The military trains its personnel well, and the ride-hailing company Uber looks to take advantage of that by recruiting thousands of San Antonio veterans in 2016. By all accounts, it's an arrangement that's beneficial to both parties, KSAT 12 in San Antonio reported.

"They love the flexible work Uber provides, and, as you know, San Antonio has a very large military veteran community," said Chris Nakutis, the company's general manager in Texas.

Both Nakutis and San Antonio Mayor Ivy Taylor were on hand at a Wednesday Work on Demand event, showing current drivers their appreciation and making efforts to recruit more.

"We are focusing on our veterans, military folks, in using this as an employment option for them as they transition out of the military," said Taylor.

At the moment, about 600 former servicemembers are using Uber to make money as they transition into their life after service.

"Unlike a lot of positions that you have to interview for and/or wait for them to call you, as soon as you pass the background check and do all the essentials that Uber qualifies for you to do, you can get going and you work at your discretion. The sky is the limit," Air Force veteran and current Uber driver David Tolliver told KSAT 12.

San Antonio is just a small part of Uber's wider commitment – called UberMILITARY – to hiring veterans and military family members. According to a recent press release, the company hopes to onboard 50,000 military drivers over the next year and a half. 

Uber's partners in the initiative include members of all service branches, a retired four-star general, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen and former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. With minds like these serving as advisors, it's no surprise Uber has realized the value of hiring veterans. 

No one understands the needs of veterans like a fellow veteran, as Jesse Brown of Plymouth, Massachusetts is proving beyond a doubt. A former Marine, Brown established Heidrea for Heroes – a nonprofit organization supplying home and vehicle modifications, equipment, and various other kinds of support to veterans and their families absolutely free of charge – back in 2013 with the help of Matthew Mastroianni, another veteran.

"We're all in this together," Brown told the Boston Globe.

"The end goal is to help vets," Mastroianni, Brown's business partner, added.

Heidrea for Heroes' origins begin in the 1990s, when Brown and Mastroianni served. According to Heidrea's website, Brown was a Marine Corps field radio operator whose service stations included Camp Pendleton and Okinawa, Japan. Mastroianni, also a former Marine, is a veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom. 

In their life after service, the men founded their own construction firm and saw real success before agreeing that they wanted to help other veterans in some way. Heidrea – a combination of Heidi and Andrea, their wives' names – was the result.

So far, the Globe reported that more than 100 veterans in the Plymouth area have been recipients of the nonprofit's efforts.

"We just got a disabled Vietnam veteran in Rockland an all-terrain wheelchair; he had been an avid hunter but can't walk. Now he can get back out into the woods," said Brown. "And that's the whole thing…giving veterans that independence and freedom they're looking for and deserve."

Some of the organization's funds come from the state, but Brown and Mastroianni say they take none for themselves. Every single donation goes straight to helping veterans, some of whom are stubborn about accepting help.

"That self-identification of need can be a problem sometimes – veterans are proud," Brown explained to the Globe. "We let them know we're there." 

ALEXANDRIA, VA—Armed Forces Benefit Association (AFBA) and 5Star Life Insurance Company (5Star Life) announce the January 1, 2016 retirement of Jeffrey Sandefur, Senior Vice President of Marketing.

Sandefur joined AFBA in 1989 as Vice President of Marketing and was named Senior Vice President in November 2000.

Sandefur’s contributions to AFBA include the development of an impressive array of member benefits to accompany the Association’s suite of life insurance products. He also directed the development of the AFBA website and integration of social media.
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Homelessness among veterans is a major issue across the country, but now many large municipalities are trying to do more to address it. One such place is Los Angeles County, where two lawmakers recently proposed a huge program to deal with the problem.

The Home for Heroes program, proposed by county supervisors Don Knabe and Hilda Solis, would cost $5 million and serve 1,000 or more homeless vets in the next year and a half, according to a report from the Los Angeles Daily News. That would include giving incentives to landlords who rent to homeless veterans, grants to cover some of their initial costs, and even something as simple as more beds in shelters specifically for veterans.

