All across America and around the world, this is Veterans Radio.
This is Veterans Radio.
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I am Jim Fossone.
I'm the officer of the deck today.
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We want to welcome to Veterans Radio today Brigadier General Richard S. Miller, retired
Dick Miller's friend of Veterans Radio and has his multiple hats that he wears that
bumps him into our orbit.
He is the president of NVBDC, the nation's leader in certifying veteran owned businesses.
But we're having Dick on today to talk a little bit about his military career and his
position as president of AUSA Region 2.
Dick, welcome back to Veterans Radio.
Well, thank you.
Good morning.
Well, let's start with this.
How does a nice kid from Shelbyville, Indiana end up spending his career in the Army?
And did you have to do this because a judge chased you into it or what?
How'd this happen?
You know, it's funny as you and I are both of the era where I know a guy actually that
that happened to you.
You got a choice, young man.
But no, I graduated from school in 1970 and had no future.
I mean, I didn't have the grades to go to college.
I didn't want to work in a factory and the Army was a good option for me.
And so I joined and which was rare back in 1970 and spent two years was a statutory station
in Germany.
Surprising I didn't get to go to Vietnam, but got out, went to school.
And then in 1980, I walked in the Army recruiter and said, I want to join, rejoin, and I'd
like to go to OCS.
And from Officer Kenneth's school to Brigadier General is quite a climb along the way you
picked up your bachelor's degree from Indiana University and a master's degree from U.S.
War College.
And you've had assignments all over the world.
Right.
And while Germany was the first nice country they sent you to, they found a way to send
you to the sandbox a couple of times as well.
To balance that out.
You know, it's funny about that.
Every assignment I had after that was not a very nice place.
You know, from the jungles of South America to, you know, anyway, I ended up in Afghanistan.
I commanded all of Southern Afghanistan out of Kandahar.
And that was a nice place.
But anyway, yeah, I was very, very lucky.
I was, every assignment I had was a command assignment, which helped develop me for the
next assignment.
And after, after Afghanistan, I was a deputy, deputy chief of staff for the 38th Infantry
Division.
And then ultimately became the deputy commanding general.
And you spent, I think your final tour, if you will, with the Indiana Army National Guard?
Is that correct?
Yeah.
Yeah, I was a deputy commanding general of the 38th Infantry Division.
We had 14,000, 14,100 roughly in that area.
Well, I might not have the math right, but it looks like you spent about what, 34 years
or something in one way or another in the Army.
33.
Okay.
And along the way, picked up all the sort of awards and decks that one might expect from
combat infantry badge up to the Bronze Star, Meritura Service Medal, campaign medals for
Afghanistan, global war on terrorism, Army Commodation medals.
All of that's just to sort of set you up for, I don't know, are we on chapter three or four
of post-retirement, military retirement here.
And your wife is saying, I kicked him out of that kitchen to go do something.
I didn't know it was going to end up like this.
You are spent a number of years working, I'm sure, in a volunteer position initially, with
a USA.
Tell us about a USA, the Association of the United States Army.
Well, much like my military career, I started off with the Association of the United States
Army as a chapter president.
And that was a chapter in Indiana, of all things.
And it's a very, very large, there are 1.8 million members of the Association.
And as a chapter, I think I had 256 people in the local chapter in Indianapolis.
And then they had one in South Bend, Indiana.
And then I was transferred to Michigan for a job change in 1984.
And immediately was asked to join the chapter in Detroit.
And that's kind of where I've been ever since.
But just this is an organization, just for those who are not aware, that lobbies on behalf
of the United States Army, the Army themselves cannot lobby Congress for anything.
It's against the law.
But we have a very, very strong bonds with Congress and the Senate.
And that's what we do, not me personally, but we all within that organization.
But it is a volunteer organization, primarily.
And just like me, most of these folks that serve, they serve because they want to serve
their country and they want to serve their Army.
Well, it's a really inspiring story when you look at a USA's history and it's a nonprofit,
educational, and professional development association that serves not only today's total
Army active duty soldiers, reservists, National Guard veterans, retirees, Army civilians,
and their families.
It's that unique voice because of those 1.8 million members who have affiliation with
the US Army that you have sort of some clout on lobbying or expressing, hey, how do we help
the troops?
And that's really the goal, isn't it?
It is, the soldiers and their families, and by the way, the families have come into recognition
the last 15 years or so.
People understand that if the soldiers aren't happy and the families aren't happy, it affects
their performance.
The region that I'm in, or the president of this second region, we have 415,000 members
to Washington, D.C., Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, Ohio, Tennessee, Virginia, and West
Virginia.
