What advice would you give to the next veteran or Family Member . Our phone lines are a bit different this morning, veterans from Family Members from world war ii and the korean war, that number is 202 7488000. Veterans from iraq and afghanistan, 202 7488002. All others can call in that 202 7488003. You can catch up with us on twitter or facebook. It is memorial day in washington dc and we want to hear from our viewers this morning. That question, tell us about your transition from military to civilian life. First, the numbers on veterans making that transition. From the Washington Post. About 2. 4 million active and river and reserve members left the u. S. Forces and returned to life. Another one million, most of whom are post9 11 veterans, will have made the transition from 2014 to 2019. In 2009, Veterans Affairs implemented the new post 9 11 g. I. Bill which has resulted in more than one million veterans going back to school. In response to legislation in 2011, the pentagon of Veterans Affairs have helped institute a mandatory 40 hours of instructor led training to help active, reserve and guard veterans with their transition. We went to hear your stories in the first 45 minutes. Here is one story from the times herald. This in a piece on their website about Navy Lieutenant jessica schafer, who after climbing the military ranks for 17 years retired from the navy. It was a forced downsizing. She was interviewed by the paper and said, the navy was my life and it was my dream. The people were my family often acting as my surrogate brothers, aunts, uncles, cousins, mothers and sisters. It was those people who kept me going all those years when i had to spend so much time with my own family. Imagine having all that taken away from you. It has been interesting, quite a learning experience. She went on to say it has been progressing slowly but surely. Part of it is learning selfawareness and learning she is without the navy. I knew who i was as an aviator and what i had to do to be good at my job and how to take care of my crew. Trying to figure out who jesse is as a person and a person has been the biggest challenge ive ever had to face. That is the story if you want to read more on it. We want to hear the stories of our viewers this morning. Our phone lines are open. More veterans are likely to make that transition and to some because of new downsizing according to the topeka capital journal. More military members may be looking for jobs as a result of the quiet cuts known as sequestrations that shrinks the army. The story noting that for riley and Fort Leavenworth are among the institutions that could be facing forced reductions. Tell us about your experience. If you are a veteran or Family Member from world war ii or korea, it is 202 7488000 from vietnam it is 202 7488001, iraq and afghanistan 202 7488002, all others 202 7488003. Here is a story from the front page of the Washington Times. Companies help veterans get good jobs. Unemployment still a problem for many of those veterans. It is leading the paper along with several stories about veterans and their transitions today. We especially want to hear from our viewers. Good morning to you. Caller good morning. Everything was easy for me when i came back from vietnam. I finished school and then i went into photography business with a friend of mine who i was on the ship with. We had done some catalogs and i became the Staff Photographer at a school in boston and it was fairly easy. When i first came back i wanted to be a photographer and i called all of them in new york city and all of the studios. I didnt get any jobs, but a friend of mine was working up in boston. It was a fairly easy transition. Host it sounds like something you did on your own. Was there a program that helped you out . Caller no, but my friend richard, he went through what was called a transition where he was being paid by the navy to work a civilian job. He did that for about four months and that translated into me going up there and him coming back down to new york and getting business doing photography. Host we want to hear the stories of both veterans and their families this morning. Dave is up next. Good morning. Caller it was very hard. There were no jobs available. In the veterans did not have treatment at the time. They said that we had shellshocked and there was no treatment. Now they call it posttraumatic stress, but there was no treatment for that. We just suffered from a bad time during world war ii. Let me say that i saw senator isakson from georgia and congressman poll the other night on tv and the only thing they talked about was afghanistan and vietnam and those veterans, where they never mentioned korea and world war ii. There are some of us still alive. I wish someone would answer why everything is around the iraq veterans and afghanistan and vietnam. Some of the world war ii veterans are still suffering from posttraumatic stress. Host before you go, can i ask you, you said the transition was very hard and issues like poster medic stress, if you had the chance to make the decision again, would you still go into the military . Caller sure. I would go in and defend this country. The greatest country in the world. Why shouldnt i defend . Host dave from goldsboro, north carolina. We want to hear your stories. Dave brought up Johnny Isakson the chairman of the center it senate Veterans Affairs committee. He was a guest on our newsmakers program. He talked about the legacy of the war, this being the 40th anniversary of the fall of saigon. Here is him talking about Vietnam Veterans in an interview this weekend. [video clip] i am a product of the vietnam era. I lost some of my best friends. I remember the sacrifices our country went through. Vietnam era veterans found the v. A. Was the only safe haven should go to. We own those veterans everything. The sacrificed and risked their lives. We need to make sure in the latter years of their life they are getting what they deserve. Number of suicide increases is not in the iraqi and new