2023 Task Force Movement

Road map to post-service prosperity

Servicemembers, veterans find the commercial trucking industry a perfect fit for career, personal goals.

BY LAURA EDWARDS

Eric Macedo of Reedley, Calif., calls his truck his “baby.” He washes it every day.

A soldier in the California Army National Guard since 2018, he grew up in San Bernardino, wanting to go into law enforcement or the military. He took the military route, which has led Macedo down a road he never expected – as a commercial truck driver.

Assigned to the 1114th Transportation Company, his military occupational specialty is 91 Bravo: wheeled-vehicle mechanic. He’s also trained to drive a “4-man pack.” But it was the nine months Macedo spent deployed in Monterey doing COVID relief work that drove his interest in a full-time career behind the wheel. He starting looking at his options and heard about California’s skills-test waiver for transitioning military personnel entering commercial trucking careers. His commander didn’t hesitate to recommend him.

Macedo has two years under his belt working for Werner Enterprises, a national transportation/logistics company that has been helping Task Force Movement (TFM) achieve its goal to strengthen the U.S. supply chain and fill important gaps in the economy with workers from the military-connected community.

A typical run takes Macedo some 200 miles from Reedley to Sacramento, where he gets a load of goods and heads to retail locations,

delivering cold items like milk and other dairy products to Dollar General stores sometimes “in the middle of nowhere.” In that role, he’s helping the economy and adding experience to his career, not to mention serving populations far from major grocery stores. It’s a job he knows is important: “People need food,” he says. The drives give him an opportunity to enjoy California’s weather and natural beauty.

Encouraged by the Guard, Werner and TFM’s mission, Macedo is helping solve a supply-chain problem that came glaringly to light during the pandemic when store shelves went unfilled across the country and goods awaited transport.

A natural fit The trucking industry still has between 60,000 to 100,000 more openings than drivers, and the shortage is expected to continue. TFM’s most recent report, “Life-Cycle Pathways for Military and Veterans into Trucking,” amplifies The American Legion’s goal to fast-track qualified veterans into

specialized careers like trucking, where military experience can be converted into credits toward licenses and credentials.

The Legion has a seat on the steering committee of the Biden-Harris administration task force that ties together stakeholders including industry, education, veterans support groups and the Department of Defense. DoD has stepped up its efforts to assist transitioning servicemembers before they enter the civilian economy, TFM reports.

One approach is to secure skills-test waivers from states – what California offered Macedo, who sees truck driving as a natural fit for those who have served. “The military prepared me to be away from home during the week,” he says, pointing out that the discipline and responsibility of serving in the National Guard only add to his qualifications.

The waiver meant Macedo did not need to spend hours in a class that would teach him what he had already learned in the Guard. Werner was more than willing to give him an

opportunity, based on that experience.

“Werner’s really good to me,” Macedo says. His veteran status affords him not just more pay, but the company’s trust with equipment. Out of 10,000 professional drivers, Macedo is the youngest of only 25 who qualify for Werner’s elite Opeation Freedom Fleet, based on military experience, speaking ability, public engagement and superior driving records. He travels to job fairs and school events to talk about the company’s career options for veterans and civilians alike, in and out of the driver’s seat.

Paychecks and progress Also working to help fill the shortage of drivers in the trucking industry and other sectors is DoD SkillBridge, which connects civilian employers with military personnel before they separate from the service. More than 330 SkillBridge programs are in operation.

At Fort Riley, Kan., the Teamsters Military Assistance Program (TMAP) and ABF Freight are partnering to train active-duty servicemembers

Eric Macedo’s deployment doing COVID relief work with the California Army National Guard led to a full-time trucking career.

Photo by Jeric Wilhelmsen

for the trucking industry once they get out, through SkillBridge. With more than 101,000 acres, Fort Riley has room for about anything the Army needs – including a building to house the program, and a concrete lot where students can practice driving in road-worthy trucks.

In May, a class of students was in its second week of SkillBridge training with an expected graduation in June. The young servicemembers were in street clothes, as were the trainers, veterans and former truckers themselves.

The program is eight hours a day, Monday to Friday, for six weeks, minus holidays. Classes are scheduled based on a student’s expiration term of active-duty service and start date for an ABF job; the timing is such that they won’t go without a paycheck.

Demand is high, and the roster of next year’s students is already set. Tim Englund, an ABF trainer since 2012 and instructor for two coteachers – Sven Kramer and Joshua Taylor –says servicemembers come to the program because “they do their research.” They already know what a career in trucking can offer them –particularly in the area of pay and benefits, a point TFM has advanced from the start.

Jerry Elam, program manager for military partnerships at ArcBest – the integrated logistics company ABF is part of – says that’s important for those about to leave the service. “They’re used to their benefits,” and a career in an industry with health insurance and retirement options is well suited for young veterans who “want to progress … somewhere” after serving.

It’s helpful to have instructors with both trucking and military experience, Taylor says. “We talk the same language.” They advise students on jobs based on where they want to live. He enjoys seeing their improvement between the first day and graduation.

ABF pays for the training. “We don’t touch their GI Bill,” Kramer says. That way, young veterans can keep the education benefit for later or pass it on to a family member, he says.

Not all companies that train militaryconnected career seekers in trucking are legitimate. Elam knows of one that charged $10,000 for four weeks of training and couldn’t guarantee jobs for graduates – a big advantage when the training is attached directly to the hiring company. Kramer remembers a graduate who was not shown how to properly hitch a trailer to a tractor.

Over-the-road driving can be a great career for those who have known the rigors and pressure of military service, he says. “It’s just you and the freight.” As a trainer, Kramer finds satisfaction in knowing there’s a bright future for those who finish the program. “You know they’ll have a pretty stable career and benefits.”

Job stability and security That word, “stable,” is heard a lot at TMAP, where students transitioning from the military want a job and career they can depend on.

