From the National WWII Museum:
Every day, memories of World War II are disappearing from living history. The men and women who fought and won this great conflict are now in their 90s or older; according to US Department of Veterans Affairs statistics, 119,550 of the 16.1 million Americans who served in World War II are alive as of 2023.
He is Puerto Rican.
— David Begnaud (@DavidBegnaud) May 29, 2023
He went to a @kroger store in Savannah Georgia.
He purchased groceries, a bottle of wine, and some beer.
The cashier asked to see his ID, understandably.
He presented his Puerto Rico Real ID/drivers license.
He says the cashier then asked to see his… pic.twitter.com/Ymm8XCarXf
Many posts have discussed myths and misinformation.
The New York Post dropped a bombshell report last week: amid a nationwide influx of migrants, nearly two-dozen homeless veterans were kicked out of hotels where they were being temporarily housed in order to make room for migrants in upstate New York.
The story, which was based on a claim by a veterans advocate, got the front page treatment: “VETS KICKED OUT FOR MIGRANTS,” bellowed the Post last Saturday. “Outrage as upstate hotels tell 20 homeless veterans to leave.”
It was a juicy story that could have been cooked up in Roger Ailes’s rage-fear lab: Red-blooded American veterans put out on the street to make way for foreign invaders!
The story rocketed around the right-wing ecosystem. New York Post columnist Miranda Devine said President Joe Biden “should burn in hell for this.” House Speaker Kevin McCarthy called it “shameful.” Donald Trump Jr. declared, “Fuck Democrats.” Nikki Haley said the tale was “Liberal insanity at work.”
Naturally, Fox News covered the story enthusiastically, treating it as gospel on nearly every program. On Outnumbered, one of Fox’s most popular daytime programs, hosts pinned blame for the very local story on Biden.
It proves he “doesn’t mean it” when he says “God bless the troops” at the end of his speeches, one host said. “Why is Joe Biden doing this?” another asked. “Because it is intentional… he is a globalist. He’s more concerned about the needs of the U.N., about the World Economic Forum than he is about his own American citizens.”
Then, the story fell apart.
First, the hotels that veterans were supposedly booted from told Mid-Hudson News they had no idea what the advocate, YIT Foundation Executive Director Sharon Finch, was talking about. Then, a local Republican New York lawmaker dug into her claims and concluded that she lied.
Small local publications are in trouble, but they provide vital information.
Far fewer members of Congress now have personal military experience than in the past. In the current Congress, 97 members have served in the military at some point in their lives – among the lowest numbers since at least World War II, according to Military Times. There are almost three times as many Republican veterans in the 118th Congress as Democratic veterans (72 vs. 25). Roughly similar shares of current representatives (18.4%) and senators (17%) have served in the military.
Since the second half of the 20th century, there has been a dramatic decrease in members of Congress with military experience. Between 1965 and 1975, at least 70% of lawmakers in each legislative chamber had military experience. The share of members with military experience peaked at 75% in 1967 for the House and at 81% in 1975 for the Senate.
While relatively few members of Congress today have military experience, an even smaller share of Americans do. In 2021, about 6% of U.S. adults were veterans, according to the U.S. Census Bureau – down from 18% in 1980, not long after the end of the military draft era.
Rebecca Burgess at Law & Liberty:
The concept of the veteran as we’ve come to experience it today appears to be a thoroughly American experiment, but one that has, remarkably, gone largely if not entirely unnoticed. This is despite America having participated in numerous wars, despite the generational reverence still felt decades later for the “Greatest Generation,” and despite what Admiral Mike Mullen once termed in the midst of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars as “a sea of good will” among the American public toward Post-9/11 veterans.
We ought not to be so oblivious to this history, and to its richness in showcasing the centrality of military veterans to the development of the American nation, even to political and constitutional ideas.
