After last year’s success, faculty are once again inviting all local military personnel for a night of recognition

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FRANKFORT, Ky. – A new survey by AARP finds veterans, military service members and their families are nearly 40% more likely to lose money to scams and fraud than are civilians.

Scammers often use military jargon and specific government guidelines to lure in active-duty military members and veterans. The Rev. Dr. Jim Thurman, Kentucky state commander of the National Association for Black Veterans, said the most common scams include asking veterans to turn over pensions or disability benefits for a supposed “lump sum” that never materializes, asking for payment to update personal military records, and asking for donations to fake military charities.

“These scammers, they know that the veterans receive benefits, their family members receive benefits,”: he said. “They are specifically after those.”

More than 1,600 people, including 851 active or former service members, responded to the survey this fall.

Thurman recommended signing up for the National Do Not Call Registry and using a call-blocking service. Anyone who suspects they’ve been approached by scammers can contact AARP’s Fraud Watch Network at 877-908-3360. Thurman also reminded Kentuckians that veterans never have to pay to access their service records or earned benefits – and if told otherwise, it’s a scam.

The report also found that military and veteran adults reported losing money nearly twice as often as did civilians on grandparent-imposter scams, where fraudsters pretend to be grandchildren seeking money, as well as phishing schemes. Thurman pointed out that older veterans in particular should be on guard.

“Stay alert, know the various operations the scammers are using,” he said, “and if you get an unsolicited phone call or text or an email, just disregard it.”

According to the state Department of Veterans Affairs, more than 300,000 veterans live in Kentucky.

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FRANKFORT, Ky. — Advocates for military families and veterans say many are going hungry.

A report by the hunger-fighting group Mazon found food pantries operate on or near almost every military base in the country.

The House Rules Committee recently held a roundtable highlighting persistent food insecurity in the military and among veterans.

Lisa Lieberman, director of communications for Mazon, said service members typically do not call attention to their situation because of shame, stigma, and even fear of retribution.

“So we don’t have the exact numbers unfortunately,” Lieberman explained. “But we know that there is increased need and that there has been for many years.”

She added legislation such as the bipartisan Military Hunger Prevention Act (Senate Bill 1488 and House Bill 2339), introduced by lawmakers earlier this year, would create a basic-needs allowance to help low-income military families put food on the table.

Lieberman observed spousal unemployment is another factor contributing to food insecurity.

“This rate was really high, like 24 percent, 25 percent even before the pandemic,” Lieberman emphasized. “And now, I think the latest statistics is that 42 percent of military spouses who were working are no longer working during the pandemic.”

She also pointed out the landscape of who is enlisting has changed over the past few decades. Rather than single young men, personnel are a diverse group of adults, many supporting children.

“Especially those serving in our military, or who have proudly served, they should not have to do that on a regular basis,” Lieberman asserted. “And we really hope that policymakers will take that seriously and do the right thing, because we think we’ve offered some pretty common-sense solutions that could make a real difference for these families.”

She noted while data is limited, research shows 1-in-4 women veterans struggle with hunger, and more than 1-in-4 post-9/11 veterans report problems with being able to regularly purchase meals and groceries, about twice the rate of the general population.

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WASHINGTON, D.C. — President Trump is soon expected to announce further reductions of troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, and that is drawing criticism from Republicans on Capitol Hill.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell addressed the topic on the Senate floor on Monday,

In his remarks, Kentucky’s senior senator avoided criticizing the president, and he credited Trump for strengthening the military and America’s standing in the world. But he said those gains would be undone by a premature withdrawal from Afghanistan.

“There is no American who does not wish the war in Afghanistan against terrorists and their enablers had already been conclusively won. But that does not change the actual choice before us now,” McConnell said. “A rapid withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan now would hurt our allies and delight the people who wish us harm. Violence affecting Afghans is still rampant. The Taliban is not abiding by the conditions of the so-called peace deal.

McConnell said leaders on both sides of the aisle are opposed to drastic troop reductions at this time.

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FRANKFORT, Ky. — Across the country, Americans are remembering the events of 19 years ago, when terrorists attacked the United States.

That was also the case in Frankfort, where Gov. Andy Beshear held a moment of silence in honor of the victims. That observance was held at 8:46 a.m. — the time when the first attack took place.

“Today, we once again call to mind the terrible acts of Sept. 11, 2001, and pray for our state and for our country,” Gov. Beshear said in remarks prior to the moment of silence. “Today is also Patriot’s Day, when we celebrate the lost souls, the scarred survivors, and the courage of that day’s many heroes — our firefighters, law enforcement, every first responder, our military, and every American that stepped up.

“We often talk about running into danger. So many ran into a burning and toppling skyscraper, knowing that action was likely to end their life, leave their family missing them, but knowing it was their calling to help others that day.”

This afternoon, a Remembrance Day parade will be held in Pikeville.
The parade will begin at Bob Amos Park at 5 p-m, and travel the length of Hambley Boulevard, ending at McDonald’s.

On Sept. 11, 2001, hijacked planes toppled the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York and struck the Pentagon in Washington D.C. Another plane, United Airlines Flight 93, went down in Shanksville, Pa., when passengers overpowered the terrorists.

In all, 2,977 people were killed.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — With his Army recruiting office shuttered due to the coronavirus, Staff Sgt. Anthony Holt has had to be creative to meet his enlistment goals. Using social media is one way. Signing up the grocery delivery guy is another.

Holt asked the man how he ended up with the virtual shopping job. It turned out, he wanted to be a boat operator, but a job with an Alaskan cruise company fell through because of the pandemic.

