Kitsap Navy News August 19, 2011

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COVERING PUGET SOUND NAVAL NEWS FOR BREMERTON | BANGOR | KEYPORT

NAVY NEWS Kitsap

VOLUME 1, NO. 21 | 19 AUGUST 2011

www.kitsapnavynews.com

Levy costs not as told Commissioners cite ballot costs for vets and homeless levy at three times est. amount By GREG SKINNER gskinner@kitsapnavynews.com

For months, the cost of November’s countywide vote on a proposed levy to fund

SEE LEVY | PAGE 6

THIS EDITION Rudy Muriel, a formerly unemployed veteran who now helps others in their search for work, teaches a class at Worksource Kitsap Monday. TOM JAMES/STAFF PHOTO

Vets face dilemma

Veterans struggle to transfer credentials to civilian world By TOM JAMES

tjames@kitsapnavynews

Despite federal action, Kitsap County veterans face difficulties transferring military experience and job-specific qualifications into the civilian world.In some cases to issue extendes periods of unemployment. Veterans at a recent “listening session” held the Chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Veterans Affairs senator Patty Murray voiced frustration over job access issues, according to Pete Cholometes, commander of the Veterans of Foreign

Wars 239, the post where the session was held. Cholometes said that several participants claimed to have been passed over for skilled work in Washington in favor of applicants with less experience, primarily because those record of experience or credentials weren’t recognized by the state and local civilian employers. Problems frequently arise, said Midge Joiner, a veterans’ employment specialist with Kitsap County Worksource, from the fact that military job titles can be ambiguous, and often do not specify exactly what a service member did on a day-to-day basis in the military. The result, Joiner said, is that a service member might in reality have several years of experience with a given trade or a certain type of equipment, but after their discharge be left without documents showing anything other than his or her rank and pay

grade. Compounding the ambiguity is the size of the military and the nature of deployments that send service members around the world, making it difficult to locate supervising officers who, even if they do remember a service member well enough to give a reference, may be difficult or impossible to locate outside of the military. Steven Warnick, an eight year veteran about to leave the Marine Corps, said he feels he has a good chance of finding a job in his field, security, outside the military, but that his search has been made harder by the fact that his military security qualifications don’t meet requirements set out by civilian employers. “It’s kind of frustrating,” said Warnick, “Because I’ll look at a job, and I’ll be like, ‘I’ve done this before,’ but then I’ll get down to those prerequisites and it will list a lot of

SEE VETERANS | PAGE 8

Tom Rogers, retired sub Capt. turned protestor ....pg. 2 Sen Murray listens to veterans .................pg. 3 Been there, done that| Sarah Smiley ....................pg. 4 USS Manchester crushes Korean coast .........pg. 5


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