The veteran is, first and foremost, an experiment in civil-military relations and egalitarian democratic society. But veterans—and the questions that arise both from reincorporating ex-soldiers into civil society, and from wrestling with who cares (and to what extent) for their wounds and needs—have without doubt influenced and shaped American government, along with its public and private institutions, society, and culture. For one, the government lobbyist, today so central—and so reviled—a figure to the American legislative system, was invented, perfected, and perpetuated, by military veterans.
More than 500 retired U.S. military personnel — including scores of generals and admirals — have taken lucrative jobs since 2015 working for foreign governments, mostly in countries known for human rights abuses and political repression, according to a Washington Post investigation.
In Saudi Arabia, for example, 15 retired U.S. generals and admirals have worked as paid consultants for the Defense Ministry since 2016. The ministry is led by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the kingdom’s de facto ruler, who U.S. intelligence agencies say approved the 2018 killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a Post contributing columnist, as part of a brutal crackdown on dissent.
Saudi Arabia’s paid advisers have included retired Marine Gen. James L. Jones, a national security adviser to President Barack Obama, and retired Army Gen. Keith Alexander, who led the National Security Agency under Obama and President George W. Bush, according to documents obtained by The Post under Freedom of Information Act lawsuits.
Others who have worked as consultants for the Saudis since Khashoggi’s murder include a retired four-star Air Force general and a former commanding general of U.S. troops in Afghanistan.
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Brandon Brockmyer, POGO’s director of investigations and research, said retired senior military officers often testify before Congress and appear on television to debate national security, but rarely divulge whether they are on a foreign government’s payroll.
“The public is working on the assumption that their sole loyalty is to the United States,” he said. “The public has the right to know whether and how a foreign power has access to their expertise.”
Under federal ethics rules, military personnel who manage weapons programs or major defense contracts must observe a “cooling off” period of one or two years before they can accept jobs from companies they did business with while in uniform. The regulations, which also apply to other federal officials who interact with government contractors, are intended to prevent conflicts of interest and self-dealing. In some cases, officials face a lifetime ban from taking such jobs.
But the conflict-of-interest rules do not apply in the same way to retired U.S. troops who want to work for a foreign government. While they must obtain federal approval for the job, they are allowed to negotiate foreign employment before they retire, whenever they want, even with countries where they have been stationed for the U.S. military.
In 2018, about 7% of U.S. adults were veterans, down from 18% in 1980, according to the Census Bureau. This drop coincides with decreases in active-duty personnel. Over the past half-century, the number of people on active duty has dropped significantly, from 3.5 million in 1968, during the military draft era, to about 1.4 million (or less than 1% of all U.S. adults) in today’s all-volunteer force. The draft ended in 1973.
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As the share of Americans who are veterans has declined, so has the share of legislators who have previously served in the military. In the current Congress, 17% of lawmakers in both houses had prior military service, down drastically from just a few decades ago.
The share of senators who are veterans reached a post-Korean War peak of 81% in 1975, while the share among House members peaked in 1967 at 75%. However, in recent elections, both Democrats and Republicans have made special efforts to recruit veterans for congressional contests, and the newly elected freshman class includes 15 such lawmakers.
Today is the 77th anniversary of the D-Day invasion.
With D-Day veterans now mostly in their mid-90s or older, there are likely only a few hundred veterans still alive, said April Cheek-Messier, the president of the U.S. National D-Day Memorial Foundation.
"If you think about the fact that there are 16 million who served during World War II, there are only around 325,000 World War II veterans still living today, and of that, a very small percentage would be D-Day veterans, and we don't know the exact number, but you can imagine they would probably only be in a few hundred," Cheek-Messier told Fox News.
Only one veteran now remains from the French commando unit that joined U.S, British, Canadian and other Allied troops in storming Normandy's code-named beaches, the AP reported.