Sgt. David Cortez of San Diego chose to train in trucking simply because he loves driving, he says. He enjoys that part more than the comparatively “dry” classroom. He looks forward

Brandy Ballay is a graduate of the Teamsters Military Assistance Program at Fort Riley, Kan., and now works for ABF Freight.

Photo by Schelly Stone

Beyond the foundation set by the training program, ABF makes mentorship available to newer truckers like Ballay, and a TMAP alumni Facebook page connects drivers and gives instructors the opportunity to check in.

Ballay’s routes commonly take her to Albuquerque, N.M., Las Vegas, Denver, Birmingham, Ala., and other cities. She has a place on the “’extra” board, which means she might be called and given options on what routes she wants to take.

“I get home and I get about 10 hours of sleep, maybe some more, and then I get called and (they) let me know what’s available for me to take. And then I have two hours from the call, sometimes longer, to take that run.”

As Ballay gains seniority, she’ll climb that board and move to a more regular schedule. But as it is, “they’re really flexible,” she says.

Much of what she learned in the Army helps her in this new career. “If I break down somewhere, just the patience ... stuff happens that you can’t control. That happened a lot in the military.”

She sees herself sticking with trucking through to retirement. “Going to the military and having so many different responsibilities to doing this job – getting behind the wheel and going from point A to point B and making sure you’re there in a timely manner – I really like it a lot.”

Edwards is associate editor of The American Legion Magazine

Fort to fleet

Programs helping the military-connected community move into trucking include:

Teamsters Military Assistance Program Connects transitioning active-duty servicemembers, veterans and military spouses with job opportunities from responsible employers. TMAP is partnering with ABF Freight in the freight trucking industry and FirstGroup in the passenger transport industry. teamster.org/tmap

DoD SkillBridge Presents opportunities for servicemembers and others to gain civilian work experience through training, apprenticeships and internships. skillbridge.osd.mil

Military Skills/Knowledge Test Waiver

Program State driver licensing agencies (SDLAs) have the authority to substitute two years of experience safely operating trucks or buses equivalent to civilian commercial vehicles for the skills test portion of the commercial driver license (CDL)test. Military drivers must apply within one year of leaving a position requiring operation of a commercial vehicle. Www.fmcsa.dot.gov

DoD Credentialing Opportunities On-Line (COOL) The clearinghouse of each service branch’s COOL site. COOL works to employ occupational credentials to enhance a servicemember’s ability to transition to the civilian workforce upon completion of military service. cool.osd.mil

DoT Commercial Motor Vehicle Operator Safety Training Grant Program The program has the goals of expanding the number of CDL holders possessing enhanced operator-safety training to help reduce the severity and number of crashes on U.S. roads involving commercial motor vehicles (CMVs), and assisting current or former members of the U.S. Armed Forces (including National Guard members and reservists) and their spouses to receive training to transition to the CMV operation industry. www.fmcsa.dot.gov

DoT Safe Driver Apprenticeship Pilot Program

Allows drivers 18 to 20 with intrastate commercial drivers’ licenses to operate interstate commerce under very specific conditions. www.fmcsa.dot.gov/safedriver

David Cortez and Zachary Warden review the pre-ride checklist on the training "pad" at Fort Riley. Photo by Laura Edwards

Laura

Road to a New Start

Afghan allies who aided U.S. forces sign up for CDL classes amid difficulty finding living-wage jobs.

BY KEN OLSEN

Aman walked into a Philadelphia fast-food restaurant just before closing time last

November and demanded Hamid Samar hand over the contents of his cash register.

“His face was covered, and I couldn’t understand him,” Samar says. “Then I could see he was taking out his gun. And I thought I should escape.”

Samar told the robber to “cool down” while he went to get the cash-register key, then ran out the back door with eight other restaurant staff, including a fellow Afghan refugee. The robber vaulted over the counter, failed in his attempts

to open the register and left empty-handed.

“This situation shocked me and shocked my family,” says Samar, who worked as a translator for U.S. and coalition forces for 17 years. His experience is emblematic of the employment challenges facing Afghans who came to the United States to escape Taliban retribution for their work with the forces. People with advanced degrees and impressive résumés are rebuffed when they try to turn their education and experience into living-wage jobs.

Samar, a successful media entrepreneur who launched the first women’s TV station in

Hamid Samar is a graduate of Operation Afghan Open Road, a pilot program through Task Force Movement that helps Afghan refugees obtain commercial truck driver’s licenses.

Photo by Denise L. Henhoeffer

Afghanistan in addition to working with the U.S. military, manages the fast-food restaurant. And Zawar Shar Jaweed, an economics graduate who worked as a program management specialist for the United Nations, the U.S. Embassy and Afghanistan’s National Statistics and Information Authority, has supported his family here and in Afghanistan by working as an Uber driver and a second-shift site manager in a meat-processing plant.

At the end of the day, their prior work history just doesn’t count. “I have applied everywhere,” says Nazeer Akbari. “But they say, ‘We can’t hire you because you don’t have experience in the United States.’” This despite Akbari’s master’s degree in sociology and experience as an interpreter with the U.S. Army, at NATO’s headquarters in Afghanistan, and with USAID and other organizations. It’s also been difficult because Akbari and his family were not prepared to leave Afghanistan when the Taliban suddenly took over Kabul. “We are unable to withdraw money we had in the bank. We just left everything and came here.”

Now, with the help of an American Legionbacked pilot program called Operation Afghan Open Road, Akbari, Jaweed and Samar are training to become truck drivers with the prospect of better pay and health-care benefits than their current jobs. “My family depends on me for support,” says Akbari, whose household includes his wife, three children and his mother. “That’s why I chose truck-driver training, so I can find a job with better pay. So my children can have a better life here.”

National need Operation Afghan Open Road is part of Task Force Movement (TFM), established in support of a White House initiative to provide truck-driver training to veterans and ease supply-chain transportation problems. It builds on 20 years of effort by The American Legion to help veterans transition to civilian jobs with training and credentialing programs that often complement skills they developed in the military.