veterans, it is in the Vietnam Veterans. We owed them just as much. I will see to it that they get it. Host if you want to watch that full interview with Johnny Isakson, republican from georgia, you can go to cspan. Org. Here is the front page from todays newspapers around this country. Several stories about veterans and memorial ceremonies. This is the des moines register. It is hard to explain how bad it is in war, you cannot imagine it. Talking about a world war ii veteran and his story, here is the front page from the boston globe, several pictures and the headline, in remembrance. To the front page of the boston globe, the story there, taking a moment to reflect. Jack king stopping by a cemetery to visit the graves of his parents who both died this year. Families across the area remembering their lives in combat. We want to hear from our viewers this morning and your transition from military to civilian life. We have different lines for veterans and families of veterans. Larry on our line for vietnam vets. Caller good morning. Can i make a statement . Host go ahead. Caller [inaudible] my transition was fairly easy. I applied for college while still in the military. I couldnt get a job so i what back tonight school and got another degree. I bought a mobile home. The only reason i could put my mobile home on the lot is because lots were not for sale, because i was a vietnam vet. I have nothing bad to say. Host how would you rate the job of how the government is doing in taking care of its veterans versus veterans today . Caller i think there are a lot of problems that i experienced and we had them back during the vietnam era. Now with the social media and everything, i think it is more troubling today. Host john is up next calling from illinois and the vietnam era. Caller i am from hague wish. Buddy up. I am from vietnam and i joined with three other guys and we all came back and have been by the buddies for 55 years. Use the v. A. System and the vet center system. Everything that the government and nongovernmental organizations do for veterans, get on the bandwagon. But he up and stay in contact with your old teammates. Hug that veteran next to you. You see a guy today and you tell him thank you and he will tell you thank you back. For those who fight for it, freedom has a meeting you will never know. Host do you think that means those who serve in the military are more patriotic than americans who have not served or they dont understand . Caller of course not. But there is a different understanding. There is just a different understanding. We signed that contract and that doesnt make us any higher than anybody else, but what we did was just take that step forward. We are no more patriotic than the next guy but our heart bleeds a little bit harder. Victims harder on days like this and veterans day. You have a great day. Everybody out there have a great day. Host john in hague wish illinois. Glenn, good morning. Caller hi, jon. Good morning cspan. What is the question . Host the transition from military to civilian life, of did a go how did it go for you . Caller three of my friends, a guy who was a Second String quarterback at the university of california berkeley, and is up in canada now. He was in the coast guard and they put him on a ship to be an icebreaker. He got a fake id and two others and they took me and him down to mexico for six months and then we came back and i was in the streets for about 1. 5 years and then i started to settle down a little bit. I married a girl i was with in high school and we had a child and things were pretty good with her, but eventually it didnt work out. The divorce rate is pretty high. I came back to february 5 1968. The big one started january and they shut down all the airports and i said it is my time to go home and they are tearing up the runways. Finally they got the one in saigon opened back up and i was in then walk by then. They were under attack and i was there without a rifle. They put us in a bunker and would not give us a gun. They slaughtered all of the people in the village because they called them collaborators with the american army. Host you might be interested in sticking around for one of our later segments. We will be talking with marvin and deborah on out there book, hunting legacy am a vietnam and the american presidency from ford to obama. We will be talking about how the vietnam war has impacted the decisionmaking of president s since. That is coming up in about 8 30 this morning. In terms of more stats here are some from the bureau of labor statistics on unemployment and homeless rates. The rate in general among veterans is 5. 3 . For those specifically from iraq and afghanistan it is 7. 2 . The homeless rate according to 2014 numbers from the bureau of labor statistics. About 50,000 Homeless Veterans around the country. The Washington Times with the story about what Different Companies around this country are doing for veterans to bring them into civilian jobs. They launched a push to hire 100,000 veterans bring skills to the company and this year there committed to hiring 250,000 veterans and by 2020 any veteran utterly discharged by memorial day has a position at the company. Comcast also launched an Initiative Last week to hire 10,000 veterans or military spouses or domestic partners by 2016. We want to hear from veterans and their Family Members as well. About this transition from military to civilian life. How did he go for you . What advice would you give the next veteran down the line. Up next in somerville south carolina, good morning. Caller my dear daddy served in world war ii and died in 2006. When i would ask him about serving, he always said no war is a good war. Host he didnt think world war ii was a good war, was he prodded his service . Caller he served and he got his masters degree. The fellowship that came from Woodrow Wilson who was the one who came up with the idea of giving College Degrees . Host Franklin Roosevelt . Caller [video clip] he got his masters from that but he