All across America and around the world, this is Veterans Radio.
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I am Jim Fossone.
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We want to welcome to Veterans Radio today Dr. Kenneth Hartman.
He's here to talk about a great national program called Our Community Salutes.
Dr. Hartman, welcome to Veterans Radio.
Hey, Jim, it's an honor to be with you and to have a few words with your listeners.
Well, we're glad to have you on.
Kenneth is a e-learning authority, a former university professor.
He's run online college courses and programs.
And as a former Army officer, he's got degrees from the State University of New York, from
Michigan State University, and the University of Pennsylvania.
And all those confluences came together because he kind of not only has education and military,
but understanding kids, and in 2009 in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, lightning struck.
And you thought, you know what, here's something I should be doing.
Tell us how our community's salutes came about.
Yeah, it really was lightning.
Actually it was a moment of weakness when I agreed to serve in our local school board
here, and it was on that school board that I discovered that we were doing nothing to
recognize and honor the kids who were graduating from our high schools and who were enlisting.
The kids who were going off and doing ROTC like I did a million years ago, and certainly
the kids going off to the academies, they got recognized, and their moms and dads were
made to feel special.
But for the small number of kids, those parents, literally I saw them going underground because
they were tired of defending their son or daughter's decision to serve.
I'm sure in communities like yours, when people ask a son or daughter, what's your son doing
next year, and they would say, well, what college is he going to?
Is he going to Michigan State, Michigan?
And parents would say, here, no, no, no, he's going to the Army, and they would hear, what?
Army, what happened?
Are you okay with that?
So I decided to do something about that, so I held our first event in the May of 2009.
I wasn't sure how I was going to pay for it, where I was going to have it, who was going
to come, but I wanted to honor all the kids in our county, and that was the first year.
We had this tremendous event.
I got 60-some-eyed kids, about 200 people.
I found a retired one-star in my community.
And what happened over the past 15 years is the word has gotten out about what we've
done, and we've grown.
We've grown from one community to 20 communities to 30 communities to 40 communities to 50
communities all over the country.
And as you know, right there in Detroit, we've had a ceremony for the kids from Detroit,
who are enlisting for upwards of the last five or six years.
So yeah, it's been quite a movement over the last 15 years.
Well, this supports not only the kids, but as you say, their families, their parents,
this important decision that's getting made by fewer and fewer of us in the country.
But did it start out to support the kids or the parents?
How did you think it would develop?
Both.
You know, like I said, I saw these parents literally going underground, tired of defending
their mom's dead decision.
Again, back in 2009, these kids were still going off the war.
And so it was critically important to do that.
I should tell you also that I had a very good friend of mine at that time, whose son went
to the Marine Corps and was delayed going to college, decided to go to the Marine Corps.
And in the first month, he was in Afghanistan.
He was killed by a suicide bomber.
And when he came home, everybody in the community turned out to rally around this kid and his
family.
But the mother told me at the time that there was nobody there when he decided to enlist.
In fact, they questioned his decision.
So our motto is the first to say thank you.
And so that very reason.
But so it was about the kids, it was about the parents, it was about our nation and the
need for these young people to be willing to stand in the watch tower.
So the rest of us have the liberties and freedoms that we enjoy.
Oh, absolutely.
We have to encourage these kids who sign up and support their families because these are
hard decisions.
And we're such a social media visual society now.
When a kid decides he's going to play baseball or softball at the local college or community
college or maybe it's a division one, there's a big signing day and there's photographs
taken.
It's a big deal.
But you know, I sort of see what you're trying to do with our community of solutes,
somewhat in that same vein.
Absolutely.
And people have called this kind of their signing day, their signing ceremony.
And I think that's great because it does bring that recognition to them and their families.
And that a D1 athlete would get.
Or you certainly know, Michigan State or Michigan has a new student reception.
They get that.
So yes, it is their signing day, so to speak.
Now is this done in conjunction with or supported by or totally separate from whatever the
military recruiters are doing in a given area all across the nation?
Great question.
So we work very closely with the recruiting commands.
In fact, I just yesterday, as a matter of fact, had a briefing with the new incoming
commanding general for Army Recruit.
So we work very closely with them at a national level.
In fact, many of those commanders speak that the commanding general for Air Force Recruiting,
Major General Thomas was the speaker at my ceremony here in South Jersey this past May.
And the reason why these recruiters at local national level are involved with OCS is not
only because it's a good thing, but what they have found is that the kids who come to our
ceremony, nearly 100% of them actually get on the bus.
And so it helps them with retention.
Again, you can't come to our ceremony unless you've already taken that oath.
But when they do and they're surrounded by people like you and your listeners, the moms
and dads and the kids finally get it.
