Lay-offs are everywhere on Wall Street these days, but as long as there are banks, there will be bankers.

So someone has to get hired right? We wanted to know who. The first year analyst will probably still have to come from the right school, be a well-rounded individual, and have stellar excel skills.

But obviously, not everyone is looking to be a first year analyst.

So we started digging around for job openings and looking for patterns. We also talked to Brin McCagg, the co-founder of OneWire, a start-up dedicated to connecting the right banker to the right bank.

What we found was that if you want to get in on Wall Street right now, the most important thing is having a deep knowledge about today's growth industries. That means healthcare, for one.

Today's Wall Streeter could be a computer whiz.

As banks do more and more of their operations on complex computer programs, they need more and more people to make sure their technology is running smoothly. Firms have "very large tech teams building trading systems," said McCagg. "There's growth there," and all things considered this sector is "comparatively robust."

A simple search for tech jobs turned up...

• BlackRock is looking for a "Head of Technology Audit": This person will manage a team of techies that maintain BlackRock's computer systems, specifically those that monitor risk.
  
  
• JP Morgan is looking for an "AVP, Associate, Investment Banking Technology": This person will be in charge of rolling out JP Morgan tech platforms in North America. They need experience in engineering, knowledge of financial computer systems, and an understanding of complex derivatives.

It could be helpful if you know how to manage wealth

There's making money, and then there's keeping it. In today's crazy market, banks are looking for employees who know about wealth management and financial advising to keep their biggest clients happy.

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Florence Green, who was thought to be the world's last known surviving service member of World War I, has died, the BBC reports.

Green served as a mess steward at RAF bases in Marham and Narborough. She joined the Women's Royal Air Force (WRAF) on September 13, 1918 — two months before the war ended. She was just 17.

Green was thought to have been the last surviving service member after Claude Choules in Australia died in Australia last year. Choules, a British Navy veteran, had been the last surviving veteran who had seen combat.

The Daily Mail reports that Green passed away in her sleep just two weeks before her 111th birthday in a care home in Norfolk, UK.

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Two years ago, Marc McComas was dodging bullets in Iraq, focused on the daily pressures of intense combat and keeping his 30-member platoon section on task. Today, the former sergeant faces a new kind of pressure: finding a job.

The 40-year-old McComas has spent 15 of the past 20 years on active military duty abroad or as a member of the National Guard. Since his guard contract ended last February, he has spent most days online looking for work as an office manager or human resources director near his Vienna, W. Va., home. “With 15 years in the army, tons of management experience, and a four-year degree, I figured it would be kind of a cinch to get a job,” McComas told The Fiscal Times this week.  

But so far, McComas, like hundreds of thousands of other vets, has had no luck. He sent out nearly 400 resumes and networked through the Veterans of Foreign Wars, but he has landed only three interviews – none of which led to even the hint of a job offer. When he was between jobs in the past, he received $60,000 a year in salary from his National Guard service. But reenlisting isn’t an option for McComas, who lost some of his hearing and incurred shoulder, knee, ankle, and tendon damage during his 15-month Iraq tour.

“I can’t really understand why nobody wants to talk to me when I’m able and ready to talk to them,” McComas said.

McComas is among the approximately 815,000 unemployed veterans competing for jobs as the U.S. economy crawls back from the deepest recession in modern history. The overall veteran unemployment rate is 7.5 percent – almost a full percentage point lower than the current national rate of 8.3 percent. But that is highly misleading. Unemployment rates are slightly higher – 9.1 percent – for Afghanistan and Iraq War veterans and significantly higher for young veterans aged 18 to 24, who registered a 20.2 percent unemployment rate in January, more than double the national average. Many of these younger vets lack college or even high school degrees and find it more difficult to qualify for available jobs.

RELATED: The 10 Best Cities for Young People to Find Jobs

Although the U.S. job market is slowly improving, the situation is tough for veterans and will get even tougher, especially as about one million more service members and women exit the military during the next five years and flood the job market, according to Labor Department estimates.

“I don’t expect there to be enough jobs to absorb the huge increase in incoming veterans, which should concern everyone who benefits from the great sacrifices these people make for their country,” said Patrick Bellon, executive director of Veterans for Common Sense, a veteran advocacy group. “They’ve paid dues that others haven’t.”

The glut of men and women returning from highly dangerous and often debilitating deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan with little or no prospects for finding work is one of the most visible and troubling downsides to the Obama administration’s efforts to wind down two costly wars. Experts say that many of these returning men and women find it difficult to adjust to the civilian world after years of multiple deployments. Many of these vets struggle with emotional problems, post-traumatic stress disorders, and the challenges of persuading prospective employers that their military skills are applicable to civilian tasks. 

“They’re coming back to civilian life and it’s a different form of life,” said Sen. Benjamin L. Cardin, D-Maryland, a member of the Budget and Small Business Committees who has delved into the employment problem. “It’s not as structured as the military or government. It’s extremely challenging. These are young people, by and large. So it’s an adjustment factor.”

