Seth Lynch ⋅ Plano, TX Hewlett Packard ⋅ 15 years experience

LIsa,

If you are looking for organizations that focus on veterans (and active duty) policy, try these out. They pretty much live and die to talk about policies around the military and veterans affairs. Some require specific service profiles for membership but all publish their advocacy and policy positions and most allow non-members to join discussions. Of course, this isn't an exhaustive list, just some of the largest and best known.

Air Force Association (AFA) www.afa.org
Association of the US Army (AUSA) www.ausa.org
Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) www.vfw.org
Military Officers Association (MOAA) www.moaa.org
Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA) www.iava.org

Robert Rahni ⋅ White Plains, NY Fordham University ⋅ 13 years experience

Hi Lisa! Thank you for your service. Have you heard of the two following veteran policy groups:

High Ground For Veterans Advocacy:
https://www.highgroundvets.org/

Veterans In Global Leadership:
https://www.vetsgl.org/

Both do pivotal work in the veterans sphere with respect to policy making, lesgislation reform and instrumental advocacy. In fact, High Ground was one of the driving forces behind the recent enhancements of the GI BILL, many of which went into effect just last Wednesday 8/01. Their work has also led to major reform in how vets who receive “bad paper” discharges are treated when it comes to accessing mental health treatment and overall benefits.

Through my work in the veteran area going on the better part of a decade now, I’ve observed dozens of veterans go through each of their programs as Fellows. I have also gotten to know both organizations’ founders.

If you’d like me to facilitate an email introduction to either or both, please check out their websites first to gain some familiarity of what they do (if you aren’t already aware), then send me a private message and I will be happy to do so.

Any questions, feel free to let me know.

Best,
Rob

Paul Dietrich ⋅ Staten Island, NY Phillips Petroleum ⋅ 35 years experience

I recommend organizations like the VFW (VFW.org) or the American Legion (Legion.org), Both of these have legislative groups that look to change national, state and local laws to make them more veteran friendly. To get started simply join the organization at the local level and get involved in the post first then you can work your way into the committees such as the legislative or the service committees. You can find a post at either site by clicking on the find a post button which will locate a post for you by your zip code. There are many posts so check them out and find one that suits you. With regards to jobs, you might be interested in becoming a service officer in one of these organizations to help veterans with their claims. Often the service officers feed to the legislative committees information with regards to claims so that they can try to change the policies to make them fairer or to get enhanced benefits. An example of this is the effort to get changed something called concurrent receipt. If you are retired from the military and you have a claim to the VA for something which occurred during the service and you get a rating below 40%, the amount you get from your VA claim is subtracted from your retirement check. The retirement check is for serving a number of years in the service while the VA claim is for damage that occurred to you during your years of service and should be totally separate just as they would be in the Civilian sector. Good Luck,

Linda Dyas ⋅ Farmington, MN U.S. Navy, Petty Officer Third Class ⋅ 4 years served

Lisa,
I love policy, not only veteran policy but I understand your passion.
I need more information to be able to answer your question completely.
Are you wanting to know what types of careers are out there for people who enjoy policy, regulations, rules/laws?
Do you want to know an information group that would allow blogging or chatting about government policy?
Do you have a specific statement or question that you just want to discuss on policy?
Is this quest political or non-political?

After I understand a little more of what you are wanting I will be able to answer you more directly.

Linda

Vanessa Marino ⋅ West Palm Beach, FL Johnson & Johnson ⋅ 27 years experience

Lisa, are you bringing this up during a job interview? If so, stop. You have one job during an interview - make them want you. Until a company is totally interested in you, it doesn't matter what sort of policy they have. Once they want you, you start asking those tough questions to make sure you want them.

If you're looking for a company with a best-in-class military leave policy, check out J&J.

David Landry ⋅ Gary, IN Self Employed ⋅ 45 years experience

Hi Lisa, This is off your topic but I'd appreciate your thoughts. I've heard horror stories of vets returning and not finding work. Do you think this documentary ( http://www.DHNinfo.com/rise ) of becoming an entrepreneur would find interest? How could I share it? Thanks.

Daryl Harrison ⋅ Thurston, NE Sioux City Schools ⋅ 25 years experience

Join Nebraska Veterans Coalition on Facebook