**URGENT** 10,000 Signatures Needed By Oct. 18th To Improve Veterans Employability and Reduce Suicide Risk

CHANGE.ORG

https://www.change.org/p/robert-a-mcdonald-us-dept-of-veterans-affairs-improve-veterans-employability-to-reduce-suicide

Improve veterans employability to reduce suicide.

Petition by
BATTLE-BRO
**URGENT. PLEASE SHARE – WE NEED 10,000 SIGNATURES BY OCT 18TH** Every signature sends an email directly to the personal inbox of the Secretary of the VA, Robert A McDonald.

There are an average of 22 veteran suicides each day in this country: it’s staggering and a shameful indictment of us as a society. These men and women have risked and lost their lives for the freedoms we enjoy. One of the principal factors in bringing a veteran to this tragic decision is unemployment and the inability to support their family. Though veterans re-enter civilian life amply qualified for a host of jobs, there has been no bridging mechanism that translates their military skills to employer-friendly vernacular.

This from the Washington Post is a perfect explanation of the problem:

“Today, unemployment for veterans who’ve served since September of 2001 hovers just over 8 percent. For the economy at large: 6.1 percent. The gap between those two numbers speaks to several challenges: The military trains service members in many jobs with close but imperfect civilian corollaries, leaving veterans with the right job skills but the wrong certifications. Military service demands other skills that civilian jobs don’t (managing violence, repairing weapons, defending convoys). But where that unfamiliar experience entails universal qualifications (leadership, judgment, communication), employers don’t always know how to recognize them.”

BATTLE-BRO – the Veteran call-a-day network combatting suicide – has created RWSacred.org to provide this certification free for our veterans. Please sign this petition and encourage the VA to push bridging programs such as RWS Accreditation to establish better connectivity between vets and employers. More jobs for vets could quite literally save lives.

To:
Robert A McDonald, US Dept of Veterans Affairs, Secretary

Dear Mr McDonald,

Congratulations on your recent appointment to the VA, we look forward to seeing how you transform and ameliorate this challenging institution.

We’d like to ask you to help improve veteran’s employability potential via RWSacred.org (and programs like it) that interprets a veterans MOS to the standard business vernacular and fosters greater consideration by employers. As you know, employers are often deterred from hiring vets mostly because of the skill-language barrier. However, joblessness and the inability to support their family is a prominent factor in a veterans tragic choice to commit suicide.

By accrediting our vets WE can assume the due diligence cost/process and close the language gap between a veteran’s military service and the business sector. By YOU raising national awareness of this program, more employers will know of it’s existence thereby increasing its usefulness and simultaneously launching an invaluable life-affirming tool for our service men and women. TOGETHER we can assuage the devastating suicide numbers among our heroes and heal this national moral debt.

We do hope you will enjoy this opportunity, and thank you sincerely for your help.