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April 2004


A Promise Given - A Promise Kept

Providing Opportunities For Veterans In The Civil Service
You were there when your country called - And your country will be there for you

Address by THE HON. KAY COLES JAMES, Director
U.S. Office of Personnel Management

Delivered at Walter Reed Army Medical Center
VIP Outreach Program Kickoff

Washington D.C. April 22, 2004


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Thank you and let me just say how honored I am to have this opportunity to come here and thank you for your service to your country.

As the President's appointed Director of the American civil service, and on behalf of our 1.8 million Federal workers, allow me to say that your Nation's civil service respects you and your contribution to defending our country and advancing liberty.

Those who have not experienced what you have experienced, in Afghanistan and Iraq and elsewhere, cannot begin to appreciate the steep price that is paid by the men and women of our armed forces for freedoms we all enjoy - and sometimes take for granted.

There are few words in any language that can adequately describe the debt of gratitude this nation owes to you.

Recognizing the sacrifices of those who wear our country's uniform - yesterday, today and tomorrow - the Federal Government embraces a moral obligation to ensure that veterans, especially disabled veterans and returning wounded, have appropriate and proper access to Federal jobs in government when they separate from military service.

That obligation is spelled out in plain legislative language extending back 60 years. We refer to it as veterans preference.

It is in recognition of your courage, service and sacrifices that my agency has come to Walter Reed today to initiate an aggressive nationwide outreach and educational program to promote the various hiring authorities available to veterans under Federal law.

In the coming days, weeks and months, employment experts from my agency will be visiting military and VA hospitals and medical treatment centers and rehabilitation centers across the country to spread the word.

And the word is Yes.

Yes - there are jobs in the Federal Government.

Yes - we want to hire veterans.

Yes - there is such a thing as veterans' preference.

And Yes - it is vigorously enforced!

In accordance with the President's strong commitment to veterans' preference in Federal hiring, I am aggressively enforcing the prohibited personnel practice of bypassing qualified veterans for job opportunities.

As the Director of the Office of Personnel Management, I have both the authority and the responsibility to audit agency hiring activity to ensure that veterans' preference standards are met. At OPM, we are exercising that authority.

Last September, an audit of one Federal agency's hiring activity revealed that errors resulted in five veterans not being hired for positions for which they were qualified.

We instructed that agency to develop an immediate corrective action plan and to make employment offers to those five veterans or give them priority consideration for future appropriate positions.

At another agency, a political appointee of a previous administration was given a job ahead of two eminently-more-qualified veterans - one disabled veteran with a 10-point preference and another with a 5-point preference. Again, OPM directed the agency to immediately locate the passed-over candidates and give those veterans priority consideration.

So yes, we are serious about protecting our veterans' preferences in the Federal hiring process.

This year marks the 60th anniversary of the signing of the Veterans' Preference Act of 1944.

As the nation prepared to welcome troops home from World War II, President Franklin Roosevelt said "I believe that the Federal Government, functioning in its capacity as an employer, should take the lead in assuring those who are in the armed forces that when they return, special consideration will be given to them in their efforts to obtain employment."

Sixty years later, we are absolutely committed to showing our gratitude to America's veterans, both individually and as a nation, in very real and tangible ways.

And we've made a lot of progress.

Today, there are 450,000 veterans employed in the Federal Government. That's almost 26 percent of the Federal workforce, and over the past year alone, the government hired over 7,600 veterans.

And there are more than 80,000 disabled veterans who currently continue to work for America. I say continue working for America because that's what you were doing when you wore your uniforms and fought for our freedom. But we know we can do more.

In February, we provided some very clear direction to every agency head in the Federal Government concerning our efforts to recruit veterans of our armed services.

We strongly urged them to hire more veterans and make wider use of special, non-competitive hiring authorities set up by Congress for certain categories of veterans.

We strongly urged them to assign someone in their personnel departments to establish relationships with the transition offices that the Defense Department has set up for separating service members.

And we strongly urged them to match skilled veterans with their agency's needs, and recruit veterans as soon as they become civilians.

We are also making it easier for veterans to be hired. We worked with the VA to revise, simplify, and in many cases eliminate, the dozens of different form-letters the agency was using to document service-connected disabilities to determine preference.

We reduced the total to a half dozen and these letters are now in use by the VA, making it much easier for veterans to claim their preference and for agencies to accord it.

We meet on a regular basis with Veteran Service Organizations (VSO) to foster partnership and address important issues that surround veterans' employment, and we actively incorporate the feedback from VSOs into our veterans hiring process.

OPM created the Veteran Invitational Program (VIP), a new initiative which provides men and women in transition from military service to civilian life with timely, accurate and useful information regarding civilian employment opportunities with the Federal Government.

The VIP materials are designed to inform veterans of their rights and employment opportunities with the Federal Government and are distributed through VSO's and state and Federal agency offices and job fairs.

We improved our website - USAJOBS.OPM.GOV - to make it more veteran-friendly by adding several veteran links and additional veteran employment information.

I have to remind folks that we don't give jobs to qualified veterans. Qualified veterans earn the jobs. You compete for the jobs.

As members of the best trained and volunteer military in the world, you have already demonstrated an appreciation and competence for excellence and teamwork.

You mastered weapons and technology and you waited patiently until you had the opportunity to go to the front line. I think the least we can do now is to let you go up to the front of the Federal employment recruitment line.

Our Nation's armed forces are the best in the world, and the dedication and professionalism of the free men and women who serve in them are unparalleled. I cannot think of a better source of talent for the Federal Government than those who have completed their service in uniform.

As America's current and future veterans transition to civilian life and new employment opportunities and all of the other benefits to which you are entitled, OPM is working hard for veterans - every day. We want to provide you with an opportunity to continue working for America - to see if you are the right person, at the right time for the right job in the U.S. Civil Service.

And we are doing everything possible to reinforce the even larger obligation we owe to disabled veterans. We will be there to make sure you receive due preference in competitive hiring in the Federal government.

There is a word not heard often enough these days.

It is a word which has been used to describe those who have answered the call to arms down through history - from Bunker Hill to Baghdad.

The word is Patriot. And to be called one is a badge of honor. I know that each of you are humble and reluctant to accept that label. Please, on behalf of your civil service colleagues, accept their accolade.

You are all Patriots - those in this room and those in the wards and floors throughout Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

You have earned the right to be called American Patriots because you were there when your country called, and you have given so very much for this country.

Allow me one moment, please, to say a word in honor of your comrades who paid the ultimate sacrifice. I pray that I may never know the direct pain of those memories you and their families hold.

As the mother of a young mother-to-be, whose husband proudly serves in the Navy, I know the potential is there. I pray for both those who have returned to their families, and those who have not, everyday.

Their sacrifice and decision to serve was not in vain, and those of us in public life share a commitment to honor their memory.

I am grateful for your service. I join President George W. Bush and the American people in thanking you for your service.

And I am humbled to be in your presence.

God Speed to you all.