And they get on the bus and they do very, very well.
So we rely on them.
We honor them.
We have all sorts of awards for them for their support.
But that's the relationship between the individual communities and the recruiting commands.
Well, it's really is complementary.
And as you say, you've been doing this long enough that you've got some data now.
And for, I'll call you an old educator, for an old educator, data is really important,
isn't it?
I like to refer to myself as a recovering educator.
But you now have some data that really helps prove the point not only in getting these
kids on the bus, but sort of the return on investment to making that decision about joining
up as well.
Yeah, we do.
And this past May, we had a giant ceremony in Boston where the chief of staff of the
Army, General McConville, was the future military speaker and 750 people.
There were 350 some odd kids at Gillette Stadium in Boston.
And so there you have the chief of staff of the Army seeing firsthand the impact and the
tears in the parents' eyes.
And he got it.
In fact, I'll be meeting with him in the Pentagon on the 23rd of September to talk about
what the Army could do to further support OCS.
But yeah, the challenge is always is that, as you know very well, people change commands
every two years.
Recruiters turn over every two years.
Community generals return over two years.
So I'm constantly finding myself educating our elected leaders and our military leaders
themselves on what we do.
Well, and the type of recruit has really changed over the years too, because what we need,
you know, back in my day, there was no cyber force.
There was, you know, we need, you know, kids who are smarter, more analytical, more technology
driven.
And I think that's probably also somewhat interesting to see when these kids get together
at your events that they have a lot of commonality and interest that they might not think they
otherwise had.
Absolutely.
Yeah, and today, unlike, you know, in our day, they're offering these kids anywhere between
10 and $50,000 signing bonus.
I saw a thing on the news the other day, NBC reported that the Navy is offering upwards
of $100,000 signing bonus for certain MOSs, certain technical MOSs as well.
So you know, there is a tremendous pathway for these young people if they choose to take
that.
And talk a little bit about the article you recently wrote, the op-ed on that kind of
compared the college and high school decision making.
Hey, I'm going into college or I'm going off to the military and the return on investment
on that decision.
Yeah, sure.
Anybody can read it by going to our website at OCSUSA.org.
That's OCS Oscar Charlie Sierra, OCSUSA.org.
It's on our website.
You know, as I said, as a recovery university president, I got tired of everybody saying
everybody's got to go to college.
And this is long before the discussion now about forgiving student loans came about when
I wrote this thing.
But it shows really what the ROI is.
Four years in the military because 75% of the kids who will listen to the military today
will only serve for four years.
That's it.
And they're getting out.
So if you compare what a four-year college degree offers and what, and the amount of
debt, the lack of actual, any meaningful real work experience compared to a person getting
four years of military experience, oftentimes getting secret clearance, making money, and
then getting out and basically having the GI bill that will pay for all of their education
plus housing, it's hard to argue against the ROI versus one verse the other.
And again, I'm not suggesting that everybody should serve the military, not at all.
Unfortunately, however, only 8% of young people today have even an interest in doing that
and less than 23% are even qualified to do that.
But it does provide people a perspective.
You know, one of the things we do at our ceremony all the time here locally is we always bring
back a kid who was a senior the year before.
It's been an activity for one year.
We make sure we bring back a soldier, a sailor, an airman, or a marine who has already earned
just from their military schooling alone in the first year, upwards of 60 college credits,
ace approved American College of Education, ace approved college credits, because we want
the parents to see that just by going into military, just by completing your military
schooling your first year, you could earn upwards of 60 college credits that you can
apply, almost in a social degree.
So you go back to the RRI, right?
One person is paying for those 60 degrees.
The other person is being paid to get the 60 degrees, 60 college credits.
It's really surprising.
It's really eye-opening when you look at it.
Yeah, it's really surprising how much training in whatever field you get put into or want
to get into that the military will do for you.
That's really what they do is they shape young folks, get them through that growing up period,
train them up whether they're going to be in the medical field or a diesel mechanic or
a jet mechanic or in the cyber area.
There's just a whole lot of training that goes on that's so valuable for down the road.
How many communities are involved in this, our community solutes program?
So we've had upwards of 60 communities across the country, including Puerto Rico.
And this past year we had two events in U.S. Virgin Islands, both in St. Croix and St.
Thomas.
You know, it goes up and down depending upon the volunteers.
Some years we've gone dark, some years we've come back because it truly is a grass-treed
effort and we rely on our volunteers to do that.
But I have to tell you, breaking news, we just received a significant grant from a foundation
to really scale up OCS over the next three years.
So we're going to be looking for communities around the country who are interested in working
with us to make sure that these young people, remember there's only about 150,000 kids in
a good year that make this decision.
