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

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