Actual Veterans Are A Scarce Sight In Top VA Hospital Jobs

PO2 Mark Saffell: The VA should allow preference to Vets. The VA should only hire from outside when the situation demands. The VA would turn around in a heartbeat!

PO2 Saffell you are correct. I bet most former military medics and corpsmen are unaware of programs seeking to help them. See:
- https://www.vacareers.va.gov/careers/intermediate-care-technician/index.asp
- https://www.dvs.virginia.gov/education-employment/military-medics-and-corpsmen-program/
There are many former enlisted healthcare members who can provide quality care to their fell vets. Frankly, until I got my current gig with Warrior Centric Health (http://warriorcentrichealth.com/) I had tried for > 10 years to get on with the VA. My wife also retired name and an LPN also tried to get on with the VA for > 10 years as well, and you would that as a nurse that would be a slam dunk. NOT!

In fact, we we living in Greenville, NC in the later 1990's and she was told by persons at the new VA clinic that had opened at that time this "Oh, we are contractors and don't hire former military." You cannot imagine how mad she became! WTFO!!!

Again, while the recent law may help about getting rid of deadwood in the VA I am not sure it goes far enough to incentivise the hiring of all sorts of specialties tht can have a positive impact on the quality of care to our fellow vets.

I hope this post was informative and other tracking this discussion work to demand more action to drive the VHA in the right direction.

cc COL Mikel J. Burroughs

Veterans are only good enough to scrub toilets and shine floors is the impression I got from the article. It would also explain why it would be so hard for veterans to get medical care at these facilities. More veterans in places of management would mean more money spent to help these "freeload fools that think they have problems" would be another impression I got from reading it. To many talented people in the service are just getting ignored and its upsetting for multiple reasons. . . . me thinks someone needs a swift kick in the ass out the door.

The cold hard truth is that in the eyes of Major Corporations; they don't care if you served. You see a lot of companies who say we will hire 10,000 veterans in the next 5 years. WELL, you will only hire that veteran if they meet ALL OF YOUR NITTY GRITTY qualifications. EVEN THOUGH veterans are amongst the best with the single most important trait "they are TRAINABLE". With that being said, ANYONE WANT TO GO INTO BUSINESS TOGETHER AND HIRE ONLY VETS???

LTC Terrence Farrier, PhD - But that is part of the problem outlined in the original post sir, very few Vets are in those positions. At that level, we are talking about career bureaucrats, some of whom know where skeletons are hidden, and they only know the one way and hate to have their little apple cart upset. I agree that what we need are senior officers who still want to serve, be put in these positions instead then hire down the line looking for vets to fill in the rest of the positions. I myself tried looking for a job as one of the reception people, but was only finding positions that wanted medical background. I talked to a few of the guys and one of the gals doing this job, and NONE of them had that background when they started, (the backgrounds I was given fireman, 2 grunts, a tanker, and flight line mech from a carrier) and I went to look where they told me to look, no joy.
Outside of the actual medical staff (Dr's and Nurses) which do need specialized training. there is in my opinion, many places where the "dumb grunt" can be taught quickly what is needed to be done, and they (or any of the other "dummy" class jobs) can take over with minimal fuss and training because that is the one thing we excel at, it learning on the fly, and fulfilling standards.

I understand and agree.

Agreed.

I interned at the VA here in NYC. There was definitely an attitude of not rocking the boat. That needs to change. I left the hospital as there just wasn’t much incentive to stay. I worked without compensation but in a stem aligned field the patheays program would definitely fill positions with qualified veterans.

Agreed SSG Scott