That pool of returning veterans will begin to swell because of White House plans to shrink the defense budget and manpower for the first time since 1998. About 170,000 troops were deployed to Iraq at peak times during the nine-year war, but as of last December only about 150 troops remained. 

About a tenth of the 101,000-troops stationed in Afghanistan returned to the U.S. in 2011, and another 23,000 are scheduled to leave by next September. Nearly all of the Afghanistan personnel will exit by a 2014 deadline, although many active-duty members will transition from combat to training roles before that point, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said last week. 

The troubling plight of unemployed veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars has drawn the close attention of the White House and lawmakers, especially as the 2012 election approaches. In a rare display of political unanimity, President Obama and congressional Republicans and Democrats pushed through legislation last November to create tax credits for companies that hire jobless veterans and to increase spending for job-training and counseling. Companies that hire disabled veterans who have looked for work for more than six months can qualify for as much as $9,600 in credits for each hire under the new law. 

In the fiscal 2013 budget he will release next week, President Obama will also call for $5 billion in grant money to local police and fire departments to encourage them to hire Iraq and Afghanistan-war veterans. The Department of Veterans Affairs has also launched a series of new employment programs, including “VA for Vets,” which encourages the department itself to hire veterans, as well as sponsoring regional job fairs. Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., chair of the Senate Veterans Affairs committee, said it is essential that the government takes steps to insure that returning vets get a fair shake and that “what they learned to do in the military with our taxpayer dollars [is transferred] into good work experience” back home.  

The complex barriers facing young veterans in the job market can’t entirely be solved with tax credits and grants, according to veterans’ advocates. One of the biggest tasks ahead for young veterans is learning to market their military skills as viable assets to hiring managers, said Craig Roberts, a spokesman for the American Legion. “There’s a real language barrier,” Roberts said. “If someone says they do something in the military, that isn’t necessarily understood by a civilian hiring manager.”

Resume polishing and interview coaching can help, Roberts said, but he worries that the job market won’t be willing or able to absorb a huge  influx of veterans. “With a couple hundred thousand guys coming back, many of them young, the next couple of years are going to be challenging no matter what we do,” he said.

And veterans returning from active duty are finding it a mixed blessing to continue service in the National Guard or reserves.  Many employers are increasingly reluctant to hire them because they can be called away with little notice, says Ted Daywalt, CEO and president of VetJobs.com. At one time there was more certainty about when members of the guard or reserves would be called up and for how long. But the Department of Defense in 2007 altered its call-up policy for National Guard and Reserve brigades by eliminating a provision that members’ cumulative time on active duty could not exceed 24 months.

“Employers didn’t mind it so much when their employees in the Guard were gone for just 30 days,” Daywalt said. “But when they’re gone for a year, and can be called up more than once, that’s a different ball game.”

Some lawmakers also say that veterans have been hurt by reductions or freezes in the size of the federal workforce. The federal government has a preference policy for hiring veterans, and about a quarter of all federal workers have served in the military. “When you can get preferential hiring in the federal agencies, as we do, that helps a lot,“ said Sen. Jay D. Rockefeller IV, D-W.Va., a member of the Veterans Affairs Committee. Even more devastating, layoffs at the U.S. Postal Service will certainly take a toll. The USPS is the single largest employer of veterans, who make up 22 percent of the workforce. 

This post originally appeared at The Fiscal Times. 

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Robert Dyer was sitting around a campfire with some buddies in late 2007 when they came up with an idea for a business. That may not seem unusual, but the campfire was in Afghanistan, and the buddies were all active-duty members and officers of the U.S. Navy, as well as Marines. Their idea was to develop a nutritional supplement designed for the rigors of war.

"Our missions would last about a week at a time, and if we did get resupplied, it would be five or six days into it, so pretty much the food you had with you--that was it," Dyer says. "But you still need to maintain peak performance; the enemy didn't really care if you didn't get any sleep last night or if you weren't used to the altitude. So pretty much all of us were taking some kind of supplement."

Instead of toting around various products, the group came up with the concept for RuckPack, a single, power-packed nutritional supplement that would serve the needs of soldiers and others whose bodies need extreme sustenance. Dyer, with the blessing of his fellow soldiers--a few of whom remained on as minority partners in the venture--picked up the idea and ran with it, doing as much as he could while on deployment and then gaining more steam when he returned from another deployment in late 2009. He recently earned his master's in financial management at the NavalPostgraduate School in Monterey, Calif.

Veterans like Dyer are at least 45 percent more likely to take the plunge into entrepreneurship than people with no active-duty military experience, according to a May 2011 study from the SBA Office of Advocacy. In 2007 (the latest data available from the U.S. Census Bureau), veterans owned 2.4 million businesses, or 9 percent of all businesses nationwide, generating $1.2 trillion in receipts and employing nearly 5.8 million people. Government agencies, colleges and universities, and even the private sector, have recognized this phenomenon and responded with support, training and business opportunities for veteran entrepreneurs. As he launched his business, Dyer found and used several of the significant financial, mentoring and other resources available to military veterans wishing to transition into entrepreneurship.