Gulf War-era veterans now account for the largest share of all U.S. veterans, having surpassed Vietnam-era veterans in 2016, according to the VA’s 2018 population model estimates. VA estimates for 2021 indicate there are 5.9 million American veterans who served during the Vietnam era and 7.8 million who served in the Gulf War era, which spans from August 1990 through the present. There are also around 240,000 World War II veterans and about 933,000 who served during the Korean conflict, the VA estimates. Some veterans served through multiple eras but are counted only in their earliest era. Roughly three-quarters (78%) of veterans in 2021 served during wartime, and 22% served during peacetime. (Veterans with wartime and peacetime service are only counted in wartime.)
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As with trends in the U.S. population overall, the veteran population is expected to become more racially and ethnically diverse. Between 2021 and 2046, the share of veterans who are non-Hispanic White is expected to drop from 74% to 62%. The share of veterans who are Hispanic is expected to double from 8% to 16%, while the share who are Black is expected to increase slightly from 13% to 15%..
Far fewer members of Congress now have direct military experience than in the past. In the current Congress, 91 members served in the military at some point in their lives – the lowest number since at least World War II, according to Military Times. There are more than twice as many Republican veterans (63) in the new Congress as Democrats (28). Equal shares of senators and representatives (17%) have served in the military.
While the number and share of veterans in Congress overall have decreased, the newly elected freshman class includes 15 such lawmakers.
Looking at the longer term, there has been a dramatic decrease in members of Congress with military experience since the late 20th century. Between 1965 and 1975, at least 70% of lawmakers in each legislative chamber had military experience. The share of members with military experience peaked at 75% in 1967 for the House and at 81% in 1975 for the Senate.
While relatively few members of Congress today have military experience, an even smaller share of Americans do. In 2018, about 7% of U.S. adults had military experience, down from 18% in 1980, not long after the end of the military draft era.
As a violent mob descended on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, lawmakers and aides hid wherever they could, waiting for the military and police to arrive. But many of those who stormed the Capitol were military veterans themselves, who had once sworn to protect the Constitution. In fact, an NPR analysis has found that nearly 1 in 5 people charged over their alleged involvement in the attack on the U.S. Capitol appear to have a military history.
NPR compiled a list of individuals facing federal or District of Columbia charges in connection with the events of Jan. 6. Of more than 140 charged so far, a review of military records, social media accounts, court documents and news reports indicate at least 27 of those charged, or nearly 20%, have served or are currently serving in the U.S. military. To put that number in perspective, only about 7% of all American adults are military veterans, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
Amy Worden and Marisa Iati at WP:
A Pennsylvania woman accused of helping to steal a laptop from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office during the attack on the U.S. Capitol in Washington was ordered released from detention Thursday and placed in her mother’s custody.
Riley June Williams, 22, must stay in the home she shares with her mother and abide by other conditions of release, including avoiding contact with any witnesses or victims of the Jan. 6 Capitol storming. Federal Magistrate Judge Martin Carlson said he was releasing Williams in part because she had no prior criminal record, but he warned her that her mother, Wendy Williams, could be criminally charged if she fails to report to the court any violations of the conditions of release.
Miss Williams, when we met on Tuesday, one of the first things I did was advise you of your constitutional rights. And then I took steps to protect those rights by appointing aggressive, effective counsel to represent you here. That recital of rights wasn't just some hollow invocation of abstract principles. It was affirmation of the rights guaranteed to you by the United States Constitution. And it strikes me that that guarantee says something extraordinary and extraordinarily good about our Constitution. You are embraced by a presumption of innocence.
You are entitled to the assistance of counsel. You have a right to remain silent. All of these matters guaranteed to you by the Constitution, a constitution that protects the rights of those who are accused of transgressing society's rules. Some of the most basic of those rules are set forth in our Constitution. And one of the fundamental pillars of that constitution is the peaceful transition of power. That obligation that all citizens have to facilitate the peaceful transfer of power, it has been honored by generations of Americans for two hundred and thirty two years, it has become so commonplace that we often think very little of it.