It’s important to extend the opportunity to Afghans who assisted U.S. and coalition forces, says Jay Bowen, chairman of The American

Legion’s Veterans Employment & Education Commission. “These men and women risked their lives and put their families at risk to help us,” Bowen says. “They saved so many lives. This is just a small way to repay them for their service to our country.”

It also helps the United States address an ongoing trucker shortage, says Bowen, who was responsible for shipping and receiving during his years working in food processing. “I learned the turnover rate in the trucking industry is 125% ,” he says. “That affects the supply chain in any industry. We’ve got to continue to ensure we have quality truckers out on the road to deliver raw materials and finished products.”

Operation Afghan Open Road began after David Borek asked TFM to offer the same truck-driver training to Afghan refugees that was being offered to veterans. His wife, Ryan Manion – founder of the Travis Manion Foundation, named for her late brother – helped brothers Basharmal Paiwand and Mohammad Bawar escape Afghanistan after the Taliban takeover in August 2021. Borek and Manion realized Afghans were struggling to find decent jobs after the brothers began working with Philadelphia’s refugees on behalf of the foundation.

Task Force Movement readily agreed to help. “It seemed like a no-brainer,” says Elizabeth Murray-Belcaster, senior adviser of communications and public relations. “We immediately went to our funding partner, the Justamere Foundation, and were able to put together scholarships.”

The scholarships cover training costs for 32 Afghan refugees. “Our purpose is to jump-start the program – show it can work,” says Lori Cushman, Justamere’s president. And to repay a debt. “They were very helpful to our troops,” she says. “I wanted them to be treated as if they had been fighting for us just as our soldiers were.”

Afghan refugees started classes at North Montco Technical Career Center or Bucks County Community College in November. About a dozen have graduated with their commercial driver’s licenses, and a new cohort began training this spring. Meanwhile, TFM is

preparing to expand the Afghan pilot program to other states, Murray-Belcaster says.

Individual training Akbari and Jaweed were part of the first Afghan contingent to enroll in the North Montco program. Located in Lansdale, about 30 miles north of Philadelphia, the technical school has provided truck-driver and commercial driver’s license training for 22 years. Its students include people from all over the world, says Denise Collins, supervisor of work force and continuing education.

As to language issues, “we’re fluent in figuring it out with each student,” says Keri Guttmann, a North Montco instructor who is involved with TFM and Operation Afghan Open Road. In addition, five of North Montco’s truck-driving instructors are veterans, including two who served with the U.S. military in Afghanistan. “We really appreciate the veterans on our team and the ways in which we have benefited from their knowledge of the Afghan culture and their ability to connect with these students,” Collins says.

North Montco makes its courses available on nights and weekends to accommodate students’ work schedules, which has been key for Akbari and other Afghans who can’t afford to take time off. It also provides one-on-one driver training. “In our view, that makes for a safer driver,” Collins says.

Training and testing takes place at a commercial freight operation owned by Lansdale Warehouse Co. This real-world setting is important. “A huge portion of the students are learning how to maneuver around other vehicles,” Guttmann says. “It’s very easy to get hurt in this field. It’s very easy to cause an accident. I don’t allow my students on the road until I know they can maneuver the truck properly.”

The company is happy to host the training center. “It works out well,” says president and Air Force veteran Paul Delp, who grew up in the family warehouse and trucking business and served as a C-130 loadmaster in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War.

“It’s an active warehouse, with our own trucks and other commercial carriers coming in and

out,” Delp says. “And the parking lot is big enough for trucks to turn around easily.” North Montco runs a high-caliber program, he adds. “They don’t cut any corners. It gives them a good start.”

Training days Jaweed is hoping he and a fellow Afghan refugee who also graduated from the North Montco program will be able to work as a long-haul driving team. He’s preparing his family for his extended absences by teaching his wife to drive a car so she can shop and take their children to school and medical appointments while he is on the road. He’s not sure he’ll be able to return to his profession –program/project management – as he hopes. “My long-term goal is a little mixed up right now,” Jaweed says. “I should go for truck driving for five or six years. If I can get a little bit set aside, I will try to go back to my career.”

Samar credits the Travis Manion Foundation for helping him earn his commercial driver’s license at Bucks County. He has high praise for the program and has had a few job offers, but hasn’t yet found the right fit. “It’s a crucial time for my family, my children and my wife,” he says of his worries about being away from home for extended periods of time. But he’s not giving up. “I am able to support my family more quickly with trucking,” he says.

Long-term, driving trucks also will provide him the means to re-establish himself in the media and film industry.

Akbari earned his commercial driver’s license in March and applied for a job at Western Express, where he is receiving additional training before heading out on the highway. Entry-level pay isn’t great, he says. But he expects to earn more as he gains experience and, with time, land a job as a local driver. “It’s like a window in a dark room to get the opportunity to gain a skill,” Akbari says. “It’s a good opportunity for me. I do appreciate the U.S. government, U.S. forces and especially the U.S. people for supporting us to come to the United States. We are very grateful.”

Ken Olsen is a frequent contributor to The American Legion Magazine

Last Chance at the Abbey Gate

Brothers who worked with U.S. forces make a desperate attempt to flee Afghanistan with the help of strangers.

BY KEN OLSEN

Basharmal Paiwand knew he had to abandon his attempt to get out of Afghanistan with his wife, son and younger brother. The intense heat and suffocating crowds clamoring to get into the Kabul airport were making his 3-yearold son sick. He couldn’t imagine a U.S military contact he’d never spoken to – much less met –would find them among the thousands desperate to flee after their country fell to the Taliban. And his brother might well be turned away because he wasn’t part of the last-minute evacuation plan.

Paiwand texted a photo of his suffering son to Ryan Manion, a Pennsylvania woman who was helping arrange their escape from thousands of miles away. Then he sent her a text saying they were giving up if her contact didn’t find them in the next five minutes. A flurry of messages followed. Manion texted Air Force Maj. Jared Lefaivre, who was helping Afghan translators and other allies get into the airport. She then sent a series of texts to Paiwand, first telling him to hold the sign with a prearranged code word higher as he tried to move his family to the front of the crowd. Then to shout the name of her late brother, Travis, a Marine killed by a sniper in Iraq. And finally to show Travis’ photo to Marines near the Abbey Gate in hopes that one of them would recognize her brother, realize Paiwand and his family were trustworthy, and pull them to safety.

