Mission Incomplete: Strengthening the TAP Program to Ensure a Smoother Transition to Civilian Life for Tomorrow's Veterans
House Veterans' Affairs Subcommittee on Economic Opportunity
2025-03-25
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Source: Congress.gov
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Transcript
Morning. Select Committee will come to order. I want to thank our witnesses for being here today to discuss the Transition Assistance Program and the role that each one of these departments plays in helping our service members transition from being an active duty service member, a productive member of the military, to a productive member of society as a civilian. I want to make sure that we adhere to our strict nonpartisan position, the spirit of this committee. And I know Mr. Pappas shares My intention there, and he's a good man. As a former SEAL, I served our country for 26 years, and I have firsthand knowledge of how difficult it can be to go from being a military member to being a civilian. And I'm not kidding you, I used to wake up like two years after I retired wondering where my gun was. That's not a joke. So 200,000 military personnel leave the service each year. And for many of them, it's a time for them to grow. It's also a time That 24-month period of time is when our service members wind up committing suicide because they lose their identity, they lose their uniforms, they lose their rank. The joke with the spouses, they're twice the husband and half the paycheck. And you all know that. I see all these old grizzly war dogs back there. You know what I'm talking about, right? Yeah. So we've got to do something. The bridging mechanism has to start while we're in the service and Mr. Baird, you're here today from the DOD and I can't tell you how thankful I am. And I also can't tell you how pathetic it is that I have to be so thankful that you guys showed up. Check. That's how these committees work. So thank you for being here. I don't know if it's because I'm on Hask and I got your paycheck now too. I don't know. I don't care, you're here, I appreciate it. So we went from about 25% to 52%. So that is an extraordinarily huge failure rate for the people that go to TAP, that's real. And we got everybody's fit reps here, we're gonna talk about this a little bit later, fit reps and OERs and whatever.
There's no block on here for participation of troops that go to TAP, it's 170. five page document, it's like 150 pages into a 175 page document from the Navy. It mentions TAP in a single sentence. So what my intention is, is to make this work. And I spoke to these three folks yesterday in my office in private, and I appreciate you guys showing up to do that so we could work through some things in long form interview, not like this. But I do appreciate that, but we can do better, period. And we need to have metrics so we understand if we're doing better. And I expect that out of you. So 2019, we worked to modernize the TAP program. I think we did Sort of a good job, I wasn't here at the time. Were you in Congress then? Yes. Okay, so it's Mr. Pappas' fault. Just kidding. We did an okay job. And we didn't do the best job. And I get it. So we got 48% of service members that aren't beginning the process of TAP in advance.
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