But as President Reagan said in his inaugural, that process is a miracle. The allegations that bring you before me involve conduct that allegedly took place on January 6th of this year as Congress was endeavoring to fulfill its constitutional obligation to certify the will of the people and the votes of the Electoral College. You are cloaked in a presumption of innocence with respect to these matters. But the allegations set forth in the complaint relate to conduct that was antithetical to these constitutional values, conduct that involved a riot, a mob that sought to replace constitutional norms with the howling of a crowd.
We know now that the mob failed and the Constitution prevailed. The Constitution prevailed on January 6th of this year because Congress, stepping over the wreckage of its capital, met. and confirmed the vote of the Electoral College, setting the stage for the latest peaceful transition of power in this country yesterday. In the wake of those events on January 6th, it strikes me that the Constitution prevailed yet again in the wake of those events, the men and women of federal law enforcement, including the federal investigator and the assistant US attorney, the federal prosecutor involved in this case, fulfilled a duty that they had under the Constitution. They have sworn an oath under the Constitution to protect and defend that Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic.
And in pursuit of that constitutional obligation, a series of investigations have been launched into the matters that took place on January 6th. And those investigations have brought us here today together. It also occurs to me, Miss Williams, in a very personal and direct way, that the Constitution has is and will be prevailing in your case. As I noted a few moments ago when we first met, I invoked the Constitution on your behalf and I took steps to protect your constitutional rights by appointing counsel for you, your counsel.
Fulfilling the role of the Constitution contemplated has aggressively represented your interests here today. Wouldn't you agree, Miss Oelrich? [The judge at this point turns to the court appointed public defender in this case]. Wouldn't you agree, Miss Oelrich, that you have aggressively represented your client's interests here today?
Yes, Your Honor, I spent the last two days doing a lot of investigating.
[And the judge turns to the prosecutor] On behalf of the United States, it is my view that over the past two days, you and your colleagues here and elsewhere have endeavored to fulfill your constitutional obligation to provide equal justice under the law to ensure the protection of individual rights and liberties while ensuring adherence to the rule of law.[
[And then the judge turns back to the defendant, Miss Williams, he says] so Miss Williams, in a very real and direct sense, you are being released today because the Constitution has prevailed, because your counsel has fulfilled her constitutional obligation and because the United States is also fulfilling its constitutional duty to strike hard blows but fair blows in the pursuit of justice. So, Miss Williams, I share that thought with you as you leave here today, that your freedom today, conditioned as it is by the orders that I have entered as a result of the prevailing of the Constitution.
And I'll leave you with this final thought, Miss Williams. The judge closes with us. The Constitution prevails here today and the Constitution will always prevail in this country.
The 1917 veterans benefits system is the system that the Department of Veterans Affairs uses today, groaning under the weight of an enormously expanded set of veterans benefits haphazardly added on after a century’s worth of wars, all reflecting changing (and often conflicting) views of individual rights, government benefits, economics, and military service. Richard Levy has written out a helpful explainer of the contemporary conflagration resulting from the dynamics at work in these benefits—something he calls the “uneasy mixture of two basic models of government benefits,” the charitable and the social insurance models.
In the charity model, “whatever moral obligation the nation may owe its veterans, the fulfillment of that responsibility is, from a legal perspective, a voluntary undertaking.” The charity model prevailed for a significant portion of American history, including during the time the veterans benefit system emerged. The creation of Social Security, Welfare, and Medicare decades later signaled a different understanding of government benefits, what we commonly call entitlements, and which Levy calls the “social insurance model” of benefits. Levy writes that in this latter model, “benefits are a form of social contract through which the government uses its taxing and spending powers to spread the costs of old age, disability, unemployment, and poverty.”
In the expansion of modern veterans benefits to include now housing insurance and fertility treatments, we can see the social insurance model in play, along with the charity model. The dual motivations of gratitude and a just repayment of a debt behind those two models are not difficult to discern. But the range of benefits the contemporary veteran can qualify for is so expansive that the veteran’s relationship with the VA may be the most important relationship in her post-service life. The VA can define who, as a veteran, she is in her own mind—whether disabled, because she receives a check for such, or not. And in its capacity as the second largest federal agency and the most visible public expression of the nation’s gratitude towards its veterans, the VA certainly shapes the American public’s expectations and understanding of who the veteran is.