The Veteran Advantage
The reasons veterans are more likely to start their own businesses are unsubstantiated by research but often hypothesized. The SBA study found that veterans with 20-plus years of service had higher rates of self-employment, and officers had the highest propensity to become self-employed. This could be because military training develops organizational skills and risk-tolerance, says Thomas J. Leney, executive director for Small and Veteran Business Programs at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

Todd Fisher, a veteran and founder of two successful Yardley, Penn.-based technology companies, agrees. In addition to the training he received in electronics and communication technology as a signals officer in the Army, there were other "very valuable lessons" that help him run MobileMD, which provides software applications for health care, and Intraprise Solutions, a software consulting firm. Fisher says his military training helped him to be comfortable seeking knowledge from people with more experience, even if he is their supervisor. Furthermore, he says, it gave him the skills and confidence to run a high-stakes business--if information doesn't flow freely in health care, people can die--in which he didn't necessarily know all the technical details. The skills ingrained from military training are the main reason he heavily recruits veterans to work for him: Of the first 15 people he hired, nine were vets. Today, his companies employ 66 people, 11 of whom have military experience.

"It's the 'listen with two ears, speak with one mouth' kind of attitude," Fisher says. "People make mistakes, learn from them, adapt and improvise, because things change. These are the core principles that we operate our company with."

The same skills apply to veterans who have been disabled in service. For them, entrepreneurship can be a way of supporting themselves while having the flexibility to manage the challenges of their disabilities. That's the belief of James Michael Haynie, executive director of the Institute for Veterans and Military Families at Syracuse University, which provides a variety of programs to support veteran entrepreneurship. "For example," Haynie says, "it may take [a person] in a wheelchair longer to get ready in the morning, and a lot of employers would find it difficult to accommodate that kind of schedule. Whereas in self-employment, they're their own boss."

Getting Help
Former Marine John Raftery, who served from 1999 to 2003, says he spent half of his military career deployed, then returned with a disability, which he prefers not to discuss. When he left the Marine Corps, he took advantage of GI Bill benefits (which pay for education) to get a degree in accounting. Then he worked at an accounting firm. But, frustrated at feeling passed over for advancement, he began researching franchise opportunities.

Then, Raftery received an unsolicited e-mail about Syracuse University's Entrepreneurship Bootcamp for Veterans with Disabilities (EBV), a free, weeklong intensive training course fordisabled vets interested in starting their own businesses. In 2007, after participating in the program, he felt confident enough to launch Patriot Contractors in Waxahachie, Texas. At first, his plan was to focus on property management. However, he saw growing opportunities in construction and began to take on bigger projects, revising his focus.

Today, Raftery employs 22 people and was invited to President Obama's American Jobs Act speech in September 2011 to serve as an example of the potential of veteran entrepreneurship. His firm is certified by the Department of Veterans Affairs as a Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned small business, which makes him eligible for specialized sales opportunities in government contracting and in the private sector.

Syracuse offers a similar boot camp for family members of disabled veterans, training them to start businesses that provide the flexibility to support and care for veterans with significant disabilities, Haynie says.

In addition to EBV, there are a variety of programs available to entrepreneurial veterans. Through the SBA, the Patriot Express Pilot Loan Initiative makes loans of up to $500,000, backed by the administration's maximum guarantee. These are offered to the military community, including family members, for most business purposes. The SBA also administers the Military Reservist Economic Injury Disaster Loan program to provide operating-expense funds to small businesses experiencing hardship when an essential reservist employee is called up to active duty.

Dyer tapped the Patriot Express loan program to help fund the expansion of RuckPack and parent company Noots Nutrition. He started out by selling a vitamin supplement through his website; now he employs 10 people and has launched a drinkable nutritional shot as his key product. At RuckPacks.com, users can send a box of the shots to service members overseas. Additionally, Dyer has committed to donating 10 percent of profits to various charities.

For aid in launching his business, Dyer consulted his local chapter of the Service Corps of Retired Executives (SCORE), which has a number of experienced entrepreneurs who have military backgrounds. There, he was assigned a SCORE counselor who gave him general business advice. Dyer also sought out online networking forums for veterans, and found the most value in the National Marine Corps Business Network on LinkedIn.

"There's something about veteran-owned business owners helping other veterans," Dyer says. "They're just shirt-off-your-back kind of guys, and they'll take the time to explain, 'You might not want to go down this path.' Or they'll help you avoid the traps in starting a business."

Calling in Reinforcements
Many online resources are available to help veterans launch businesses; some even help family members. Here are several places to start.

SBA: The SBA's website should be your first stop. It's full of information and resources for veterans, and acts as a clearinghouse for other agencies' veteran business programs. The SBA page for the Office of Veterans Business Development includes links to programs throughout various government departments. In addition, the SBA oversees federal procurement and loan programs for veteran-owned small businesses, including Patriot Express and the Military Reservist Economic Injury Disaster Loan program. The Small Business Development Center also offers outreach to veterans.

U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs: This site helps small businesses become certified as veteran-owned or service-disabled veteran-owned. Once certified, the businesses may be eligible for procurement programs and can be found by contracting officers for the Veteran's Administration.