In the midst of this chaos, Paiwand told Manion that his brother, Mohammad Bawar, was also with them. “At that point, I hadn’t slept for 36 hours,” Manion says. “I told him, 'If your brother doesn’t get through, you have to keep going. We’ll figure something out for him later.'”

Then, all communications from Afghanistan went dark.

Ryan Manion, center, founder of the Travis Manion Foundation, helped Mohammad Bawar, left, and Basharmal Paiwand, right, escape Afghanistan after the Taliban takeover in August 2021 and resettle near Doylestown, Pa. Manion then connected the brothers with Operation Afghan Open Road to help them train to become truck drivers.

Discarded allies When Kabul fell, Paiwand and Bawar were mired in the complicated process of obtaining Special Immigrant Visas (SIVs), meant to make it easier for Afghans and Iraqis who worked with the U.S. military to come to the United States. Their family had long worked with the Army, starting with their eldest brother in 2007. As his business supplying construction materials and heavy equipment to U.S. bases all over Afghanistan grew, he used his success to help his parents, siblings and a large number of Afghans in need. “He never said no to anyone,” Bawar says.

Their brother – who is not being identified to protect his family – was arrested by the Taliban twice and received monthly letters or phone calls warning him to stop working with American forces. He refused, Paiwand says. “He said, ‘It’s my country and my business.’”

A Taliban sniper killed him in March 2013 as he was sitting in his car in Kabul. But his family was undeterred. Paiwand provided equipment to U.S. Army bases and Bawar worked for him as a supervisor, translator and troubleshooter. Five other brothers and their father also continued working with U.S. forces.

Paiwand started the SIV application process in 2017. He obtained a recommendation letter from his former Army supervisor but couldn’t persuade him to also provide his passport number – which Paiwand needed to complete his application. Three years later, he reached out to Manion after reading her Facebook post about her brother writing a letter on behalf of his Iraqi translator just a week before he was killed, and asked her for help with his SIV.

“I get a lot of random messages on Facebook and Instagram,” says Manion, who established the Travis Manion Foundation after her brother was killed. “This one really struck me because he had worked with the U.S. Army .... He saw and understood that kinship and brotherhood that my brother had with (his translator).” Paiwand and Manion also bonded over their mutual loss of brothers to war. And Manion agreed to try to help Paiwand contact his former Army supervisor.

Although she was unsuccessful, Manion and

Photo by Denise L. Henhoeffer

Paiwand kept in touch, and she sent him a message when the Taliban rolled into Kabul on Aug. 15, 2021. “Did you get out of Afghanistan?” Manion asked. “No, ma’am,” Paiwand replied. “I’m in hell.”

“I felt helpless, but I sprang into action,” Manion says. She told a skeptical Paiwand she knew people who could help get him, his wife, Layla, and his son, Atal, out of the country. She posted a message on social media asking if anyone had a contact at the Abbey Gate and got connected with Lefaivre.

An Air Force rescue pilot, Lefaivre says he got “mixed up in all of this by happenstance.” He was deployed to Kabul in mid-July 2021 as part of a Personnel Recovery Task Force. After the country collapsed in August, a friend from the Marine Corps contacted Lefaivre and asked for help getting his interpreter and family into the airport and on a flight out of the country. Lefaivre helped make that happen within a few days, then agreed to let his friend share his contact information with others trying to help Afghans escape. “My phone blew up,” he says. Manion was one of the next people to contact him.

Lefaivre told Manion that Paiwand and his family should be at the Abbey Gate by dawn the next day with a sign that said “Spurgeon.” That code was part of a system that helped him and his colleagues quickly find Afghans who worked with U.S. forces among the desperate crowds outside the airport. Paiwand and his wife, son and brother headed to the airport around 1 a.m. They were stopped at a Taliban checkpoint on the main road to the airport. “The guy was smiling at us like we were running and afraid of them,” Paiwand says, “and asked if we were going to America or Germany? I said, ‘Nope, Pakistan.’ And he became angry and said, ‘I will never let you go on this road.’ But we found another road that led straight to the Abbey Gate.”

Finding “Spurgeon” By morning, more than 10,000 refugees crowded between Paiwand’s

family and the Abbey Gate. The temperature had hit the mid-90s and there was the persistent percussion of the Taliban gunfire just beyond the purview of U.S. forces. People were passing out in the relentless heat that was also affecting Paiwand’s son. Feeling they had no choice but to return to the family home in Kabul, Paiwand texted Manion a photo of Atal and told her they were leaving in five minutes.

Lefaivre soon appeared. Despite the chaos and confusion, he had little trouble spotting the people with the “Spurgeon” sign when he went looking for them outside the Abbey Gate.

“I found them tucked away in a corner, being held by some British guys,” he says. He told the British contingent he had come to escort Paiwand and his family into the airport. The British resisted, warning such a move would start a riot, Lefaivre says. He pulled them out of the crowd anyway, took them across a canal and through the Abbey Gate as the British closed ranks behind them – all without incident. Then he texted Manion the good news.

After two grueling days in the Kabul air terminal, standing in line for 12 to 14 hours at a stretch, sleeping on cardboard and worrying about Atal’s refusal to eat, the family crammed into a plane with hundreds of other refugees and flew to Qatar. Then the family went on to Italy before arriving at Camp Atterbury in Indiana.

Manion sent them food and clothing and lobbied the relief agencies to move them to Pennsylvania, where she could help them get established. She picked Paiwand and his family up at the Philadelphia airport in early November, got them settled in their hotel, took them grocery shopping and made dinner plans for the following evening. The family spent every day at Manion’s house for several months. And the Travis Manion Foundation hired Paiwand and Bawar to help Afghan refugees resettle in the Philadelphia area. Although their contract with the foundation ended in April, the brothers continue this work as volunteers.