Society’s medicalized perception of the veteran is further reemphasized, as James D. Ridgeway has noted, by veterans service organizations frequently lobbying for all benefits as compensation that is owed the veteran, as their right. But in fact, the “wounded warrior” is the centerpiece of veterans’ legislation in the 21st century not only because medical care is its historical root, but also because stakeholders and legislators have learned that highlighting the “brokenness” of veterans is the most effective mechanism to move legislation through Congress.
In 1980, Harris and Associates explicitly recommended this tactic to legislators even while noting its risky downsides for the public image of the actual veterans. That Congress liked the recommendation and paid no attention to the warning seems obvious in the post-9/11 context by the frequency with which members in the House and Senate introduce suicide prevention legislation despite repeated empirical evidence that veterans’ most consistent source of stress is understanding how to navigate the veterans benefits system, and being able to secure meaningful employment.
This by no means is to make light of the statistics about veteran and military suicides. But at what point does holding one single perspective distort the truth of a photograph or a profession, a person or a phenomenon?
• The number of veterans in the United States declined by a third, from 26.4 million to 18.0 million between 2000 and 2018.
• There are fewer than 500,000 World War II veterans alive today, down from 5.7 million in 2000.
• Women make up a growing share of veterans. Today, about 9 percent of veterans—or 1.7 million— are women. By 2040, that number is projected to rise to 17 percent.
• The largest cohort of veterans alive today served during the Vietnam Era (6.4 million), which lasted from 1964 to 1975. The second largest cohort of veterans served during peacetime only (4.0 million).
• The median age of veterans today is 65 years. By service period, Post-9/11 veterans are the youngest with a median age of about 37, Vietnam Era veterans have a median age of about 71, and World War II veterans are the oldest with a median age of about 93.
• Veterans from more recent service periods have the highest levels of education. More than three-quarters of Post-9/11 and Gulf War veterans have at least some college experience, and more than one third of Gulf War veterans have a college degree.
• Post-9/11 veterans had a 43 percent chance of having a service-connected disability, after accounting for differences in demographic and social characteristics among veterans—significantly higher than veterans from other periods.
• Among veterans who had a service-connected disability, Post-9/11 veterans had a 39 percent chance of having a disability rating of 70 percent or more—significantly higherthan veterans from other any other periods.
Using a semi-structured qualitative interview design of currently serving higher education leaders and practitioners with prior military service, this paper identifies the reasons why veterans choose to work in higher education, captures the leadership skills and traits learned in the military that practically apply to their roles, identifies current challenges in higher education’s mission to serve students, and provides recommendations for recruiting more veterans into leadership roles. Among this paper’s most significant findings are:
- Veterans choose to work in higher education as an extension of their military service because of overlapping values, traditions, and progressive leadership opportunity. Budget management, empowering teams toward mission attainment, and being adaptable in the midst of constant change and uncertainty are broad skill categories gained through military service and applied in higher education that have fostered an unquestionable desire by veterans to continue what began when they joined the All-Volunteer Force.
- Veterans who work in higher education have leadership tools gained through military service at their disposal, including, among others: mission focus, strategic thinking, adaptability, resiliency, comfort with ambiguity and leading change, experience working with individuals from diverse backgrounds, and personnel and budget management experience.
- The leadership tools identified above will help veterans navigate our system of higher education as a corps of adaptive leaders ready and willing to confront profound challenges that, when asked, they identified as:
Solutions to the key challenges confronting higher education can be supported, in part, through a critical mass of adaptive leaders, and military service provides fertile ground for the development of adaptive leadership skills.