Syracuse University Veterans' Resource Center: Syracuse spearheads the Entrepreneurship Bootcamp for Veterans with Disabilities Consortium of schools, which also includes the University of California, Los Angeles; Texas A&M University; Purdue University; University of Connecticut; and Louisiana State University. All host entrepreneurship programs for veterans.

Syracuse also runs special programs for women veterans and family members of wounded veterans.

Service Corps of Retired Executives (SCORE): SCORE has specialized programs for veterans to learn how to access information and financial and contracting opportunities.

This post originally appeared at Entrepreneur.

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It’s probably the longest-awaited promotion in history.

On Thursday, 112-year-old Józef Kowalski, a former lieutenant in the Polish army, was promoted to captain by Poland’s Defence Minister: Tomasz SIemioniak, TheNews.pl reports.

The minister visited the war veteran at the old people’s home in Tursk, western Poland, where he has lived since 1993, to bestow the honor on him.

Kowalski was born on February 2, 1900 in southern Poland (what was then part of the Austrian empire), according to a Defence Ministry press release. He soon enlisted in the Polish army, and fought in a Polish cavalry unit during World War I. He was also part of the Polish army that defeated the Soviets in the Polish-Soviet War of 1919-1920.

However, after WWI, Kowalski seemed to crave the quiet life, returning to his family farm despite studying at cavalry school, according to the AP. He did return to the front in 1939, but spent most of World War II as a German PoW. He returned to farm in his homeland after the war, but abandoned the occupation due to ill health, which forced him into an adult home.

The promotion is not the only honor this veteran of three wars has received. He was awarded the Officer’s Cross of the Order of Reborn Poland for his 100th birthday, as well as the Pro Memoria medal of the Union of Polish War Veterans.

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Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is expensive, not just in dollars, but the number of medically dependent U.S. men returning home from war, and the unsettling number who take their own lives.

When so many troops began arriving home from Afghanistan and Iraq suffering from PTSD, Rick Yount decided to do something about it.

Yount's a former social worker who combined his experience as a social worker and service dog trainer, founding "Paws for Purple Hearts" to assist troops suffering from PTSD and Traumatic Brain Injuries (TBI).

Paws for Purple Hearts started in 2008 at the Palo Alto VA’s Men’s Trauma Recovery Program in Menlo Park, California and its success led to others similar programs like the Warrior Transition Brigade at Walter Reed.

In 2011, Yount, and his program, found a permanent home with Meg Daley Olmert at the Warrior Canine Connection.

Click here for a peek inside the Warrior Canine Connection >

Veterans suffering from PTSD and TBI have been encouraged to join these voluntary programs as an extension of their therapy. Participants spend three months helping to train service dogs for other disabled veterans. 

According to Yount, the warrior ethos of taking care of your own is fully integrated in the program with troops training service dogs for other military members.   

"Looking back now, it's probably one of the best decisions I've ever made and got the opportunity to do," Staff Sgt. Spencer Milo told Animal Planet.

Staff Sgt. Milo was diagnosed with PTSD after a child suicide bomber attacked his patrol in Afghanistan. As part of his therapy he worked with Nemo and Valerie, two Warrior Connection Canines. "Both Nemo and Valerie helped me be to be happy again," Milo said. "They've helped make me realize that I can talk. That it's ok to talk."  

Yount says that while there is a sense of loss at the end of the training program, it is also associated with positives including a sense of accomplishment in helping other vets, and in helping the dog make it through another level of their training. 

A dozen dogs are currently being trained within the program by about 300 current and former members of the military. Yount points out the program isn't a "mass production" of service dogs, but rather focuses on individuals and making sure they get the help they need. 

"With combat trauma, the human trusts is pretty well destroyed. People tried to kill you. And the dog is a safe harbor," Olmert told Animal Planet.

Yount said the program helps PTSD sufferers deal with their emotions, and manage them, since dogs take cues from body language and tone of voice.

Yount recalls telling one trainer to issue commands in an "Arnold Schwarzenegger" voice and praises in "Richard Simmons" voice, to have a trainer reply, "Did they tell you we have PTSD? We are emotionally numb. We don't sound like Richard Simmons."

Warriors for Canines works with its members to help them over the bridge they need to cross to start reconnecting with other living creatures. 

Every little bit helps, as Sgt. Milo said,"There is a reason they say man's best friend. Because [these dogs] are just that."  

National Intrepid Center of Excellence, which encourages soldiers to work with the WCC, focuses on healing invisible wounds of war

By training dogs for veterans with disabilities, veterans with PTSD are provided with the opportunity to overcome survivors guilt by helping another service member

The WCC dogs are trained to do everyday things like open doors, pay cashiers, and assist veterans with putting on socks

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As part of the 10 Ideas: A Defense Strategy for the Global Generation series, a recognition of the need to improve the care of our women who serve.

Upon his retirement in January, General Peter Chiarelli, the vice chief of the U.S. Army, told reporters that prohibiting women from serving in combat was anachronistic. Female soldiers, he claimed, were essentially already seeing combat. “I have felt for the longest period of time that on a nonlinear battlefield there are no safe jobs,” he said. “Everyone is in a situation where they are, in fact, in harm’s way. There is this mistaken belief that somehow that through prohibiting women in combat jobs we can protect them. I would rather have standards that we apply across the board.”