"One of the challenges in housing our homeless vets has been identifying housing for them, even when they had a voucher in hand," Knabe told the newspaper. "It was taking vets 90 days or longer to find an apartment."

This is part of a larger initiative to provide more support for the homeless in general, but Home for Heroes receives a special focus for obvious reasons, the report said.

Veterans who are struggling in any way should be on the lookout for programs such as these, offered by private groups as well as governmental agencies.

Many Americans are more than willing to help out veterans in any way they can, and often that includes making unique items for them to use in their everyday lives. One such person in the greater Philadelphia area has been crafting knives for veterans over the last few years.

Scott Durham, of Haddonfield, Pennsylvania, has personally spearheaded his own Honor Your Hero Project, which involves him engraving a metal multi-tool with the names of veterans, and giving it either to the veterans individually, or their families, according to a report from CBS Philly. Included with the tools, particularly those given to families of veterans who died in combat, is a handwritten letter thanking them for their service.

Durham, who receives donations to help cover the cost of the materials and engraving, has made thousands of tools since 2013, including two sent to Presidents George H.W. and George W. Bush, the report said.

"And I don't know 99 percent of these people I send them to," Durham told the station. "They're in Montana. Idaho, Wisconsin. They're everywhere."

This is the kind of thing that many may not know is available, but it's one of the benefits for veterans that can help in their daily lives and better illustrate that people are always there for them.

Veterans entering their life after service often find that one of the hardest parts of communicating with others is that so few have shared their experiences. Clara Reynolds, president and CEO of the Crisis Center of Tampa Bay, told The Tampa Tribune that starting a few years ago, the center received numerous calls from veterans pleading for counselors who understand what they were going through based on personal experience in the armed forces.

Reynolds made sure that their requests didn't go unanswered. Tampa's crisis center now has a dedicated phone service specifically for veterans. If a servicemember calls in from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Friday, they'll find themselves talking to a peer counselor who is also a fellow veteran.

Military training isn't the only thing that makes these counselors so effective. Being able to discuss similar backgrounds and experiences with callers can make all the difference in the world. The program has proven so successful that the crisis center is seeking more veteran volunteers to participate in the effort. 

Former Marine Jamie McPherson told The Tampa Tribune that "There's a stigma in the military culture about asking for help. In the military, you have a buddy to help you back up and we're extending that hand." 

The power of a phone call isn't lost on New York Sen. Robert Ortt, who in partnership with AT&T and Niagara County Veterans Service Agency helped to donate more than 900 cell phones to Cell Phones for Soldiers last month. Niagara Frontier Publications reported that the proceeds from the recycled phones went a long way toward assuring active duty military serving overseas could call home during the holiday season using long-distance calling cards.

There has never been a sign at the Utah border telling veterans to beware, but there may as well have been. For years they've been warned that, because the state is 1 of 16 that doesn't offer its veteran residents an income tax benefit in their life after service, Utah was a poor choice of retirement destination. That may soon change, however.

"Utah was one of the states they said do not move to," Mike Dunn, an Air Force colonel, told Fox 13 in Salt Lake City. "They had one of the things to talk about of where to go and where not to go based upon financial advantages of being in certain states and being in other states."

It was Dunn who brought the issue to the attention of Rep. Lee Perry, who presented house bill 99 to the state legislature this week. The bill amends the tax code to offer military veterans a statewide exemption on retirement income. The proposal would cut $5 to $7 million out of Utah's tax revenue, but Perry takes a practical approach to the matter.

"There are people who have come here, served at Hill Air Force Base, and would like to retire in Utah," he told Utah's NPR station. "If they came back here and retired from active-duty military, they're going to get a second job, and we are going to collect income tax on those jobs, as well as they're going to spend the retirement money on buying houses and cars and all kinds of things, so we can get that money back in sales tax as well."

The Utah legislature will take Perry's measure under consideration at their next general session beginning Jan. 25.

