Show your support for our Veterans and create jobs by hiring them.

November 10th, 2016

Serving my country taught me a lot! And I’m proud of it.

 

Todays post is by Ron Southard CEO at SafeSourcing Inc.

Veterans Day is tomorrow 11/11/2016

Little did I know that what I am doing today would be directly based on my military education of forty years ago?

When I was in Massachusetts on business a few  years ago I visited my home town in eastern Massachusetts, where much of my family including my parents still lived. Recently our home town dedicated a memorial to veterans of the Korean, Vietnam and Gulf Wars. I had no idea this was taking place, until a friend and fellow veteran sent me a picture of the wall with my name inscribed on it.

Our family has a history of military service, many of my uncles served during WWII, and two if my brothers and I also enlisted as soon as we were old enough. I enlisted in the US Air Force in late 1970 while the war in Viet Nam was still being conducted. I ended up with an AFSC of 645X0 or Inventory Management Specialist. I had no way of knowing at the time that my job today in the procurement space would be so closely correlated to the education I received at that time. My younger brothers followed me into service of our country, and subsequently by youngest brothers oldest son enlisted and served and was injured in Iraq. Simply, we love our country as do all of those that served and continue to serve today.

I had the opportunity while I was in town to take my dad who was 83 at the time to visit the memorial. He had no idea that his sons and grandsons names were on the wall. I pointed out the names to him and then we went for a quiet walk in the park and he said to me there are three of us on there. I said, Dad not only are there three of us on there, we will still be on there 100 years from now and it is a legacy that you started. I have to tell you that this is one of the best memories of time with my dad and one I will carry with me forever.

What continues to amaze me is the responsibility that military personnel are given at such a young age. The inventory I was responsible for which included everything from cans of oil to very sophisticated war readiness materials. With that responsibility also came significant accountability. I was accountable to understand or develop product specifications, demand forecasting, requisitioning, logistics and much more. I was 18.

Today’s military personnel and recent veterans are responsible for some of the most sophisticated technology in the world and many are only recent high school graduates. Many are put in harms way and also in the position to make decisions that can impact the lives of others while their high school counterparts are still in college.

Support your veterans that work so hard to protect our freedoms. If you’d like to learn more about how you can help to create jobs for our veterans, please go to http://www.hireveterans.com/. If you can’t, please donate to the Wounded Warrior Project as a way of saying thanks.

Please contact SafeSourcing for all of your procurement needs.

Thanks and Happy Veterans Day.

We look forward to and appreciate your comments.

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