Chiarelli’s comments come at a time when the implications of the roles women play in the U.S. military affect more veterans and families than ever. Over the past decades, women have joined branches of the military at higher rates than ever before, comprising 14.6 percent of active duty forces. On top of this, women comprise 13 percent of the veterans of Operation Enduring Freedom, Operation Iraqi Freedom, and Operation New Dawn.

While official policy mandates that women do not serve in combat roles in the U.S. military, women still suffer from physical and psychological injury. In 2009 and 2010, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), hypertension, and depression were the three conditions diagnosed most frequently among female veterans. In addition, approximately one in five women seen by Veterans Administration (VA) hospitals respond “yes” when screened for military sexual trauma (assault or harassment experienced while in the military).

While significant cuts to the VA budget in 2009 slowed programming in 2010 and 2011, the prioritization of female veteran health care was increased in 2010 with the Caregivers and Veterans Omnibus Health Services Act. The Act created the first comprehensive study in recent years of barriers to health care for female veterans, designed pilot programming for group therapy for female veterans no longer on active duty, and created a two-year pilot program to assess the feasibility of offering childcare to veterans.

Join the conversation about the Roosevelt Institute’s new initiative, Rediscovering Government, led by Senior Fellow Jeff Madrick.

In addition, in early February the military began slightly easing restrictions on the roles female soldiers can play in combat zones. About 14,000 combat positions will now be open to women, although 283,000 positions, nearly all of them in the Army and Marine Corps, will remain closed.

These numbers, however, don’t reflect the reality of American military service, in which even those in “non-combat” roles may find themselves embroiled in violent confrontations. And while there have been recent improvements in services, not all of the needs of women who have served in the military are being met.

It is vital that the VA adapt to meet the needs of the increasing numbers of female veterans. While VA services in recent years have increased their emphasis on mental health, logistical aspects of many hospitals can make accessing care challenging for patients, particularly for women. An important example is that women may be barred from group therapy sessions dealing with issues of PTSD because spots are reserved for those who saw combat. Even female veterans decorated for their performance in combat may be prohibited from group therapy for this reason. While appeals processes exist, they are slow and unknown to many veterans. Making these groups available to all veterans diagnosed with PTSD will increase the speed with which veterans access group therapy services.

VA hospitals may also not be physically laid out to provide comfortable access to mental health services. Creating specific exam rooms and separate clinic entrances for women attempting to access female health services (i.e. gynecological services) or mental health services may prevent the harassment and discomfort they experience when they must walk through wards of physical care services full of older, largely male veterans. In addition to the provision of childcare, these minor policy changes will make health care more accessible to female veterans and will ease their search for treatment.

The simplest solution to gaining access to therapy for all those facing post-combat trauma would be for the military to acknowledge that women deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan have already experienced combat, regardless of official policy. The VA should amend therapy eligibility to include all patients diagnosed with “combat-related” PTSD, which would include female veterans whose combat experience is unofficial. Individual hospitals should create separate waiting rooms, entrances, and exam rooms for female veterans, particularly when their diagnosis may be more sensitive (i.e. mental health services or sexual trauma). No veteran should face harassment or roadblocks in his or her search for treatment.

This post was originally published by New Deal 2.0

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Iraq War veteran, and Wounded Warrior, Jeremy Feldbusch, threw out the ceremonial first pitch on opening day for the Pittsburgh Pirates. That alone is a good story. But Feldbusch delivered a strike despite having lost his sight during the Iraq War.

Here's the video...

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Four years after her appearance on The Colbert Report, First Lady Michelle Obama sat down with Steven Colbert again to talk about her program Joining Forces. The program, which had its one year anniversary yesterday, is an initiative to provide support to service members and their families.

As young veterans struggle with high unemployment rates, Obama says  that hiring veterans actually improves bottom line of companies:

"These people are bringing in skills that actually improve the bottom line of companies, because these are some of the most highly trained, highly skilled, disciplined people we have in our society - the best this country has to offer. So, we all need to do out part."

Colbert agreed, saying that by hiring a veteran to work within your company, it will make the inter-office complaining seem "trivial" compared to stories from his experience overseas. 

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This morning, Bloomberg TV's Margaret Brennan had to interrupt an interview she was about to do analyzing Citi earnings for a pretty awesome reason — the traders on the floor of the NYSE started welcoming one of their own home from Afghanistan.

The whole floor of the NYSE had erupted into applause for the veteran, and Duncan Niederauer, the CEO of the NYSE, presented him with a medal.

We don't know the trader's name, but we do know that Maxine James, a producer at Bloomberg TV's In Business, is his sister.

Check out the video below, it will make you feel really good inside.

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In the last two elections, veterans have voted overwhelmingly for the Republican candidate. In 2008, John McCain took 54 percent of the veteran vote, according to the Los Angeles Times. In 2004, President George W. Bush took 57 percent in his re-election bid and amid fighting two wars. ABC noted the last two elections went Republican by 10- and 16-point margins, respectively. 