The Army also has maritime jobs, Holt told him. He found an open training slot for an Army watercraft operator. The delivery guy enlisted.

“I talk to every single person that I meet no matter what, because I have no idea what their life story is,” said Holt, who is based in Bowling Green, Kentucky. ”If I have the opportunity to help somebody the way that the Army’s helped me, I seize that opportunity.”

COVID-19 has had a dramatic impact on military recruiting, closing enlistment stations and forcing thousands of recruiters to woo potential soldiers online, or even on their front steps. As the virus raged, enlistments slowed and fueled worries that the armed services would have to rely more on current troops re-enlisting to meet total force requirements by the end of the fiscal year in September.

Recruiters have had to abandon their normal visits to high schools and malls, and instead are relying almost exclusively on social media to reach young people. As that effort builds, Army leaders believe it may evolve into a new system that will allow them to scale back the size and staffing at enlistment storefronts and reduce the number of recruiters.

“We’re going to empower the recruiters to allow for more autonomous recruiting,” said Maj. Gen. Frank Muth, head of the Army’s recruiting command. That, he said, will allow the service to reduce the size of brick-and-mortar offices since some recruiters will be working solely online and go into the office only occasionally.

“If we have recruiters that are operating at a greater efficiency (online) then we don’t need 10,000 recruiters. We may be able to reduce that number to 7,000 or 8,000,” he said, adding that such a reduction will allow the Army to move more soldiers back into regular units and fighting formations.

But first the Army has to determine how successful virtual recruiting can be.

In the early days of the pandemic, Army enlistments fell off by about 50%.

“Does that put us behind? Yeah,” said Muth, adding that enlistments are about 4,000 lower than their goal at this point, despite doing better than planned in the early part of the fiscal year, before the pandemic took hold. But, he said, online recruiting has improved. Over the past month the Army got about 80% of its goal, compared with the normal 90% for that period, Muth said.

Overall success will depend on soldiers like Sgt. 1st Class Eric Nordin, who is making virtual recruiting a career.

“I was a lot cooler online than I am in real life,” said Nordin, who started as a regular recruiter in La Grange, Kentucky, but is now commander of Nashville’s virtual recruiting station. “I’m not saying I didn’t enjoy going out to the malls and asking individuals if they wanted to recruit. But, I was more successful sending them a DM (direct message) or posting stuff about myself.”

Nordin and Holt said the Army has done training sessions to teach recruiters how to get more followers on Facebook and Instagram. Often, they said, recruiters can reach out to soldiers they’ve enlisted in the past and ask them to share posts, expanding the views of their online messages.

As part of the new, creative methods, Muth said he took an idea from McDonald’s. A few years ago the fast-food juggernaut said it would hire 50,000 people in one day. Muth said he decided the Army could try the same thing.

So, on Tuesday, Muth is launching “Army Hiring Days” and is calling on all service leaders at all levels to fill social media with recruiting messages. The goal is to bring in 10,000 recruits, and top leaders have already started turning to Twitter to tout soldier life.

“Army National Hiring Days coming June 30-July 2! The U.S. Army’s first-ever nationwide virtual hiring campaign is a three-day event with a goal of finding 10,000 men and women to join our team,” tweeted Gen. James McConville, the top Army officer.

Cash will be one of the incentives.

Qualified recruits who enlist during the three-day event — goarmy.com/hiringdays — could qualify for a $2,000 bonus. That will be on top of other incentives the Army offers for recruits who score high or enlist for some of the more critical jobs. For example, recruits who sign up as linguists, psychological operations specialists, special forces or intelligence collectors could get up to $40,000 in bonuses over their initial enlistment.

High-demand jobs that qualify for smaller bonuses include infantry, missile defense and fire control specialists.

Crippling unemployment caused by the pandemic may help the Army’s recruiting. When unemployment is low, there’s a lot of competition for young people getting out of high school or college. But when it goes higher than 6% — it’s now over 13% — the military becomes a more enticing option. Muth said he doesn’t yet have data to determine the impact of this latest unemployment surge.

Nordin said he’s seen some success over the past month. And a key message he’s sending is that the Army is hiring. He said he describes the 30 days of paid vacation, money for college and other benefits.

And as for the Kroger delivery guy? He left for Army basic training on June 1.

“It just so happened that he was affected by the virus and I was able to help him,” Holt said. “It felt awesome.”

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Operation Care Package is a program where students collect various food and supplies for our troops currently serving overseas and stateside in the military. East Ridge High School Math Teacher, David Ramey says he is just the platform and the kids are the ones who should be praised for their efforts as they are the ones visiting businesses and collecting these donations. East Ridge Senior, Jessilyn Ramey says their program all started 8 years ago and she has been a part of it from the very beginning.

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Operation Care Package is a program where students collect various food and supplies for our troops currently serving in the military. East Ridge High School Math Teacher, David Ramey says he is just the platform and the kids are the ones who should be praised for their efforts to collect these donations. East Ridge Senior, Jessilyn Ramey says their program all started 8 years ago and she has been a part of it from the very beginning. Visual Art Teacher, Charles Hackney helps students create cards to send to the troops during the holidays. Hackney says that some of his family has been a part of the military for years and states, “I just like serving any way I can cause they are serving over there, I can do my little part over here.”  U.S. Army Veteran, Landon Keith Tackett says that when he received these packages from students, it really made him feel like a role model and someone these kids can look up to as he protects their everyday freedoms.

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