Supporting our Veterans

There are approximately 700,000 Michiganders that have dedicated their lives to protecting our freedoms. I can never pretend to know what our soldiers experience during their years of service, or what it’s like to try to transition to a life back home. What I can do is promise to listen, learn, and fight as hard to support our veterans as they’ve fought for us.

Jobs

Veterans bring discipline, management experience, and high-pressure productivity to any workplace. However, the government has not done an adequate job of preparing our veterans for the workforce when they return. Our state needs to work alongside the Michigan Veterans Affairs Agency and the US Department of Labor in order to fund programs that will help close the skills gap. This also includes ramping up skills training, certificate programs, and entrepreneurship opportunities to put our best to work. I believe every state agency should be a Veteran-Friendly Employer, and the state should help connect businesses which do the same to the veteran candidates.

Quality Care

The sacrifices of our servicemen and women include not only physical scars, but also invisible ones. The suicide rate among veterans is more than two times that of any other person. We must do more to support the complete health of veterans through health care services that meet the highest standards. This means prohibiting privatization in care facilities, where profit-motivated contractors have provided barely adequate care to meet the bottom-line. We must also work to expand the resources that facilitate a smoother transition back to Michigan when vets return from service. Supporting our veterans means improving programs that work, and ending policies which have failed them.

Entrepreneurship

The experience of serving prepares veterans for recognizing unique solutions to long-standing problems. As a state that invests heavily in small businesses and entrepreneurship, we should also invest in programs from the Michigan Veterans Affairs Agency like the Entrepreneurship Bootcamp and Center for Business Accelerator. Entrepreneurship is on the rise in this state, and veterans should have a central role in this movement.