So here's a surprise: The veteran vote in the 2012 election is trending toward Barack Obama. A new Reuters/Ipsos poll found that Obama would beat Mitt Romney by as much as seven percentage points in November. 

The picture, from Reuters:

In this election, veterans trend toward the norm of the remainder of the country. 

The reason: Weariness from a decade of fighting two wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. More and more veterans are going the direction of the Graftons, a couple that both served in the military. From the Reuters write up:

The Graftons' votes, however, like many veterans', can't be taken as evidence of a hard-line military stance. Registered Republicans, they cast their ballots for Obama in 2008 because he promised to bring the troops home from Iraq.

"I went to war for George Bush," said Grafton, 48, a retired Army master sergeant who served in special operations units in Somalia and Iraq. "But we can't keep policing the world."

Veterans are now split evenly as to what political party identifies with better serving their needs. But here's where Romney can hit back on Obama's improving record with veterans: They think the Republican Party has better approaches to the War on Terror, of dealing with Iran and of handling the economy.

They also believe the U.S. should not decrease military spending — 51 percent at least "somewhat disagree." Obama is proposing to cut nearly $500 billion off the defense budget over the next decade. 

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An 84-year-old western Pennsylvania man and Korean War vet shot and wounded a home invasion suspect, and then forgave the man’s family when they came to apologize.

WPXI-TV has video with details of how this no-nonsense war vet dealt with an imminent threat to his life and property:

The New York Daily News described the scene as something that:

“appeared to be pulled from the pages of the Clint Eastwood film ‘Gran Torino,’  [as] grizzled war hero Fred Ricciutti grabbed his battlefield sidearm after he heard someone bust through a kitchen door of his Elizabeth Township house at around 4:30 a.m.”

(photo courtesy of WPXI.com)

“I said, ‘Halt, who’s there?’ ” Ricciutti told Pittsburgh station WPXI. ”I’m thinking, friend or foe, he shouldn’t be there that time of day.”

Ricciutti fired once with a German Luger he once carried in battle, hitting suspect Raymond Hiles, 25, in the neck.

Police say Hiles, 25, was captured Tuesday not long after trying to break into  Ricciutti’s Elizabeth Township home, about 15 miles south of Pittsburgh. Police say the suspect had a stun gun and a screwdriver on him at his time of arrest.

Ricciutti tells the AP that he accepted an apology from the suspect’s family, who live across the street and came over in tears to apologize.

Hiles is being held on $100,000 bail on charges including criminal trespass and burglary.

Authorities say they don’t expect to bring charges against Ricciutti.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Courtney Gieber overcame the challenges of Army basic training at Fort Jackson in South Carolina; medic training at Fort Sam Houston in Texas; and then a yearlong tour in Ramadi, Iraq.

When she was medically discharged from the Army in 2010, the 25-year-old Gieber faced a new challenge: transitioning into the civilian workforce after spending several years in the military.

After a frustrating year of unsuccessful job searching, Gieber signed on as an intern with Alpine Access, a Colorado-based firm offering virtual call center and other services. During the year since, Gieber  was hired on fulltime and promoted to project manager.

[Check out the top 10 companies for veterans]

Gieber shares her experiences and observations about making the move from the military to the civilian workforce:

“Military culture is much more rigid than civilian work culture.”

I remember on my first day in my new job at Alpine Access after returning from my deployment, I was given a tour of the office. As we were walking around my guide was referring the executives by their first names, which was completely foreign to me after being in the Army. Taken aback, I asked her, “How should I address [CEO] Chris Carrington?” She said, “Well, everyone just calls him Chris.”  For me that really epitomized the difference between the military culture and civilian culture. In the Army you never address a person by first name.

I have also found I have much more autonomy in the civilian work culture. In my current position at Alpine Access, I am able to balance work, home and school because of the flexibility in my schedule. In the Army I had very little latitude to make decisions both at work and around how to balance work and personal life.

“It was strange adjusting to an environment where I didn’t feel like I was going to be told to do push-ups at any given moment.”

Becoming accustomed to speaking freely and getting over the nearly incessant fear of being scolded for not being in compliance with any one of the many codes that a soldier must adhere to – dress-uniform codes, properly addressing a superior, base rules — took some time. Looking back, I’m sure I must have seemed odd to my coworkers as I settled in; however, the transition from active military service to a desk job is just not as easy as it may seem.

“The interactions in the military are more scripted and structured.”

There’s a rhythm and a predictable set of outcomes in nearly every military interaction. In the Army I was a specialist, E-4, which is considered “lower enlisted,” so most of my interaction took place at the position of “parade rest” and using ranks to refer to my superiors. I also grew accustomed to filtering my thoughts and speaking formally.

When working with civilians I share my opinions both with coworkers and superiors with less formality. When I started out at Alpine Access, I had some ideas about how we could improve attrition on one of our accounts, so I put all of my thoughts in to a Word document and sent in on to the COO. I was astounded at first when,  he actually looked at it and second, told me he thought my ideas were good. In the military, I would not have had an opportunity to engage in a dialogue with a one-star General.

