By Julie O’Rourke, WTC Stratcom
The Honorable Juan M. Garcia, III, Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Manpower and Reserve Affairs offered perspective on the closing day of the Wounded Warrior Federal Employment Conference Thursday. “We have a lot of wounded warriors now that previously would not have lived,” he said. “In WWII, for every 100 combat injuries, 33 were fatal. Now only 6 are fatal. It’s historic, it comes with a charge, a way to successfully reintegrate a cadre of wounded warriors we haven’t seen before.” These decades of perspective give new meaning to BG Williams’ charge that each agency official commit to hiring at least one wounded warrior.
It hurts me when I see a Soldier that has been hurt. Given their sacrifice, helping Soldiers find jobs after their medical retirement seems like a very small commitment to me. Secretary Garcia’s comments put wounded warriors’ employment needs into perspective and helped me understand why we have difficulties finding them all jobs. Wounded warriors are a blessing. They’re a resource that America might have lost without today’s advanced medical technology.
During these two days, we learned about a number of different tools agency officials and Soldiers can use to get Veterans into jobs. In the end, however, success for these programs will come from driven people: Soldiers who get up every day and work hard to look for jobs and agency officials who interview with patience and an eye towards the future.
VADM Kevin McCoy, Commander of the Navy Sea Systems Command, closed the conference with a call to action for each agency represented: “When you leave here, you need to decide whether you’re in or you’re not. If you’re in, it will be incredible.”
I think it is great that there has been an increase in employment advocacy for wounded warriors. Unfortunately, I do not think that all federal employers and employees have an appreciation for the hiring of wounded warriors into their agency and fail to treat them as all others that are working in the agency.
I say this because I was a wounded warrior that was hired by the Army Audit Agency and was fired from the agency because of failure to perform work to standard. In my opinion that was not the case. When I arrived at the Army Audit Agency I was informed of who my senior rater was instantly told that I was no exception from the other workers. I was constantly scrutinized when I had to take time from work because of medical appointments I had to attend because of my disabilities I acquired serving my country. I was also told that I could not park in parking spaces behind our building. I notified my rater that I had a disabled parking placard and disabled veteran plates. I also told her that there were no disabled parking spaces in front of our building and that the parking spaces in the rear of the building were closer to the building. She said that she did not like me parking back there.
I felt very discriminated against and brought up the parking situation in a field office sensing session. Follow ing the sensing session I received my annual rating which was average in all areas. I had received several interim ratings prior and they all stated that i was exceeding expectations. Well, needless to say I was fired from the agency.
I believe there needs to be some type of leadership training that senior raters have to attend in order to more sensitive to wounded warrior’s needs. This was probably an isolated incident but on that should have never happened.