So, when we go visit the hill and we want to go see those congressmen and senators,
when you have 415,000 members, they tend to pay attention to you.
And is this all on national defense policy issues or is it troop pay or mental health?
What issues does AUSA advocate for?
It's all the above.
And as a matter of fact, we were just now developing our 2025 focus areas.
But if you look at it, it's readiness, it's training, it's National Guard state partnership
programs.
It's Army families, civilians, survivors, caregivers, anything having to do with the
soldier and their family.
And housing is a big thing right now.
There's a lot of criticisms.
Some of the facilities are run down.
And personnel pay and benefits, healthcare, housing, childcare, education, Army civilians,
which by the way, there are thousands upon thousands of Army civilians.
So you take Detroit, Tarnac up there.
The vast majority of the people on that base are civilians.
It's really interesting because a lot of these issues are things which the families or the
troops might be reluctant to talk about up the chain of command, worrying about impacts,
maybe on careers.
But AUSA can say, hey, this base housing has mold or these kinds of problems or you're
not putting enough money into clean up environmental issues on base or educational funding for
the schools that the Army runs is slipping.
We got to pull those services up.
So it gives people another way to advocate for, I guess I'd call them sensitive issues?
Oh, yes.
Some of it's just basic day-to-day kind of stuff.
But the other part of it is just that.
Now, the soldier out there, just a normal soldier, is not likely going to be bringing
that stuff up.
Now, the AUSA, for example, Fort Knox is one of mine.
I'll go down and meet with the commanding general at Fort Knox and we'll discuss things.
By the way, not everything's contentious.
Some of it's just basic stuff.
And supportive.
Absolutely.
Right.
What you're able to do at AUSA is be supportive of issues that the Army wants advanced.
Yep.
And then one of the big things right now I mentioned Fort Knox is what you call food insecurity.
You know, that's the big bullet item this year is food insecurity.
There are a lot of these youngsters out there that, you know, the pay isn't that great.
It's not bad, but it's not that great.
And then all of a sudden the guy's got a wife, a couple of kids, and can't barely make ends
meet.
And so we're putting it, again, in our really sophisticated program for food insecurity.
You got to identify them first because a lot of these folks are, you know, embarrassed.
They don't want to talk about it.
But that's where, for example, at Fort Knox, we have a partnership with Denny's.
Denny's is, you know, the restaurant.
Yeah, restaurant chain.
We worked with Denny's down at Fort Knox last November to, they brought in their mobile
kitchen and we fed 900 soldiers in a single day.
Or actually single morning.
And then we gave 250 meals to the Red Cross on post.
So those are some of the kind of things that the AUSA does.
Well, again, those are the sorts of things that I think people don't, you know, it all
happens quietly in the background and the mobile kitchen shows up and nobody's paying
attention to how that happened or why they'd happen.
So getting the word out like this is really important.
Tell us about your region too, and you've told us the states involved in region two
for AISU.
How many regions are there and what does being president of region two deal with on a national
basis?
Well, we have nine regions and we have a Pacific region that's Alaska, Guam, etc.
And then European region, which is Africa, Canada, Europe, Middle East.
And then we have a seventh, which is out west, Scotland, California is its own region.
And then fifth region, Illinois, there's a lot of, we're going to be looking at realigning
this stuff because some of these things just don't make any sense from the geographic standpoint.
Now do each of the region presidents then sit on a national board?
Is there a national governing body?
How does that work?
Yes, each of the regions, we have a seat on the board of directors at the national level
and we attend meetings virtually most, most of the time virtually.
And then once a year we have an in-person, but yeah, we all get together and we all
talk about the major issues affecting our soldiers.
And we actually do speaking engagements, we promote and enhance the associations, goals
and objectives, all that sort of thing.
I spoke at Western Michigan's ROTC program a week ago Friday.
Those are the kind of things that we try to support the overall Army.
Well part of this too is just to get the word out to members, families, hey, there's somebody
who's got your back.
Tons of resources are available on the AUSA website, which is simply ausa.org.
And I noticed that like it has an annual meeting in the 2025 one, it's going to be October
in Washington, D.C. of 2025.
So lots of ways to get involved, a lot of professional development opportunities, which
is really interesting.
And I also found it interesting.
Part of this is AUSA is focused on the total Army.
So there's no distinction here about, oh, you were National Guard, oh, you were a serviced,
oh, you were active duty.
And that cohesiveness is really important, isn't it?
It is, absolutely.
You know, the War on Terror just brought the units together, all throughout the National
Guard Army Reserve, everybody.
You know, when you were looking at the 38th Infantry Division, 100% of our soldiers deployed
during the War on Terror, many of them multiple times.
