Wounded Warrior Hiring

In the past year, the Department of the Navy led the Department of Defense and the Nation in Wounded Warrior Reintegration and Hiring. Special focus is required for our Nation’s heroes, particularly given the historic survivability rates that we are currently seeing: despite an increase in casualties, the fatality rate is actually going down.

This is such an important issue to our Department, and I am pleased to report our successes over the past year, in which DON hired over 500 Wounded Warriors. This year, we also:

• Established a streamlined Wounded Warrior Hiring Process: every regional Human Resources Service Center now has multiple Wounded Warrior Employment Coordinators
• In FY10 NAVSEA hired 282 disabled veterans and set a FY11 goal of hiring 365 Wounded Warriors, essentially one per day. As of May, they had hired 183 Wounded Warriors in only 5 months
• NAVAIR and SPAWAR, inspired by NAVSEA’s success, stood up Wounded Warrior Hiring Programs and established Wounded Warrior hiring goals

But we still have work to do for our Wounded Warriors. Our next steps are: To continue collaboration with the Department of Labor, the Department of Veterans Affairs, OPM and OSD on the creation of the definitive Wounded Warrior hiring website, The National Portal.

• We are currently working on a “Warriors in the Workplace” Manual for civilian employers
• We have new Training and Education Programs, such as the Education and Employment Initiative, or E2I
• At the end of the year, we will sponsor the 2nd annual Department of the Navy Wounded Warrior Hiring and Support Conference

Members of the DON community, I urge you to keep this issue at the forefront, as it is a definitive statement on our commitment to the men and women who fight for our country, and a key element of DON’s mission.

Wounded Warriors, please explore our website for more information about our training and education programs or about joining our Department of the Navy team.