And so if we as a nation can't figure out a way to make sure they have their signing
day and they get that recognition, then we're bigger problems, bigger trouble than we all
care to admit.
So we're really excited about this grant that we received, literally just found out
about last week.
And we're in the process now of putting together the team to rapidly expand what we're doing
across the country.
There you go.
We're breaking news with Dr. Kenneth Hartman, founder of our community salutes, Army Veteran,
Educator, and really on to something that I think was sorely missing, and that is to
give those 150,000 kids their signing day and to make sure that they understand their
community supports them going into the service and will be there to support them when they
come out of service as well.
Jim, can I offer your listeners one easy way to recognize these kids?
Absolutely.
If they come to our website, we have a virtual thank you card that they can sign.
We've started it, just started for the class of 2023.
They can go under our website, sign that virtual thank you card to the class of 2023.
Our goal is to get 1 million Americans to sign that virtual thank you card by the 4th
of July.
So that's an easy way at OCSUSA.org, and they can sign it and they can add a little comment
or thoughts.
It will go a long way.
And if you go to the website, go over and get at the top, there'll be a button that says
get involved, and that's where you can click on to click on the thank you card, as well
as learn more about our community's salutes and all the good work that they are doing.
If you wanted to get involved with your local community and said, hey, I see it's in the
communities, it shows that there's one here in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
How do I get myself involved if I'm down there in Baton Rouge or even maybe I want my kid
to know that he should go do this?
Yes.
Just come to the website, there's a form that you can fill out.
We get them all the time from people that are interested in getting involved or supporting
their local event, and we respond to those as soon as we get them.
But if people want to write to me directly, they can reach me at simply at kenken at OCSUSA.org.
That's ken at OCSUSA.org.
You can email me directly and I'll put you in touch with our local community leaders.
So there's really no excuse if you're out there, you're a parent, a grandparent, an
uncle and aunt, and you know your relative's going to join up in the spring.
Maybe he's already committed to get him involved in this kind of local thank you at your local
community level so that, again, going in, he or she appreciates, hey, my community does
support me and that's the whole idea between our community's salutes.
Jim, one of the things we have found is that smart businesses, smart colleges know that
these kids are going to be very quickly getting out of the military after 48 months, or maybe
a little longer than that.
And if you want these young people to come back with all of those skills and all of that
maturity to work for you or to go to school at your institution, now is the time when
they're going in that you begin to express that appreciation because they will remember
it in a few years' time.
And I'm looking at some of these and some of them have the ceremony posted and maybe
the agenda posted.
So for a local community that isn't on your list and isn't doing this yet, but somebody
out there in the veteran radio listening audience because we're hitting a national audience
says, hey, we ought to be doing something like this, why aren't we?
Can they reach out and say, hey, I want to start one of these in my community?
Yes.
There is a forum on our website.
They can complete.
Just the example, I just got one yesterday from Jacksonville, North Carolina.
And I'll be talking with her tomorrow at 2 o'clock.
We had a new, we had a meeting not too long ago with about a dozen communities around
the country, San Diego, a couple in Colorado.
So just go throughout that forum and we'll get back to you to set up a conversation.
We've got everything you need, all the materials, the run a show, everything you need to do
a phenomenal event in your community.
You just need to have about five people willing to help you make it happen and we'll work
with you on that.
Yeah.
We don't want to scare people off in doing this because as you say, it only takes maybe
five dedicated folks and it's not a big budget item.
I mean, this is a volunteer grassroots effort to put these on on a given day and generally
probably in May or June, right?
Correct.
And again, we have ceremonies that are 750 people and big extravaganza.
Those are nice.
And then we have ceremonies where we have under 100 people and 25 kids.
And the moms and dads, big brownies and the pasta and they do that to a local gym.
It really doesn't matter where, it doesn't matter how, it's just you only get one shot
to thank these kids, right?
They only graduate once and they only go off to boot camp once.
And so it's terribly important to take advantage of that opportunity when it presents itself.
Well, again, a very simple idea, which is often the foundation of a solid program is
just if it's simple enough, we can all get it.
And I think this is the sort of thing that everybody gets.
You know, most of us didn't get sent off with any kind of maybe the family pedagogy
on the back, but that was about it.
So this is sort of a communal event where the community really gets involved and you're
not standing there alone, but with a number of other folks who are joining up that day
is really, I imagine a pretty special event, isn't it, Ken?
It is.
I tell people short of the birth of your children and your marriage and your kids' marriage,
you know, it is such an emotional event that you have to experience it to believe it.