- Higher education’s slow pace of change relative to the changing needs and characteristics of today’s students
- Decreasing perception in the value of a post-secondary degree
- Decreasing enrollment
- Aging infrastructure and unsustainable cost to the student
- The lack of focus on the intersection of diversity, equity, and inclusion by campus leaders, and competing spheres of influence on campus.
Through intentional academic programming, recruitment efforts, and partnerships, the higher education, nonprofit, and government sectors can help veterans view higher education not only as a waypoint for separating service members, but also as a viable career opportunity.
At a time when partisan bickering has become the norm on Capitol Hill...a showing of bipartisanship and civility there deserves mention.
Enter the Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, led by new Chairman Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) and Ranking Member Jon Tester (D-Mont.). At a markup this week, where the Committee unanimously passed nine bills, Moran opened the meeting by stating he hoped to have a “non-contentious, relatively short, but meaningful markup.” He successfully achieved that goal.
Moran also followed through on this sentiment by complimenting Tester during the markup, noting that they both serve on the same five committees, including the Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, and that, although they may disagree, they nonetheless have always worked well together.
“While a lot of momentous and contentious and historic things go on in the United States Senate, as we’ve seen for the last few weeks, I hope this Committee will continue to be a haven of bipartisanship and comradery and working together . . . sometimes we forget what’s important. But those who served our country served for purposes unrelated to democrat or republican, and I will do everything I can to ensure that this committee remains that place where we put veterans well-above that partisanship,” relayed Moran in his opening remarks.
Moran’s remarks are all the more important given the legacy of his predecessor, retired Senator Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.), as well as the recent descent into partisan bickering seen over on the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs.
- The US veteran demographic profile faces sharp changes in the near future, with the overall veteran population decreasing nearly 40 percent by 2045, according to the Department of Veteran Affairs (VA). While veterans in general are increasing their presence in the South and West, high numbers of Vietnam-era veterans continue to live in the Northeast and Midwest. Overall, the veteran population will shrink by several million in the near future.
- Significant differences at the county level in veteran population, as predicted separately by VetPop 2016 and the American Community Surveys, can translate to mismatched allocation of resources for veterans’ health care and other needs.
- Outdated information impedes our ability to predict veteran population shifts. The US Census has not captured information on veterans’ status since 2000, nor is it slated to in 2020. This severely throws into question the capacity of Congress, the VA, and state and local governments to plan adequately for the changing needs of American veterans.
Veterans Day originated as “Armistice Day” on Nov. 11, 1919, the first anniversary marking the end of World War I. Congress passed a resolution in 1926 for an annual observance, and Nov. 11 became a national holiday beginning in 1938. President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed legislation in 1954 to change the name to Veterans Day as a way to honor those who served in all American wars. The day honors military veterans with parades and speeches across the nation and a ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia. The ceremony honors and thanks all who served in the U.S. armed forces.
The following facts are made possible by the invaluable responses to the U.S. Census Bureau’s surveys. We appreciate the public’s cooperation in helping us measure America’s people, places and economy.Jie Zong and Jeanne Batalova at The Migration Policy Institute:
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18.0 million The number of military veterans in the United States in 2018.
Source: 2018 American Community Survey
1.7 million The number of female veterans in the United States in 2018.
Source: 2018 American Community Survey
12.0% The percentage of veterans in 2018 who were black. Additionally, 76.7 percent were non-Hispanic white, 1.7 percent were Asian, 0.8 % were American Indian or Alaska Native, 0.2 % were Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander, and 1.4 % were some other race. (The numbers for blacks, non-Hispanic whites, Asians, American Indians and Alaska Natives, Native Hawaiians and Other Pacific Islanders, and some other race cover only those reporting a single race.)
Source: 2018 American Community Survey
7.2%The percentage of veterans in 2018 who were Hispanic.