“The advancement process is significantly more structured in the military.”

For an enlisted advancement, depending on the branch, a test and an oral board are required. Then once the test and/or oral board have been passed the actual promotion is based on a points system. In the civilian workforce it is generally through applying for a promotion or simply by being given a promotion by a superior due to solid and consistent performance.

Three bits of advice from Gieber:

1. Remember: You’re not in the military: You cannot treat civilians the same as military because they won’t respond well. It’s important to take a more gentle approach.

2. Be personable: In the civilian workforce, people have choices about who they give their business and respect to which is different than in the military where you are assigned people and services without choice. Being personable, which is not how most operate in the military, can go a long way towards building your career.

3. Spending less is good: Be conscious of spending throughout your decision making. In the Military budgets are meant to be spent not conserved. In fact, Military budgets are used in their entirety to ensure the same amount of money is received the following year. Yet in the civilian workforce people are praised for coming in under budget.

This post was provided by CareerBliss

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It's Memorial Day today, so Gallup released a relevant poll revealing that Mitt Romney has a distinct advantage among U.S. veterans. This falls in line with veterans' voting lines over the past few elections, in which they usually trend Republican.

But Romney has an even bigger lead over Obama with veterans — 58 percent to 34 percent.

The poll is also noteworthy because it displays a shift from a Reuters/Ipsos poll in mid-May that showed Obama was leading the veterans vote by as much as 7 percentage points. 

Gallup's sample is based on 3,327 veterans that also said they were registered voters while being contacted for Gallup's daily tracking poll. 

Veteran men, which make up most of the veteran population, account for an even more distinct difference. They prefer Romney almost 2-to-1 — 60 percent to 32 percent. Veteran women choose Obama by a 47 percent to 42 percent vote.

Veterans account for about 13 percent of the population. Veterans in past elections have gone Republican. But recently, it has been at least somewhat close. John McCain, a Vietnam War veteran, got 54 percent of the veteran vote to Obama's 44 percent in 2008. George Bush, who was in the midst of leading the U.S. as commander in chief during two wars in 2004, won 57 percent of the vote.

Gallup points out that this will be the first election since World War II in which neither candidate is a veteran. Here's some analysis from editor in chief Frank Newport of why veterans may be trending more Republican this year:

Men who serve in the military may become socialized into a more conservative orientation to politics as a result of their service. Additionally, men who in the last decades have chosen to enlist in the military may have a more Republican orientation to begin with.

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In an already dismal month for jobs data, with national unemployment rising to 8.2% after a miserable jobs report, the Bureau of Labor Statistics also reported that unemployment has hit 12.7% for veterans who served in the military since 2001.

This is a jump up from 9.2%, the unemployment rate for recent vets in April. May's figures were disastrous all around, but hit recent veterans much harder than the general workforce or veterans measured as a whole (7.8% unemployment). 

The Department of Veteran's Affairs has tried to push a bill — a GI education benefit — which would grant assistance to veterans returning home. 

Take a look at the unseen USS Intrepid >>

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The trouble began when Sgt. Joel Morgan was turned away from an apartment by an anti-war landlord who allegedly argued his service and her beliefs presented a "conflict of interest." 

Now Morgan, a veteran of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, has filed a civil rights lawsuit against the landlord, Janice Roberts, CBS Boston reports.

In it he alleges Roberts left him a voicemail saying, "because of what you told me about the Iraq war ... we are very adamant about our beliefs ... it's just not comfortable for us ... and I'm sure now that you know this, it would not be comfortable for you."

"It really freaked out—is this what I'm going to be facing?" he told CBS. "Should I not let people know that I'm a combat vet?" 

Landlords can have any number of reasons not to rent you an apartment, but under Massachusetts law, Morgan's status as a war vet shouldn't have been one of them.  

If you're concerned about a landlord discriminating against you based on gender, race or ethnicity, look out for the warning signs. Per YM contributor BrickUnderground, here's how to tell when a landlord is sizing you up in unseemly ways: 

1. He asks if you plan to have kids or more of them. 

2. He asks where you're originally from. 

3. He asks if you'll need any "extra assistance." This is a coy way of finding out just how big of a burden a tenant might be for the landlord. 

4. What kind of cuisine do you like to cook? If the landlord's asking whether or not you cook with curry, steer clear. "If the candidate is of obvious foreign descent this could be seen as evidence of discrimination based on national origin." 

Now check out the pros and cons to renting your own pad in NYC > 

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A caregiver for a 78-year-old army veteran was arrested after allegedly forging $880 worth of her client's checks, police say.

Morgan Musgrave, 23, of Deep Creek, Fla., had been an employee of Granny Nannies, a home health care company, and her first and only client was 78-year-old Lloyd Young, reports Colleen Hogan from Fox News.

Young, who is nearly blind, relied on Musgrave to help him write checks. She allegedly broke this trust and took some checks out of the book while he wasn't looking, he told Hogan.

In his response to Musgrave's arrest, Young told NBC, "This is terrible to say. Don't trust anyone anymore."