had friends and they were just destroyed, their hearts were destroyed from having to serve in battle and that was his statement, no war was a good war. The remember what it was like for you and your family when he first came back . Caller he was kind of a mess. Host what help them . Or did anything . Caller not much. Just life. Thats all i wanted to say was that no war is a good war. Host natalie is up next in texas. Caller i would like to acknowledge my daddy and i would like to acknowledge larry, he had a hard transition and i never to know my daddy. I dont know if he is alive today or where he is at and my uncle larry, he took his life. When my cousin was in her early 20s in front of his entire family because he went back to desert storm and when he came back, he could not handle anything. It was very hard on both of them. Host did they reach out to the v. A. System or fellow veterans . Was there a support network for them . Caller for my uncle larry, im sure that there were. He has children that loved him very much. And family that loves him very much. For my daddy, i dont know. I got to meet him and get to know him for a little while and then he told me that it was time for him to exit my life because the war was too hard on him. That he had loved me all his life. I dont know where he is at now. I hope for our veterans the best. Because they need to be taken care of and they need all of your work today. Host thank you for the call this morning. There is a piece by Meredith Ludlow today in the Washington Post, the headline is about care talking about the families of veterans and the story noting that absent an effective v8 system it is the families fulfilling governments responsibility to care for our veterans. Noting that families need to be the front and center. Goals and metrics of family centered programs should be incorporated into v. A. s Strategic Plan and monitored for performance. Last years v8 performance and accountability report contains nine pages on Burial Service metrics but none on family focused programs. It is the quality of care when they survive not the quality of the headstone when they die. We want to hear from our viewers this morning specifically veterans and members of their families. The transition from military to civilian life. What programs help to and what advice would you give to the next generation of veterans coming along. I want to go to sarah from lawrenceville georgia from the vietnam era. Good morning. Caller my wife and i were both in the navy. I went in 19 69 and she went in 1970. We were married while we were in the navy. Using the g. I. Bill, she was using it for a while while i was still in the navy and then when i got out i went to work for a defense contractor and went to school parttime for eight years until i got my degree and then to accompany selling video equipment. She became a light which and got a masters degree. Host thinking about today and the programs out there, we noted it is a time of budget cuts, you think with veterans programs they are taken care of today . Caller i dont know specifically what it seems to me they have similar programs. They werent quite as generous today as they were then. We didnt have to put any money into the v. A. Benefits. We were just given a stipend once we got out. I think it should be a last thing that they cut. There are a lot of who served us and went to war and lost limbs and will be damaged for the rest of their lives. Host do you think the v. A. Has the right leadership . Caller i think he is trying to do the right thing and is a decent guy and has experienced. We have the right people in charge and maybe we need the right political leaders in charge who appreciate what people have done. Host what do you think about the resignation of the v. A. Secretary . Caller i thought Eric Shinseki was a good guy, i just think he had the ability to do that job properly, for whatever reason. I recall what he did before the iraq war. I thought he was spot on and a great guy, i just dont know if he had the ability to do what needed to be done. That is such a large bureaucracy. It seems like it takes forever to get anything done. You always end up with roadblocks and bureaucracies that will do everything to thwart any efforts. Im not saying that make on all will have that mcdonnell will have an easier road but he has shown a track record of success. If anybody can, he can. If he cannot do it, i dont know what they will do. Host lets go to our lines for iraq and afghanistan. Yvonne is waiting in anderson. How are you . Caller good morning. How are you. Host what was a transition like in your family . Caller it was very hard. It was very touching. It was very hard. When they come back there just a different it was very touching. There supporting thethe v. A. Can do more to support the veterans. I have to put that out there because i think a lot of people think they get a lot of help, but surely they do not. Host what would have helped . Caller especially transitioning from iraq, coming over here. Host more contact, oneonone contact . An earlier caller was talking about encouraging vets to buddy up. Caller more counseling. Most of them do not want to go to counseling. They think theres nothing wrong. However, there is something going on. I think you should urge them to go counseling. They do not think it is natural. Coming back from iraq reconnecting with the family is very hard. That was my experience. It was like taking in a person you do not even know. My two children had a hard time to reconnect to their father. That is what i think there should have been more of a support system out there for the whole family. Host i appreciate the call from anderson, south carolina. We want to hear from veterans and their Family Members and this first such been in this first segment of the washington journal. Last week on capitol hill, iraq and afghanistan veterans of america ceo and founder was on capitol hill. He testified in front of the u. S. House and senate Veterans Affairs committee. He was t