As part of an ongoing commitment to help veterans and military spouses find meaningful employment, NBC News teamed up with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce for Hiring Our Heroes.
In the last two years, TODAY profiled many of their stories on this blog. Moving forward, find continuing coverage on issues facing veterans and their families at NBCNews.com.
You can find TODAY's past coverage on the Hiring Our Heroes initiative here.
Back in March, rock band KISS announced they wanted to offer a roadie job to a deserving U.S. veteran for their upcoming tour with Motley Crue. After receiving over 1900 applications for the job, Gene Simmons reveals the winner.
Back in March, NBC News teamed up with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to launch Hiring Our Heroes, an initiative to get veterans back into the workforce. Among the many organizations to step forward and pledge to hire vets and military spouses was the rock back KISS.
KISS's job opening was for a roadie to work their upcoming summer tour with Motley Crue, and more than 1,900 hopefuls applied. And this morning on the plaza, The Demon himself, Gene Simmons was on hand to give veteran Paul Jordan a big surprise: He had been chosen to the new KISS roadie!
Paul has logged in over 27 years of military service, and served three tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan. He has had even more service as a veteran in the KISS Army (with a tattoo of Simmons to prove it), having been a rabid fan of the band since he was 4. So when Simmons told him on-air that the coveted job was his, Paul was ecstatic – particularly since he'd been looking for work for a year and a half.
"Since I retired, I've had a really hard time trying to find a find a job," Paul told the TODAY anchors. "It's tough for veterans out there sometimes." He called the KISS roadie job a "dream come true. I've always wanted to be involved with KISS somehow ... This is incredible!"
Simmons, whose reality series "Gene Simmons Family Jewels" is starting a new season, said that hiring veterans "is the most important thing that we can do," and warned: "If you don't give him a round of applause right now, I'm going to find out where you live."
More from Hiring our Heroes:
Young veterans share their skills, dreams
Capital One, Comcast pledge to hire vets
Comcast and NBC Universal will hire 1,000 veterans
Hiring our Heroes 'unlocks the potential' of vets
Jill Biden: Veterans will 'get the job done'
Bloomberg: NYC is committed to hiring veterans
For more on Hiring our Heroes, an initiative from NBC News and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce that aims to get veterans back into the workforce, click here. For details on the more than 400 job fairs being held across the country throughout the year, click here.
Erin Trieb / VII for msnbc.com
For the past 22 years, Carla Fears has followed her husband, Sgt. 1st class Nathaniel Fears, from base to base, taking any job she could find. With her husband planning to retire in the next year or two, she's now trying to figure out what job she wants to do instead of what she has to do.
Strength. Resilience. Motivation. Confidence. Adaptability. Those are just some of the qualities military spouses mentioned when describing how their experience in the military -- by marriage -- should be attractive to prospective employers. I spoke with them at a job fair at Ft. Hood in Killeen, Texas, Wednesday, while reporting with photojournalist Erin Trieb.
There was obvious pride in what they had learned from a life in the military; but there was also frustration. For many, moving from base to base, not just in the U.S. but also around the world, limited their career paths. With only a year or two in one place, they were often taking any job they could get, not following their passions or skills. Military spouses -- 95 percent women -- have an unemployment rate of 26 percent, according to the Department of Defense, over two times the national average for civilians.
According to job counselors at Ft. Hood, the military is making an effort to slow down transfers, to allow military families to stay in one place for at least three years. They are hosting job fairs and encouraging military spouses to add volunteer activities to their resumes. Military studies show that they volunteer at a rate four times the national average. They want to remind employers that even if a job history looks checkered, there are ways outside of a traditional job for people to learn leadership, team work and creativity. Melissa Brown, a military spouse who's family of four moved ten times within five states makes the point, "After 12 years as a military spouse, I can keep a team together." Meet more military spouses and learn about their story in the slideshow below.
Military spouses get special attention at a job fair at Ft. Hood, Texas. Those married to military service members have an unemployment rate more than twice that of the civilian population.
More Hiring our Heroes, an initiative by NBC News and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce that aims to get veterans back into the workforce.
Learn more about job fairs for veterans.
Also, explore Erin Trieb’s ongoing Homecoming Project, an awareness and educational campaign using imagery to educate the public about PTSD and the struggles many service members face after coming home from war. Funds raised from the campaign benefit local non-profit groups serving veterans.
IAVA’s Paul Rieckhoff and veteran Jessi Tseng join Andrea Mitchell Reports to talk about the employment opportunities for veterans and whether a GI bill is needed.
For more on Hiring our Heroes, an initiative from NBC News and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce that aims to get veterans back into the workforce, click here. Learn more about job fairs for veterans here.
Sen. Jack Reed, a West Point graduate and former Army Ranger, talks about his efforts to help homeless veterans find housing and jobs.
For more on Hiring our Heroes, an initiative from NBC News and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce that aims to get veterans back into the workforce, click here. Learn more about job fairs for veterans here.
NBC’s Charles Hadlock reports live from a job fair at Fort Hood, Texas. Hadlock discusses why soldiers are pushed to take classes on how to find a job after their service is finished.
For more on Hiring our Heroes, an initiative from NBC News and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce that aims to get veterans back into the workforce, click here. Learn more about job fairs for veterans here.
NBC News and the Chamber of Commerce hosted a job fair for veterans at the USS Intrepid in New York City. Here are some photos tweeted with the hashtag #HiringOurHeroes. Click the pictures below and then "View Original" for more caption details.