Lafaivre estimates he helped some 500 Afghans get into the airport and onto flights after the fall of Kabul. "There were a million things that had to go right for every one of the rescues," he says.

“There are a lot of families who need a lot of help because they have a lot of children,” says Bawar, who sees this work as a way of honoring his slain brother.

Uncertain future Meanwhile, Manion’s husband, David Borek, asked Task Force Movement –organized in response to a White House initiative to get the supply chain moving – to offer the same truck-driver training to Afghan refugees as it was providing to veterans. The Justamere Foundation funded 32 scholarships as part of what became the Operation Afghan Open Road pilot project.

Paiwand completed the truck-driver training with the first Afghan cohort at Bucks County Community College and is considering his employment options. Mohammad served as translator and troubleshooter for other Afghan students, helping them get their CDL learners permit, obtain visas and navigate language barriers. But he’s set his sights on putting his bachelor’s degree in IT to work in the tech world rather than becoming a truck driver while he waits for his SIV application to be approved.

Atal is in school. And thanks to Manion’s connections, Layla found work as a seamstress in an upscale clothing store. She’s enrolling in a dental assistant training program at Bucks County with a scholarship funded by Justamere.

These successes are bittersweet. Three dozen of the brothers’ family members and several of their former employees remain trapped in Afghanistan. Many of them have had their SIV applications approved, but cannot obtain passports from the Taliban government. They are in hiding, unable to work and dependent on whatever money Paiwand and Bawar can send for food and essentials. It’s a common problem. Many Afghan refugees are financially supporting family left behind while trying to get established in the United States – to say nothing of another 100,000 SIV applicants and their families who haven’t been able to get out of Afghanistan.

Manion, meanwhile, is quite concerned about the lack of support for Afghans who made it to the United States. One of the overwhelmed relief agencies that promised to furnish Paiwand’s rental showed up with “a dirty mattress and very

little of what a family needs to get started,” Manion says. “Two of the chairs broke the first night.” Another woman, whose husband was killed by the Taliban, is living in a row house in a bad part of town. “They gave her a food stamp card and let her go,” Manion says. “Who’s focused on what comes next?”

Reunion Despite all the challenges they are still navigating, Paiwind and Bawar are grateful to Manion and Lefaivre, two strangers who stepped up to help them escape Afghanistan and almostcertain Taliban retribution. They reconnected with Lefaivre when he and his wife visited Philadelphia in December 2021. “It was a very emotional and meaningful experience for us,” Paiwand says. “I didn’t find the words to thank him for helping us.”

Paiwand and Bawar are just two of many Afghans who Lefaivre and his colleagues helped get through the Abbey Gate with code words and cardboard signs. He fielded requests from members of Congress and at least one former ambassador over the course of a dozen days. Lafaivre estimates he helped some 500 Afghans get into the airport and onto flights after the fall of Kabul. He received the Bronze Star for meritorious achievement for this and other actions during the withdrawal. And the task force he served with was credited with helping 10,000 Afghans escape and has been nominated for a Gallant Unit Citation. Their success, and the U.S. military’s overall success at getting more than 120,000 Afghan allies out of the country in a matter of days, is an underappreciated accomplishment that runs counter to the social narrative that the U.S. withdrawal was a complete failure, Lefaivre says.

“There were a million things that had to go right for every one of the rescues,” Lefaivre says. He credits Manion for making sure so much of it went right for Paiwand, Layla, Atal and Bawar.

Manion disagrees. “I did nothing,” she says. “He put his career on the line. I asked him why. He said, ‘It’s humanity. I couldn’t stand there and not help.’”

Ken Olsen is a frequent contributor to The American Legion Magazine

As senior director of the Hiring Our Heroes program, Adam Rocke meets hundreds of transitioning servicemembers every year, guiding them on the next step of their journey.

The Why of Adam Rocke

BY JEFF STOFFER

Retired colonel and Legionnaire builds networks, local and national, to help military-affiliated families in transition.

Awaiting his turn to give blood, Adam Rocke prowls the corners of American Legion Post 176 in Springfield, Va. As

usual, the place is buzzing, even on a weekday afternoon. The main floor is filled with sleeveless donors of all ages, volunteers and Red Cross workers. Upstairs, a patient is behind the closed door of a Project ATLAS VA telehealth appointment. Some members are playing cards in the lounge. Others are watching sports on TV, listening to music or just visiting.

When Rocke comes around, it’s all handshakes and hugs. He seems to know everyone in the nation’s 17th-largest American Legion post. To some among the 1,600+ members here, he’s the retired Army colonel who was the operations officer for one of the primordial Stryker brigades in Iraq during the troop surge – some post

members were there then – or was a battalion commander in the volatile region of Muqdadiya. Vietnam and Korean War veterans know him for the respect he pays to their combat memories and the common ground they share. Others recognize Rocke as the guy who carves turkey for the post’s annual Thanksgiving feast, whose wife makes deviled eggs, and whose daughter, a full-time teacher, is also a part-time server.

Between Post 176 and the bigger, broader network Rocke has built nationwide as senior director for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation’s Hiring Our Heroes program, there is little difference. He’s at home anywhere, among anyone who has served in the armed forces or employers who want to help them. From private to Pentagon officer, his own career in uniform spanned 30 years. He did three

Photo by Ian Wagreich / U.S. Chamber of Commerce

Hiring Our Heroes registered jobseekers

2020 14,358

2021 20,583

2022 54,000+

Spouse network

2018 23,537

2019 35,091

2020 50,154

2021 58,592

2022 64,716

Rocke, right, did three tours in Iraq and served as a battalion commander.

combat tours in Iraq before helping create the Army’s Soldier for Life program. His experience at both ends of the military pay scale has positioned him well to guide others on their life journeys. To him, such guidance is both a passion and a matter of national security. He recently spoke with The American Legion Magazine

What led you to serve in the Army?