Many groups exist to extend significant help to veterans through healthcare, financial means, or other issues they may be facing in their everyday civilian lives. However, there are some others that can help just by showing they care.

A nonprofit organization in Washington state called Quilts from the Heart aims to provide veterans across the country – and others going through difficult times – with handmade quilts, according to a report from the Colorado Springs Gazette. Since 2003, the group has provided more than 12,000 blankets to individuals and organizations nationwide, with another 500 or so quilts being given to veterans of a number of foreign wars.

"It's the least we can do for what they've done for us," Marilyn Canitz, the founder of the organization who once spent four years as a dietitian in the Army herself, told the newspaper. "Some of them cry. They say the medals are nice but the quilts they can wrap up in."

Canitz added that the group currently has 30 quilts ready to be given away in case a crisis arises, the report said. The group – currently made up of about 15 volunteers – can complete a new quilt in about 10 hours, and finishes somewhere between 10 and 15 per week as a result.

Veterans who are having difficulties of any kind should understand that there are many groups designed specifically to provide benefits for veterans in need. Whether that help is financial, medical, or otherwise, assistance is often just a little bit of research and a phone call or email away. The more veterans and these groups can do to find each other, the better off both are likely to be in the future.

When veterans return home from combat, they may often have difficulties adapting back to civilian life. As a result, many have turned to service dogs as a means of helping them cope, and found a fruitful relationship with that animal that can significantly help them in their everyday lives.

Anecdotally, service dogs are particularly good for veterans who are suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, which often goes undiagnosed but which obviously has very real consequences for those grappling with it, according to a report from Chicago Now. However, the VA no longer provides assistance to veterans who want service dogs, citing a lack of concrete evidence that they help in a tangible way. Unfortunately, that may leave many veterans in a tough position.

"We have the technology to rebuild body parts of injured veterans, artificial hands and legs; but no technology to deal with PTSD," Tracy Libby, author of a book about real-life service dogs and their owners, told the publication.

Fortunately, though, there are multiple organizations that exist specifically to help connect veterans with dogs that have been, or can be, trained to play the service dog role, the report said. The reason this kind of assistance is so important is that while many dogs may be perfectly capable of going through the training, the classes are not cheap and therefore may be very difficult for veterans to afford on their own.

The more veterans who are having various difficulties in their lives can do to reach out for help of any kind, the better off they're likely to be when it comes to dealing with civilian life once again. Many organizations exist to help veterans in a number of ways, and simply seeking them out can be an important first step.

Veterans are already regarded as industrious go-getters, but it may surprise some just how motivated they are to open their own business. 

According to the Miami Herald, veterans – who, at about 21 million, account for 8 percent of the U.S. population – are twice as likely to become entrepreneurs as the average civilian. One in every 10 small businesses started in this country is started by a veteran, and by the SBA's measure, 20 percent of all those employed by a small business work for a veteran.

While veteran-owned breweries and clothing shops make the news more often, most veterans actually open businesses in the finance and insurance industries. Transportation and warehousing; mining, oil and gas; and construction are all also popular. Cornell Crews, an Army veteran and current provider of small business training, told the Herald that in South Florida, lawn care maintenance, personal training and tech repair were other ventures pursed by veterans in their life after service.

"We have veterans who come to us who want to open a restaurant, or a store with a line of clothing, or online stores," said Crews. "We don't turn anyone away as long as it's legal. And if one day marijuana becomes legal in Florida, we'll help those folks as well."

In Florida and just about every other state, veterans have taken advantage of the SBA's Boots to Business initiative. An entrepreneurial training program, Boots to Business is a simple and effective two-step process that has seen real success in helping veterans get their foot into the business world.

The results have been remarkable. The (Minnesota) Star Tribune reported that veterans are now 45 percent more likely to be self-employed than non-veteran civilians, and that from 2007 to 2012, the number of female-owned small businesses has skyrocketed by nearly 300 percent.