At the event? Tweet us your pics with that hashtag. The best will show up on this page.
More from Hiring our Heroes:
Young veterans share their skills, dreams
Capital One, Comcast pledge to hire vets
Comcast and NBC Universal will hire 1,000 veterans
Hiring our Heroes 'unlocks the potential' of vets
Jill Biden: Veterans will 'get the job done'
Bloomberg: NYC is committed to hiring veterans
For more on Hiring our Heroes, an initiative from NBC News and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce that aims to get veterans back into the workforce, click here. Learn more about job fairs for veterans here.
MSNBC’s Richard Lui reports from the USS Intrepid, where a jobs fair for veterans is taking place on Wednesday.
For more on Hiring our Heroes, an initiative from NBC News and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce that aims to get veterans back into the workforce, click here. Learn more about job fairs for veterans here.
In Congress, multiple bills are in the works to either directly fund veterans’ employment programs or encourage businesses to step up. Rep. Tim Griffin and Rep. Bill Pascrell discuss.
For more on Hiring our Heroes, an initiative from NBC News and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce that aims to get veterans back into the workforce, click here. Learn more about job fairs for veterans here.
Col. Jack Jacobs talks about the unemployment rate and says “military veterans are the most qualified people anywhere,” because they have had a lot of responsibilities at a young age. Sen. John Manchin joins the discussion to talk about his initiative “I Hire Veterans,” saying, “it’s easy to talk the talk but you got to walk the walk.”
For more on Hiring our Heroes, an initiative from NBC News and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce that aims to get veterans back into the workforce, click here. Learn more about job fairs for veterans here.
In an effort to reduce the unemployment rate among veterans and their spouses, job fairs sponsored by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce are being held around the country in partnership with NBC News. NBC's Chris Jansing reports.
By Jay Blackman
NBC News
Long after the welcome home ceremonies, the standing ovations at sporting events and in airports, and the hugs and tears, reality sets in for veterans returning from the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. For a large number of them, the new battle is for a full time job in an economy where so many other folks are out of work. The numbers tell the story. According to the United States Department of Labor, veterans who have served on active duty since Sept. 11, 2001 are experiencing a 12.1 percent unemployment rate, with young male vets under the age of 25 suffering the worst -- a 29.1 percent unemployment rate.
There is hope, however, in the form of job fairs sponsored by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The program, which started last year, hosted 100 job fairs nationwide, successfully pairing veterans with positions in the private sector. This year, the Chamber of Commerce partnered with NBC Universal to host ‘Hiring our Heroes,’ and expanded the number of job fairs to 400.
So far, 5,000 employers have hired more than 8,000 returning veterans.
Click here to find a job fair near you.
For one veteran, Marine Sgt. Edzavier Reese, it wasn't just his skills that got him a job, it was incredible timing and luck. He had bounced from job to job in California after finishing his five deployments -- four to Iraq and one to Afghanistan -- but now Reese was looking for more.
"I was still stuck trying to be like, ‘I want to like something the way I like being in the Marines,’" he said.
Marine Sgt. Edzavier Reese found a job at GameStop in Atlanta, Ga., through the 'Hiring our Heroes' job fair.
Reese made the decision to return back home to Atlanta, Ga late last year. At first, he was going to take it slow, but once he got behind the wheel of his blue Mazda6, he decided to make the drive straight through, arriving at his mother’s house late afternoon. A friend told him about a vets-only job fair at the Georgia Dome. Reese wanted to take a nap, but said he knew he had to go.
"I went into the house, took a shower and shaved my head, and went over there," he said.
When he got there, the fair was almost over. As luck would have it, GameStop’s Mark Qualls noticed Reese.
"I saw a guy coming through, great suit, shoulders back, walking straight, great presence -- he's got to come talk to me," said Qualls, a regional manager at the computer and video game retailer.
After a brief conversation, Qualls saw in Reese what he says he sees in other returning veterans. "These days most of our veterans coming in have had some type of military service on the war front. So add to that high stress environment, a lot at stake -- quick decision making ability is really important -- and then lastly you have things like determination and honesty and honor and loyalty and that's not just words for them. They take an oath on that and they really believe it. So the better question is, ‘How can you not hire our veterans?’"
Lisa Rosser, who is also a veteran, now runs a group called The Value of a Veteran, which helps organizations improve veteran recruitment. She says hiring veterans just makes good business sense.
"The military person has the skill sets you need,” she said. Eighty-one percent of the jobs fit what you have in your organization, and the other skills that we bring are managerial and operational and training and leadership experience. What employer doesn't need those types of skills in their workplace?"
Lisa Rosser, founder of The Value of a Veteran, talks about the benefits of hiring military veterans.
Reese was eventually offered a management trainee job at a GameStop in Atlanta. He says he is eager to get his own store soon.
“I was pretty excited on the inside,” he said. “But like I said, you’ve got to maintain your cool, you have to.”
For more on Hiring our Heroes, an initiative from NBC News and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce that aims to get veterans back into the workforce, click here. Learn more about job fairs for veterans here.
Sen. Jim Webb talks about the concern that the post 9/11 GI Bill program has been abused by some universities.
For more on Hiring our Heroes, an initiative from NBC News and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce that aims to get veterans back into the workforce, click here. Learn more about job fairs for veterans here.
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