There is a long lineage of military service (in my family), starting from World War I with my great-uncle, to World War II with my father, who was a Marine Raider on Iwo Jima, then the Korean War with my uncle Dick. My grandfather was in the New York National Guard. My older brother, Mark, graduated from West Point. He was an Airborne Ranger, and I said, “I want to do this.” I was graduating high school, but I was not ready to go to college just yet. So I volunteered to join as an enlisted soldier.

What kind of command roles did you assume after going through ROTC at the University of Miami?

I was an infantry officer. I served in Korea, 2nd Ranger Battalion, as a lieutenant, got promoted to captain, and deployed to Haiti to Operation Uphold Democracy back in 1994. And that grounded me. It made me a true tactical leader

in the infantry. I learned so much. From there, I went to the 82nd Airborne Division and commanded a company. Then I came back to the 2nd Ranger Battalion out of Fort Lewis, Wash., and ended up being a company commander and then a major there, as liaison officer to the special-ops community. I then went to the Army’s 1st Stryker Brigade Combat Team and stayed in the same brigade for another eight years as a battalion S3/XO, Brigade S3, then battalion commander, with three tours in Iraq.

How did that put you on the ground floor of Soldier for Life?

I didn’t necessarily determine my “why” in life until I got to work for Gen. (Raymond) Odierno (then Army chief of staff) and the Soldier for Life program. I think my “why” is a calling to help young men and women not only find employment, but meaningful employment. They need mentors. They deserve to be successful.

How did Soldier for Life lead you to the next step?

I thought I could do more outside the military, with the connections and network I built wearing the uniform, promoting employment opportunities for transitioning servicemembers, veterans and military spouses ... I made a huge network of folks, to include The American

Photo courtesy Adam Rocke

Legion, and I wanted to use it for our military community to thrive.

Why is transition assistance so vital today?

Transition is powerful because we want the young men and women who served and determined that they are going to get out ... we want them to be successful. I also think it’s about our national security and retaining the all-volunteer force. So if they transition successfully back into communities and have meaningful careers, they are more likely to be a proponent of the value of their service and recommend that to the younger generation.

How did Hiring Our Heroes evolve?

The U.S. Chamber started out trying to make connections at the grassroots level. It was mostly about transitioning servicemembers. Over the years, we have grown in many areas – it’s veterans, military spouses, caregivers ... the entire military community. And we grew from in-person summits on installations – hiring fairs at the time – to where we’ve now changed the name to Transition Career Summits because it’s more than a hiring fair. There’s an educational component. We need to educate the young men and women who are preparing to get out, so they are better prepared and ready for the workforce. We educate them through lots of different means and culminate with the hiring fair. As a result, the impact for employers is far greater.

614,000

Minimum number of jobs filled for veterans and spouses at Hiring Our Heroes career events

82.3% Hiring Our Heroes event participants who reported a positive job outcome within 180 days of attendance in 2022

You started as senior director of events and programs for Hiring Our Heroes at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. What kind of curveball was that?

We all went to a screeching halt, basically. We were all operating from our homes, and the world was wearing masks. We had to get really creative. We collaborated daily on how to continue to make ourselves relevant ... now from a virtual environment. Companies still had to hire. And servicemembers still had to transition, COVID or not.

We quickly pivoted to a couple of things. The first was virtual webinars that helped continue to educate the transitioning servicemembers, veterans or military spouse population on a host of things, from an industry panel to keynote speakers on leadership to a series of resources on wellness. But how do we continue to do the hiring fairs? How do we do the career summits? We decided to do that virtually, too. We eased ourselves into that, and now we are doing one (virtually) every week or two.

What did you learn about virtual events?

They are not going away. What came of a crisis turned into an opportunity to grow our programs in different ways. And frankly, the young men and women thrive on technology today, with the use of their computers and phones. We are now doing educational webinars for servicemembers and their spouses overseas

Photo by Ian Wagreich / U.S. Chamber of Commerce

in remote positions or isolation who couldn’t get to a hiring fair and couldn’t get companies to fly over there, but now they are learning about preparing for transition and then bringing that to a hiring fair on a platform we are partnered with, and you have a recipe for success.

Where do military spouses now fit into the Hiring Our Heroes formula?

I think with spouse unemployment – which is a staggering 24% – there’s still a long way to go. But we have 10-plus different programs at Hiring Our Heroes specifically that cater to military spouses, whether it’s a fellowship program, a credentialing/certification/licensing program, whether it’s just finding them direct employment or whether it’s educating them with an amplified program ... we also have a robust network with 60-plus chapters around the United States and a couple overseas, that are just for military spouses.

What is happening to augur against high military spouse unemployment?

We just did a survey of our military spouses, and 70% of the jobs they got in 2022 were remote jobs – remote full-time jobs. The spouse is no longer geographically tied. Now this is an exportable job. If you do three years and you PCS to another location, you can take that job with you. There’s no gap in that employment now. They are continuing a pathway to meaningful careers.

How do you educate major employers about the military-connected job candidate?

The needs of the employer are critical to us. We are in a position to inform them, educate them and help prepare them for that transition. We’ve got to be able to have an open dialogue with our employers, which we do – those that want to improve and want to hire veterans. We also offer the opportunity to learn from us how to recruit veterans. That could be at the tactical level, the strategic level, developing a campaign plan or a whole host of things. We have built some resources on our website ... we built a transition roadmap for young servicemembers, and we also built a roadmap for employers.

What questions do major employers ask about veteran candidates?

First of all, there are stigmas out there. There are people who think every servicemember has PTSD. It couldn’t be further from the truth. The other thing is that veterans are very humble. They don’t like to talk about themselves. They talk about the team. We’ve got to educate them to talk about themselves a little more.

How difficult or different is the transition process for officers?

It’s a shock to some people, but just because I led a brigade, a combat team of nearly 10,000 people, men and women, large budget and so on, doesn’t mean I am fully capable of being the CEO of a company. Let’s look at a reversal. Would you want a CEO to come in and lead your brigade? No, he or she is not trained yet on that. Could they get there at some point? Yeah, but it will take a while. You have to educate yourself.

