Thanks to my fellow career blogger, Anita Bruzzese, for calling my attention to the important issue of the unemployment and underemployment of recently-discharged Iraq war veterans.

When a person joins the military, says the website HireAHero.com, there is a promise made.  This promise is either explicit or implied that, if you serve honorably, you will be better off because of your military service. You will gain valuable skills and life experiences that will help you succeed in life.

However, the reality is that there is a “military service penalty.” The individuals who are returning from the war on terror are having a really hard time finding civilian employment after they leave the service.  Veterans ages 20 to 24 have a much higher unemployment rate, at least twice and sometimes three times that of non-veterans of the same age group.  Worse than the high unemployment is underemployment, the under the radar statistic whereby a young veteran takes a low paying job, often the same job he or she could have gotten directly out of high school.

The website Hireahero.org was launched in January by Gulf War veteran and entrepreneur Dan Caulfield.  Caulfield was determined to use the power of the internet to help veterans transition into the private sector, mostly by matching them with employers who want them, but also by helping them translate their military skills into private sector resume points.

HireAHero leverages social networking, a concept that its target audience of young veterans is intimately familiar with.  Vets, even while still onsite in Iraq, can leverage individual profiles that include pictures, podcasts and videos to communicate who they are and what they’re looking to accomplish when they get home. Since most jobs already are online and a single click away, so HireAHero makes it easy for the community to link to any job on the internet and display it to the rest of the community.

HireAHero is currently organizing the community to solicit and aggregate jobs from military-friendly employers and experimenting with a local advertising model driven by commissioned volunteers. In exchange for its free service, HireAHero holds employers accountable for being active members of the community. The most active employers will be rewarded by higher search rankings and more candidates. I urge you to support this very worthwhile new venture with a personal donation or corporate sponsorship.  It’s the least we can do for these young people who put their lives on the line for our safety.