the class who was interested in searching for employment in the local newspaper classifieds. He also wanted us to spend a full hour walking around and talking about ourselves to the others in the class, something my dad used to have me do in church when I was about 12. I left after the 2nd day and we never did get into anything that resembled a resume. Good thing I already had a completed resume when I showed up. Speaking of that, it was a requirement to submit my resume to my assigned counselor, a 20-something military dependent with a Masters Degree. This was the second time I had done this; the first time I received no response. Her response this time was that she didn’t have time review my resume that week, but I could make an appointment with her to go over it later in the month. Her overtly displayed apathy toward my transition reinforced that the Transition Assistance Program wasn’t for me.
Individual Transition Plan Review: This is a one-on-one review of your transition plan with one of the young counselors. You must declare that you are seeking employment, going back to school, or planning to start your own business. It’s a formality, but like the other steps it’s also mandatory. They review which of the classes you attended (by the recorded sign-in sheets), and give you a “go” or “no-go” for your individual plan. Despite already having a few job offers, and being enrolled in a Master’s degree program, my counselor gave me a “no-go” because I refused to disclose my personal budget to one of the counselors. The result was that I had to go find a Captain (any Captain) half my age to sign my packet before I could clear and sign out of the Army. Typically, a Command Sergeant Major (CSM) advises and seeks approval for actions from Colonels and General Officers with an in-depth knowledge the situation. However, in this case, the TAP staff chose to treat accomplished CSM as if I were one of the first-term, junior enlisted Soldiers that the program is really designed for.
Transition assistance is important for service members who are ending their service and I think the Army has really missed the mark. Making TAP mandatory is evidence of that. The absence of career professional Soldiers serving as mentors to transitioning service members is another strike as the counselors I interacted with were very young and had never experienced the process themselves. There are many organizations that are actively helping service members make the critical decisions in their transition. One quality transition program I’ve found is the Syracuse University Veterans Career Transition Program, (VCTP) which has a goal of not only teaching you industry specific language, but also will pay for you to get certifications that qualify you for employment. Check them out if you are struggling with figuring out what’s next.
Transition
ACAP/Soldier for Life (SFL-TAP)
Retirement
Retired
Edited 9 y ago
Posted 9 y ago
Responses: 11
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Whether it's ACAP or TAP or SFL, you only get out of the program things that pertain to your situation and background. As a retired Armor officer, MOS crosswalk is a waste of time. Be nice if the program focus on the basics: veteran benefits, spouse benefits, and resume writing class. That's it. And all that can be done in 2-3 days.
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It ABSOLUTELY is a complete waste of time, unless you are a first-termer that is ETSing. It is not designed for anyone retiring. I would split the program, one for anyone that has not served beyond the 10 year mark, and one program for anyone retiring. Tailor them to meet the needs of the target audience, not just a blanket solution for everyone.
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I sat in some of it, because I had some free time right after deployment... that and from the reading I have done, would say this...
They need to think about recognizing the difference between those that have no education, no plan, no financial management skills (people who truly need the babysitting), and those senior NCO's / officers who have a degree, been earning a paycheck for 20 years and will for the rest of their life, and been in charge of stuff.
While they do let you identify whether you are going trades, college, or entrepenuer...maybe make it like a buffet...I need help with resume, not budget. I would like another eggroll, no more wonton soup!!
They need to think about recognizing the difference between those that have no education, no plan, no financial management skills (people who truly need the babysitting), and those senior NCO's / officers who have a degree, been earning a paycheck for 20 years and will for the rest of their life, and been in charge of stuff.
While they do let you identify whether you are going trades, college, or entrepenuer...maybe make it like a buffet...I need help with resume, not budget. I would like another eggroll, no more wonton soup!!
(3)
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