Fort Bragg among six installations chosen for pilot transition program

Sept. 19--The Army wants to ditch its one-size-fits-all policy on helping soldiers adjust to life after active duty.

And it's turning to Fort Bragg to help find a new solution that could ultimately help cut down on unemployment among new veterans.

Fort Bragg is one of six installations participating in a pilot program starting next month.

The two-year pilot is part of the Army's Soldier for Life -- Transition Assistance Program, which is mandatory training for all soldiers leaving active duty and helps prepare them for civilian careers through courses that teach resume writing, military skills translation, financial planning and more.

The program has limited resources, but the pilot could help officials refocus those resources where they are most needed, said retired Col. Walter M. Herd, director of the Army's Soldier for Life -- Transition Assistance Program.

Herd said Fort Bragg, along with Ford Hood, Texas; Fort Drum, New York; Fort Campbell, Kentucky; Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Washington; and U.S. Army Garrison Bavaria in Germany, would form control and test groups to gather data on best practices for the transition program.

Those installations help roughly 30,000 combined soldiers leave active duty each year.

While visiting Fort Bragg this week, Herd likened the pilot program to a science experiment and said the Army needs the pilot to prove its hypothesis.

"Our theory is that different types of soldiers need different types of assistance," Herd said. "It makes sense. The point of this pilot is to prove it. Employment is the metric."

Under the pilot, some soldiers will only need to finish some of the current requirements for the transition program.

That will free up counselors to work with soldiers who need more help, Herd said.

"My expectations and my hope is that soldiers at greater risk of unemployment see a benefit," Herd said. "And those at less risk see no detriment."

"If that's the case, this will be a success," he said.

The current Army Transition Assistance Program requires all soldiers, regardless of rank, education or job prospects, to complete a set of 12 benchmarks related to career readiness skills training and other compliance courses.

That takes on average more than 40 hours, spread over a year or two, officials said.

The more customized transition process will be based on an algorithm created from unemployment records.

That algorithm will use demographic data, such as age, rank, gender, military occupation, education and where they will settle after the military to help predict which troops would be most and least likely to find employment after service.

"Based on about five years of history, we've come up with, in essence, an amortization table like your life insurance company has," Herd said.

Depending on how soldiers do on that table, Herd said they may only need to complete three-fourths or as little as half of the 12 transition requirements.

At each pilot site, half of all soldiers leaving active duty will stick with the old system.

The other half will leave the force under the more customized process.

But even within the pilot, there will be difference between installations.

The pilot program at Fort Hood, Germany, and Joint Base Lewis-McChord will be more rigid, with soldiers' transition requirements assigned by the algorithm only.

At Fort Bragg, Fort Drum and Fort Campbell, however, a soldier's chain of command can adjust the requirements.

Such a request would need to come from a battalion commander, Herd said. And those commanders would not be able to change the soldier's requirement to fewer benchmarks without the soldier's approval.

Herd said he believes the latter that added input will prove better for the soldier.

"I believe battalion commanders and the chain of command have a unique ability to look at the soldier and give them good guidance," he said.

One thing that won't change across the pilot program is that soldiers will still be free to go above and beyond.

Even if a soldier is required to take fewer steps, counselors won't stop them from finishing the entire program.

Herd said soldiers who do that are more likely to find success in the civilian workplace.

Army data has also found that more active participation is a good indication of success.

"If a soldier waits until the end, the chance of success is low," Herd said.

All six of the pilot sites are large Army installations.

Thousands of soldiers leave active duty from each every year.

Fort Bragg is the largest. And was a natural choice for the pilot, Herd said.

"It is the center of the Army's gravity in lots of different ways," he said.

The installation provides a good mix of different types of soldiers, across several major commands and jobs.

And more importantly, it's already a leader within the Army's transition programs, Herd said.

"If you transition off of active duty at Fort Bragg, you have a statistically better chance of finding employment than most Army installations," Herd said.

About three-fourths of soldiers leaving Fort Bragg walk directly into new civilian jobs or school, he said. Army-wide, that average is only about 65 percent.

"Bragg is an excellent installation," Herd said. "There's some magic in the sauce here."

Herd attributes that success to Fort Bragg's transition program leaders and to programs like the quarterly hiring events which, unlike job fairs, match troops with actual jobs.

Herd spoke of the pilot program during one of those events, held at the Iron Mike Conference and Catering Center.

About 200 soldiers were scheduled to have interviews with potential employers during the hiring event, he said. All of the potential employers were vetted and soldiers matched accordingly.

"Probably about 80 percent are going to walk out of here with a job offer," Herd said. "That's huge."

The data gathered during the pilot could also lead to other improvements to the transition program.

"I'm an old combat soldier, and intelligence drives operations," Herd said.

For instance, he said unemployment data shows some military occupations are at greater risk for unemployment than others, and they may run counter to some thinking.

Infantrymen do quite well in the civilian job market, Herd said.

Meanwhile some support careers, such as truck drivers and human resources specialists, have tougher times finding jobs.

But the biggest differences are caused by education and rank.

A junior soldier with only a high school degree is more likely to have trouble finding a job than a senior soldier who has college certificates or degrees.

More senior soldiers are also more likely to "go early and go often" to the transition program, further advancing their chances of success.

"If a soldier gets involved and works at it, they'll succeed," Herd said. "At the end of the day, it's an individual sport. We're just coaching them."

In the future, Herd said the Army will be able to track those success rates by specific units.

In the long run, that data will help fuel future successes. And that's good not only for Herd's program, but for the country as a whole.

It can lead to better recruiting, he said. But also help drive down unemployment as a whole.

"It's not just about helping the soldiers," Herd said. "It's helping economic engines."

Military editor Drew Brooks can be reached at [email protected] or 486-3567.

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