Advocacy: VetsFirst


Ask Not What You Can Do for Veterans but What Veterans Can Do for You

Tom Aiello VetsFirst
Tom Aiello
VetsFirst

These days you are seeing a lot written about “shifting the narrative” around military veterans. Most conversations either put veterans in the bucket of the “hero” or the “victim.” As a result, we see problems for many veterans repeating or even worsening. To break this cycle, we need to get companies and organizations thinking about veterans in a fundamentally different way to solve many of the challenges that are out there.

Hyperbole To Reality

Support Our Troops. Help a Veteran. Support the Military. All of these sentiments are well-intended but start with the assumption that it is the veteran who needs the support and has nothing to offer. In fact, their talents as entrepreneurs, employees, and volunteers represent a tremendous opportunity to organizations that choose to view them as an asset and not a liability.

If I tried to help laymen understand what it is that makes veterans valuable, I would talk to them about the standards it took to enter the military. For example, less than 25 percent of Americans are even able to serve. I would add that each year $17 billion is spent educating and training members of the armed forces. When they exit the military, they possess a tremendous suite of tangible skills. But time and again employers tell me intangible skills are what make military veterans most valuable. They know how to win.

The Upside

Because I sit on the board of United Spinal Association, I will illustrate the point through the example of disabled veterans.

The first example is a young Navy veteran I know in Chicago who owns a roofing company. When Kaney O’Neill was paralyzed, she was told she had no hopes for employment after the military. Kaney did not accept that judgment. Her character, intelligence and passion are what make O’Neill Contractors so successful.  Because of Kaney’s accident, her company has differentiated itself by focusing on safety. That is a virtue for a roofing contractor.

Another example is a group of young, paralyzed veterans who use wheelchairs. At a recent event for young children learning to use their wheelchairs, military veterans were brought in to teach these children not only how to maneuver their wheelchairs but also how to maneuver in life.

To those children, these military veterans are tremendous role models and cause them to rethink their notions of people who use wheelchairs. One young girl had particular struggles with her wheelchair because of low strength and low self-confidence. But, it was the quiet strength of these veterans working with her that helped her summon her inner strength. When this little girl was able to fight her way through the toughest of obstacles on the wheelchair course, her parents, standing in the shadows, could not but help cry when they saw what these veterans had inspired in their little girl.

The Solution

America’s current view of veterans was forged through the lens of Hollywood and the news media’s view of veterans. It won’t change overnight, but can start with how you view veterans as having something to contribute. If you can view veterans differently, then that change has started. They don’t need your hero worship or your pity. They just need a chance to succeed.

Tom Aiello is a member of United Spinal Association’s board of directors and serves as the board liaison to United Spinal’s VetsFirst program. Mr. Aiello is also the president of Chicago-based MARCH Marketing, which provides best-in-class military and veteran expertise to inform strategy, marketing, and services to commercial, government, and non-profit clients (www.marchcorp.com).


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