Unfortunately, Young's story is nothing out of the ordinary as cases of elder financial abuse abound.

Seniors lost more than $2.9 billion to scammers in 2011, according to a MetLife report, a figure that's up 12 percent since 2008 and would most likely be higher if all fraud was actually reported.

In an effort to protect vulnerable Americans, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has launched a task force that will seek input on better ways to help seniors decide whom to trust as they seek help managing finances.

Information on how to submit your input to the CFPB can be found here.

DON'T MISS: These facts will make you terrified to buy drugs online >

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The cost of unemployment compensation for troops leaving the military without jobs approached a billion dollars last year, though the rate of increase slowed to just 2percent over 2010, figures from the Department of Labor show.

A key factor behind the trend easing was that the Army, the largest of the services, saw the benefits it pays out decline slightly from 2010 to 2011.

The military spent $944 million last year in unemployment benefits -- the largest amount since the recession of 2008.

Federal law since 1991 has provided unemployment compensation for servicemembers if they leave active duty with an honorable discharge and are without a job.

Seventeen percent of former active-duty servicemembers or deactivated National Guard and reservists were out of work in the last three months of 2011. The unemployment rate was 13percent in May.

But the average weekly number of former full-time military members receiving checks keeps climbing from between 20,000 to 25,000 in 2008 to about 40,000 through June of this year, according to the Department of Labor.

The Army reported a 4 percent decline in unemployment money paid out last year.

The pattern of Army payouts has "pretty much flattened out," says Walter Herd, director of the program for transitioning soldiers out of the military.

Hikes in benefits to former sailors, airmen and Marines in 2011 drove the overall cost last year to a record level.

Several factors are behind the Army's success, Herd says. Fewer numbers of National Guard and Reserve troops are being sent into combat, with U.S. combat involvement in Iraq over and the Afghanistan War winding down, so fewer face disruption in their civilian employment.

The Army is also more aggressively screening unemployment compensation applicants to ensure eligibility, and has lengthened to 12 to 18 months the period in which it begins assisting outgoing soldiers in looking for work, Herd says. "The driving force behind this process is really to better prepare soldiers for the next stage in life," Herd says.

Gay Gilbert, director the Labor Department's office of unemployment insurance, said the department is also working with the Army and four states -- Georgia, Texas, North Carolina and Illinois -- to better link former servicemembers who apply for unemployment benefits with government programs aimed at helping them find jobs.

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I slept like a baby in Iraq.

In the five years since I got back, I haven't slept well.

The first two years were the worst. Constant pain in my neck and back. I thought it was my bed.

Well, last night was the fourth night in a row that I slept soundly without any form of self medication.

I hope you smiled at that last point because even as I read it over, I do.

Self meds are the rocks in a mountain stream. These obstacles make the flow interesting, but enough of them will stop the flow all together.

Think about the type of flow required for room clearing ops during close quarters battle. If you don't know anything about CQB, look around your living room and imagine it full of terrorists.

Now imagine that there are 4 high speed 11 bravos stacked outside your door.

Now blink.

In that amount of time, those four SMBRs flood each section of the room, light on their feet, fingers dancing on triggers, all obstacles get a double tap.

All clear.

If only civilian life were so clear cut.

For me, that double tap turned into different variation of a double shot.

At the bar: Jack neat, beer back, HOOAH.

Part of the reason I liked drinking was because it helped me sleep.

I wouldn't drink to get wasted on any regular basis, but I did feel the need to drink daily because I was afraid that if I didn't, I wouldn't fall asleep.

I tried not drinking and using Tylenol PM, which helped, but quite honestly drinking a shot of Russian Standard Vodka was much more enjoyable.

Like I said, I wouldn't get wasted but five years of this creates a lot of rocks.

I don't credit last weeks post with solving the problem, but I do think it did something.

I guess this post is another rock I'm moving from my flow.

I was ashamed of the amount I drank. I rationalized it because I never got sloppy drunk and it helped me sleep.

But waking up this morning after day four felt pretty friggen HOOAH.

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Republican Congressman Joe Walsh got into a shouting match with CNN host Ashleigh Banfield this afternoon as Walsh doubled down on controversial comments he made about his Democratic challenger Tammy Duckworth. 

Walsh, who is facing a tough election after Illinois' redistricting, has come under fire this week for saying that Duckworth, a former Blackhawk helicopter pilot and double-amputee war veteran, is not a "true hero" because she has made her military experience central to her campaign.

Asked today if he regrets his comments, Walsh vigorously shook his head, and said, "Oh, God no...I'm not going to back down from anything."

"No, Ashleigh, this wasn’t a slip-up," he continued. "I don’t regret anything I said. Understand me: Every man and woman who’s worn the uniform is a hero in my book. I’ve said that thousands of times.”

Quickly, the two started loudly talking over each other for several minutes. Banfield, clearly fed up, finally tried to put Walsh in his place: "Congressman, do you want to hear it, or do you just want to rail on me?"

But Walsh definitely didn't get the message.

Watch the entire clip below, courtesy of Talking Points Memo:

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