You also have to be patient. And you’ve got to realize you might not come in at the level you think. You’ve got to outwork people. You’ve got to outthink people. You’ve got to prove you can learn quickly. It doesn’t matter if you’re a colonel or a private. You have values, you will work hard, you will prove yourself, and you will be successful.

How has Hiring Our Heroes grown?

It went from about seven employees in 2011 to about 100 employees today, with thousands of employer partners. In 2023 we have 48 in-person events, 30-plus virtual hiring events and a host of other small boutique-type events for military spouses. We have improved educational programs for both our military spouses and our servicemembers. And we will have more job fairs with The American Legion, which is a valued partner of Hiring Our Heroes.

For a complete listing of U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation career events, including those at national American Legion gatherings, and to learn more about Hiring Our Heroes programs and services, visit hiringourheroes.org

Jeff Stoffer is editor of The American Legion Magazine.

Task Force Movement

Veterans and military personnel on the brink of transition have clearer pathways than ever to strengthen the economy and protect national security, Task Force Movement Chairman Patrick J. Murphy told Legionnaires at the Washington Conference in late February.

BY JEFF STOFFER

Task Force Movement (TFM) was not even five months old last summer when Chairman Patrick J. Murphy, the first

Operation Iraqi Freedom veteran elected to Congress, announced to The American Legion that its mission was expanding beyond commercial truck driving and into another realm of dire need in the U.S. economy: cybersecurity.

Launched by the White House in April 2022, TFM initially aimed to fast-track and assist transitioning military personnel, veterans and spouses into a trucking industry hungry for drivers. As a snarled supply chain chugged through the COVID economy – and the U.S. military continued to discharge more than 200,000 personnel a year – the task force’s aim paired well with The American Legion’s long push to improve the landscape for veterans seeking careers in specialized fields that require specific licenses and certifications. In many cases, veterans already have the training from their service time for advanced placement.

The Legion has a seat on the TFM steering committee – along with over two dozen stakeholders from industry, government, education, the military and labor, giving the task force a diverse mix.

The product “is probably the most successful private-public partnership of this administration

in the past year,” Murphy says. “When you have hundreds of partners coming together, raising over $11 million mostly from the private sector, to establish a scholarship program to allow veterans and military spouses to earn their commercial driver’s licenses – to really make a dent in the shortage of truck drivers (who deliver) 99% of goods – that’s pretty impressive. It has been an incredible public-private partnership with academia, with nonprofits, the private sector, Fortune 500 companies ... stepping forward on behalf of our brothers and sisters.”

TFM is now taking aim at the cybersecurity shortage, which has some 60,000 openings in government and as many as 700,000 opportunities in other sectors.

The task force met in December and April to continue building on its first year, not only for military families in transition but also for Afghan refugees with Special Immigrant Visas who assisted U.S. forces in the global war on terrorism.

Murphy recently spoke with The American Legion Magazine

132

Industry stakeholders working to connect veterans with careers in trucking and cybersecurity through Task Force Movement

Legion-backed effort aims to fill gaps in truck driving, cybersecurity.

Photo by Hilary Ott

How urgent is the challenge facing Task Force Movement?

We’re sucking wind when it comes to American truck drivers. We are 80,000 short, and we are 60,000 short of cybersecurity professionals. When we’re in a competition against China, we need our brother and sister veterans to step forward to become truck drivers or go into cybersecurity, to protect our families.

How are veterans a good fit for the cybersecurity shortage?

A major pain point with cybersecurity is getting a security clearance. When you have over 200,000 active troops who become veterans every year – who already have security clearance – that’s a great talent base to pull from. That’s why we’re giving them a pathway to these family-sustaining jobs that will protect our companies here in America against intellectual property theft (from) China and other rogue nations.

How has TFM been able to make such progress so quickly?

Right from the jump, when we got Indeed and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to give $5 million to launch the Drive for 500 – the first 500 scholarships – all those veterans went through the program successfully. They all got jobs in trucking. We then followed up with about $6 million in private-sector scholarships and about $3 million in federal government scholarships through the Department of Transportation.

How do these civilian opportunities influence propensity to serve in the U.S. Armed Forces?

I tell people, whether they did two years or 20 years in the military, it’s going to change your life for the better You don’t have to be a general or an admiral. You can get out as a sergeant. You can get out as a captain, like I did, and go do great things. That is what is expected from years of building character.

How can The American Legion help the TFM mission?

The biggest challenge is making sure we utilize the incredible power of The American Legion and Legionnaires of every walk of life. We need Legionnaires to step forward and say, “Hey, if you’re transitioning out, making $72,000 a year on average as a truck driver – and you will still be home for dinner – it’s a good thing. Or, if you have security clearance, why don’t you use your GI Bill to get certification in cybersecurity?” There are incredible opportunities out there – family-sustaining jobs for decades to come – for our brother and sister veterans who are transitioning out. We need Legionnaires to help be a part of the solution, recruiting the next generation of cybersecurity professionals, truck drivers and young Americans who will serve our country – and become Legionnaires.

Drive for 500

In May 2022, just weeks after Task Force Movement was formed, the international job-search web platform Indeed joined forces with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation’s Hiring Our Heroes, TransForce Group and Troops Into Transportation to launch “Drive for 500.”

The mission: 500 full-ride commercial driver’s license training scholarships for veterans, National Guard and reserve troops, and spouses. The result: mission accomplished.

Drive for 500 was immediately aligned with TFM and showed “we collectively can solve the challenges our transportation industry is facing, and we can help them find some of the very best employees with our militaryconnected community,” said Eric Eversole, president of Hiring Our Heroes and vice president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Learn more about Task Force Movement

Explore opportunities to participate as a partnering organization, agency, company or educational institution at taskforcemovement.org

Envato

Jeff Stoffer is editor of The American Legion Magazine

‘Our uniforms ... and then our suits’

Guard, reserve officer aims to bridge gaps between cybersecurity and military.