It's just such this pent up love that these kids and particularly their moms and dads
are willing to share with people, but they're not typically surrounded by people who understand
or even know how to appreciate the decision that their son or daughter is going to.
Our culture is all about going to college, going to college, going to college.
And that's fine.
It's meant for some people.
But there are people who are delaying that college experience, willing to be in the watchtower
so their fellow classmates can do that right after high school.
And for those kids, this is their opportunity.
For those families, this is their opportunity.
And for those communities, this is their opportunity to be the first to say thank you.
So yeah, we don't need to make it any more complex than it is.
Well, and one of the things that's happened in our country is that military recruits tend
to come from the south where there are bases or there's a family history of military service.
And this is a great way to broaden that out.
You certainly have ceremonies in areas like Detroit, Michigan where there's no base or
in Indiana.
I don't see any in Illinois.
Come on, Illinois.
We need you to get involved here.
You know, Wisconsin, some areas where, again, there's not a deep rooted pool.
And those kids probably need more support than anybody else.
So let's go to the website, OCSUSA.org.
Let's click on where there were ceremonies in 2022.
And let's generate some more communities all around the country that help support this
great program.
Ken, you mentioned you got a nice grant.
That's wonderful.
But if people like this idea and want to help out, how do they do that as well?
Oh, absolutely.
They can come to our website and make a donation.
One of the things where there's a button there, one of the things that we're pushing for is
helping us support our, we give a little 96-page guide to our nation's founding documents
that are history.
It's a little pocket guide that we give to all the way to the kids.
And with Constitution Day, National Constitution Day this Saturday, we are trying to get people
to help us support that initiative to make sure these young people have this little pocket
guide with them so they understand what they've taken an oath to defend and protect.
And if they're interested in helping us to do that, make a donation for every $50 they
donate will send that will help us to give 50 of these away.
We'll send them a copy of it as well.
Again, it's so important these days for these kids to understand the Constitution, to understand
their founding documents, to understand the history of our nation.
And we unfortunately, they don't get that in high school.
So we're trying to provide them with this resource.
So on our website, you can learn all about our pocket guide to our founding documents
and how you can support that.
And one last thing that I wanted to mention is you have a Colin Powell Award for guidance
counselors who really have helped out.
Tell us a little bit about that.
And there could be nobody better named this name for than General Colin Powell, who we
all know.
But we may also not know that he spent his post retirement years really supporting higher
education in New York.
So tell us about this award.
Why the honor of meeting him way back in the very beginning of 2009.
And when I asked him if we could name an award after me, he said yes.
And this award is really intended to strengthen the relationship between the high school guidance
counselors and the local military recruiters.
Because after all, counselors tend to be the gatekeeper.
And so this award allows the local military recruiter to nominate a high school guidance
counselor who's going above and beyond the call of duty.
And they submit a form to their local OCS planning team.
And then that team selects one, two or more school counselors to be honored at that event.
And again, strengthening that relationship, strengthening, allowing them to meet and get
into these schools.
We're looking right now actually for a sponsor to help us to do a new award where we would
honor high school science and math teachers.
Because again, as you indicated earlier, many of these new jobs that the military has are
very technical and we need kids who have an interest in a talent in science and math.
And so we're looking at a new award this spring that and someone helped us to present this
award, companies, businesses, individuals, so that these recruiters can also nominate
a science math STEM teacher, if you will, to be recognized and honored at these events.
Oh, that's a great idea.
I want to thank Dr. Ken Hartman, founder and president of our community salutes.
We're spending a little time with Veterans Radio today.
Again, I encourage all of our listeners to go to OCSUSA.org to find out more and get
involved and maybe bring this event to your community to support those who are joining
our military and make sure they and their family feel supported on the way into military
service.
Ken, thanks.
If you're in the room while they're there, they can check out our new virtual Patriot
Wall that we just started, thanks to the support of USAA.
We're putting up pictures of the kids that the parents are sending to us, of those who
attended our ceremony this past spring.
And then we're asking these parents to send us their pictures of their sons or daughters
at their basic training graduation ceremony.
Oh, that's great.
We're going to show before and after and make sure that America sees these young people,
who they are before and after, and help them reconnect on that.
So, kudos and thanks to USAA for helping us to make that happen.
But it's important for people to see these kids now and certainly when they get out.
Ken, thanks for your time today.
We really do appreciate it and keep up the good work.
Thanks, Jim.
And thanks very much to your listeners as well.
I appreciate it.
And I want to thank everybody for listening to Veterans Radio today.
I am Jim Fossone.
It's been a pleasure to be your host.
I'm a Veterans Disability Lawyer at Legal Help for Veterans.
And you can reach us at 800-6934800 or legalhelpforveterans.com on the web.
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