Yeah, it really changed the way in which National Defense is bolstered by the National
Guard and Reserve.
I don't think people fully appreciated that previously.
And at one point, the 38th Infantry Division, the only organization that had more combat
infantry badges was the 101st Airborne.
The 38th was second.
Well, that talks about the number of tours that it had to endure during that period.
I do notice that there is an area for military families to get information on how AUSA helps
in that regard, so I'd certainly direct people to that.
And I also see that AUSA gives out scholarships, which is something that families are always
interested in as they're trying to get kids maybe through college and possibly that's
also through a trade school, that sort of thing.
Tell us about those kind of hidden programs that AUSA does, Dick, that people might not
know about.
Well, as you said, the military families is a big one.
And the military families with scholarships and all these sorts of things, they have a
woman named Holly Daly that runs the family programs.
And they have stuff going on all the time, training events, forums, events, family resources.
They have a local area wants her to come out with her team.
They'll be happy to do it.
Health and wellness.
The big thing is military spouse career and employment.
Being a spouse become qualified to be able to, for example, help write a resume.
Now the other big thing for families is financial readiness.
Is there's a lot of folks out there that are, especially the young ones, are shy about asking
for help.
And they may need somebody to help them.
As a matter of fact, I know for a fact it was one of the things, helping a young lady
balance a checkbook, if you will.
The child education coalition, there's a number of things that a soldier can reach out and
the USA's got something for them.
Yeah, the financial readiness seems so simple, but we've all been in service with somebody
who is the first time in their life they got a paycheck with some money and they spent
it like drunken sailors.
Yes, exactly.
Speaking of myself.
And it's only later that you said, I should have put a little bit of that away because
there's a time when this ends and I got to go do something else.
But again, it can be as simple as I've never managed money before.
I've never had a checkbook before.
So those kind of programs are really helpful to the young army.
Well, one of the other things that the USA does well is they support children education.
The military educational system is pretty good.
For example, I was again in Fort Knox, their high school is by comparison as good as any
outside the military.
And they take it serious.
So there's a lot of stuff that the USA does.
You mentioned our annual event is in October.
For those who don't know, every defense contractor worldwide comes to this thing.
It's in the convention center downtown Washington, D.C.
On average, there's 30,000 people a day come through this thing.
Holy cow.
Yeah, it's huge.
And we hold our annual meetings.
We have a, like the regions, we all get together.
We meet and if somebody's in one of these chapters or regions and again, if you go to
the website, you can find a chapter near you.
Right.
How does one say, Hey, you know what, I should be involved in this.
How do I become a member of a USA and get involved?
Well you can go out to the, for example, like second region.
You can just go out to the second region area or for example, Detroit, there's the arsenal
of democracy chapter and you can reach the chapters and then just call them up and say,
or email text doesn't matter.
Say, look, I really want to become a member of this.
What do I got to do?
They're always looking for volunteers.
Well it's like most of life, right?
The more you put into it, the more you get out of it.
Right.
As you move forward here, you're probably seeing the insides of the organization a little
bit.
We mentioned at the outset it's a non-profit.
So how does a USA get funded?
Primarily corporate sponsors.
And that's what you'd expect.
A little bit probably comes from membership dues and signing up for events and paying,
going to the annual meetings and those sorts of things.
Well, as a matter of fact, the annual meeting is a big opportunity to gain funding.
But when you're looking at general dynamics, you're looking at McDonald Douglas and these
major corporations, they're, keep in mind, we're a lobbying organization for Congress.
And so they want to make sure that we represent them as well.
Oh, certainly.
Yeah.
And so we have a lot of different weapons systems and things like that and the funding
of programs.
So we're talking to Dick Miller.
He's the president of AUSA Region 2.
He sits on the national board and is giving us some insights into what AUSA does and why
it does it.
Dick, any final comments here that you'd like to make to our veteran radio listeners?
Well, like I said, the AUSA is an organization supporting our soldiers, their families, pay,
you know, healthcare, all of those things that support the United States Army.
Very complex program.
Professional development.
I mean, you know, meetings and events, publications, by the way, they put out a really nice magazine
every month.
But nope.
AUSA is a long-term, wonderful, wonderful job supporting our soldiers and we'll hopefully
continue.
So I'm going to direct people to ausa.org.
Hit the About Us click on button there.
It'll show you where you can jump over to join AUSA.
I think you'd find it very beneficial if you want to continue your service to the country
and service to the United States Army by being supportive.
Dick, General Miller, we appreciate the time that you've made available for Veterans Radio
today to talk about AUSA.
Well thank you again and look forward to working with you in the future.
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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