BY LAURA EDWARDS

In June, Dan Kunze – vice chairman of Task Force Movement (TFM), the White House initiative launched in April 2022 to connect servicemembers and veterans to careers in understaffed fields – appeared on the American Legion Tango Alpha Lima podcast ( legion.org/ tangoalphalima) to talk about TFM and its mission of creating career pathways for the military-connected community.

High among today’s most pressing economic issues is cybersecurity, an industry in urgent need of skilled professionals to protect sensitive information from digital threats. Veterans, often trained in high-level information technology and carrying security clearances, are uniquely suited to fill a critical gap that has some 700,000 openings.

“Our ability to export goods, services, people, thoughts and ideas relies on the infrastructure of national security, and our national security relies on the culture of innovation that American manufacturing and industry provides,” Kunze said. “How do we create our

own talent pool to support our national security and our business environments?”

At the 103rd American Legion National Convention in August 2022, TFM added cybersecurity to its original mission focus: commercial truck driving, another industry in critical need, with a shortage of 60,000 to 100,000 drivers. Kunze plays a lead role in the effort, having formerly served as TFM’s technology adviser. Technology has been part of his expertise in both the private sector and as an

Task Force Movement is actively seeking industry, education and government partners to join the mission to better connect the military community and veterans with opportunities in cybersecurity. For more information about apprenticeship programs and other opportunities for veterans, visit the TFM website at taskforcemovement.org/cybersecurity.

Photo courtesy Dan Kunze

officer in the Pennsylvania National Guard and Army Reserve.

He says he felt “called to serve” after the 9/11 attacks, when he was 15, and joined the National Guard halfway through law school. Kunze’s understanding of the military and business has given him insight into ways industry and defense can better collaborate, not only for the good of veteran job candidates but for the nation as a whole.

Bringing together a diverse set of stakeholders – military, industry, academia, government and veterans service organizations like The American Legion, which has a seat on the TFM Steering Committee – has been an priority of the initiative. The Legion has worked for decades to improve the landscape for veterans seeking to convert their military training into credits toward certifications and licenses in specialized civilian career fields.

“We have a really skilled set of Guard and reserve members with really sophisticated skill sets,” Kunze says. What they learn in the military can be applied in civilian jobs – and they can take back to the military the latest business ideas. Translating between the two arenas means acknowledging that they are usually organized quite differently – for example, the “linear and hierarchical” tradition of the military versus the “horizontal and free flow” approach to technology. That can be a challenge for those coming out of the U.S. Armed Forces.

For more seamless military-to-civilian transitions, both sides have changes to make, Kunze adds. Military occupational specialties should be “not so different” from civilian jobs in technology, and new approaches from the armed forces can better poise newly discharged veterans for civilian careers. “You can’t only start thinking about it at the end,” Kunze says.

He calls for giving the civilian sector earlier access to military systems, and for creating earlier opportunities to contribute – particularly for Guard and reserve members who, like him, have a foot in both worlds.

Nurturing technological talent among servicemembers benefits both the economy and veterans seeking post-service careers, Kunze notes. “Our technology is the result of human

$112,000

Median annual salary of a cybersecurity professional, according to the National Initiative for Cybersecurity Careers and Studies

creativity, which relates to cultivation of experience and where they’re from,” he says. “If we don’t have our own pipeline, we miss an opportunity to create value for ourselves.”

In an environment where innovation and competition flourish, those traits will flourish in people as well.

Kunze advises those serving the military today to “value the relationships (you foster), maybe more than the work, because those are networks that will last you for life.”

Reaching out, on both sides of the civilianmilitary line, is vital to close the employment gap in cybersecurity, and veterans can help by reaching out to younger counterparts who are about to separate or who are new to life after the uniform “who might not even know they need it.”

That approach can go a long way to assist those who served in their transition to meaningful careers that meet a crucial need, as Kunze has done, on both sides of the divide: “We can wear our uniforms, and then we can wear our suits.”

Apprenticeship.gov lists the following cybersecurity apprenticeships in high demand:

• Cybersecurity analyst

• Computer systems analyst

• Cybersecurity support technician

• Application developer

• IT project manager

• Network support technician

• Cloud operations specialist

Laura Edwards is associate editor of The American Legion Magazine .

Tango Alpha Lima podcast appearance

June 20, 2023: TFM’s Dan Kunze talks about cybersecurity and the task force’s mission

https://www.legion.org/legiontv/PLFLlEg8BvcEH4ZVkK6f9s_Z6Q/ JZc1N7AzRMM

Posted on legion.org

Aug. 1, 2023: Video with California National Guardsman who used skills-waiver assistance to advance trucking career

https://www.legion.org/magazine/videos/PLD74653C32937FDD 6/r_iiDbBPNGI

Aug. 1, 2023: Promotion of August issue, featuring TFM/Trucking

https://www.legion.org/magazine/259704/veterans-trucking-airforce%E2%80%99s-%E2%80%98silent-warriors%E2%80%99-andmore-august-magazine

June 5, 2023: Promotion of Task Force Movement interview with Patrick Murphy in the June American Legion Magazine

https://www.legion.org/magazine/259141/military%E2%80%99s -recruiting-crisis-task-force-movement-and-more-june-magazine

April 5, 2023: 1st Anniversary of TFM, steps ahead

https://www.legion.org/careers/258549/1st-anniversary-taskforce-movement-eyes-funding-avenues-marketing-plan

Dec. 15, 2022: Task Force Movement “running at warp speed”

https://www.legion.org/careers/257707/task-force-movement%E2%80%98running-warp-speed%E2%80%99

Nov. 10, 2022: Release of report from TFM Credentialing Summit

https://www.legion.org/careers/257466/legion-report-criticalus-economic-needs-can-be-met-veterans

Aug. 31, 2022: Announcement of cybersecurity portal

https://www.legion.org/convention/256756/task-force-openscybersecurity-job-path-veterans