Source: 2018 American Community Survey
50.1%The percentage of veterans age 65 and older in 2018. At the other end of the age spectrum, 9.1% were younger than age 35.Source: 2018 American Community Survey
Immigrants have long enlisted in all branches of the U.S. military, beginning with the Revolutionary War. The foreign born represented half of all military recruits by the 1840s and 20 percent of the 1.5 million service members in the Union Army during the Civil War. Today, the number of veterans who were born outside the United States stands at approximately 530,000, representing 3 percent of all 18.6 million veterans nationwide. Additionally, almost 1.9 million veterans are the U.S.-born children of immigrants. Together, the 2.4 million veterans of immigrant origin, either because they themselves are immigrants or are the children of immigrants, account for 13 percent of all veterans.
The VA Office of Accountability and Whistleblower Protection (OAWP) was established in 2017 to improve VA’s ability to hold employees accountable and enhance protections for whistleblowers.1 This goal was to be accomplished, in part, by expanding VA’s ability to hold senior executives accountable for specified misconduct; preventing retaliation against whistleblowers and initiating action against supervisors who retaliate; and addressing senior executives’ poor performance.
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Notably, in its first two years of operation, the OAWP acted in ways that were inconsistent with its statutory authority while it simultaneously floundered in its mission to protect whistleblowers. Even recognizing that organizing the operations of any new office is challenging, OAWP leaders made avoidable mistakes early in its development that created an office culture that was sometimes alienating to the very individuals it was meant to protect. Those leadership failures distracted the OAWP from its core mission and likely diminished the desired confidence of whistleblowers and other potential complainants in the operations of the office.
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From June 2017 to May 2018, the OAWP referred 2,526 submissions to other VA program offices, facilities, or other components that were not all equipped to undertake such investigations and without adequate measures to track the referrals or safeguards to protect whistleblowers’ identities.7 Of these, at least 51 involved allegations of whistleblower retaliation by a supervisor (and so properly within the investigative authority of the OAWP). Complainants were not always advised of these referrals. Without guidance, OAWP personnel did not take sufficient steps to protect complainants’ identities and prevent their concerns from being sent to the very facilities or network offices where the complainant worked or that were the subject of the allegations. The OAWP also failed to establish safeguards sufficient to protect whistleblowers from becoming the subject of retaliatory investigations. One troubling instance involved the OAWP initiating an investigation that could itself be considered retaliatory. At the request of a senior leader who had social ties to the OAWP Executive Director, the OAWP investigated a whistleblower who had a complaint pending against the senior leader. After a truncated investigation, the OAWP substantiated the allegations without even interviewing the whistleblower. In addition, former OAWP leaders made comments and took actions that reflected a lack of respect for individuals they deemed “career” whistleblowers. Moreover, at a time when the office was failing to meet its statutory requirements and purposes, then Executive Director Nicholas directed about 15 percent of the OAWP’s FY 2018 budget to be obligated for contracts beyond its core mission.
In November, Ithaka S+R and the College Board hosted “Improving Opportunities for Veterans.” This conference brought together leaders from higher education, the military, and veterans service organizations who share the goal of increasing the enrollment and graduation of veterans at colleges and universities with the highest graduation rates.
In our new report with Catharine Bond Hill and Martin Kurzweil, we investigate the underrepresentation of United States military veterans at colleges that graduate at least 70 percent of their students. The benefits of earning a bachelor’s degree are clear, but veterans rarely attend those colleges and universities where they have the greatest chance to succeed: only one in ten veterans using GI Bill benefits enrolls in a high-graduation-rate institution, while approximately one in three veterans using GI Bill benefits attends a for-profit institution.
These inequities are not the result of veterans not being talented enough to succeed at top colleges and universities; in fact, there are many indicators that student veterans can attend and be successful. Student veterans are 1.4 times more likely to earn a certificate or degree than adult learners overall, and student veterans have an average GPA of 3.34, compared to the average for traditional students of 2.94. While many community colleges and regional four-year publics have large enrollments of veterans and serve their needs well, high-graduation-rate institutions, those that also tend to have more resources, could do more.
