The famous line, “Put me in, coach!” from John Fogerty’s classic baseball anthem came from his own frustration watching games at home. Whenever he saw a team struggle, he would always yell at the TV, “Put me in coach!”
More and more, I find myself thinking these same four words as I watch the military I served for two decades struggle to fill its ranks. For a couple years, the Department of Defense had missed its annual enlistment goals by tens of thousands. The desire to serve has reached an all-time low among American youth, a crisis long in the making. Now that it’s here, we need to put into play one of our most valuable resources: thousands of veterans like me sitting on the bench waiting for the tap from senior brass.
Millions of dollars and countless hours have been invested in recruitment campaigns and think-tank strategies, but all the marketing in the world is no replacement for the genuine connections veterans can build themselves at the grassroots level. I would say, bring us off the bench, but the truth is, there’s no one keeping us on the sidelines. There are thousands of veterans already making a difference in the lives of young people and inspiring the next generation of leaders — efforts that will be amplified at Georgetown University on October 23rd at the first national Change Forum of its kind.
One standout example is right in their backyard. For ten years now, a nonprofit founded at Georgetown University in Washington DC called Soldiers to Sidelines has been training former and current service members as sports coaches. They’ve helped certify nearly 2,000 trainees who have touched the lives of nearly 100,000 youth. Think about the example this sets. I’ve seen firsthand how the military instills skills and values that transcend the battlefield. Now, so have tens of thousands of young people who might never have considered a career in the armed forces.
The potential for restored trust and interest in military service aside, this type of youth mentorship is desperately needed in towns and cities across our country. A recent national study found the share of young people aged 18 to 21 who report having had a childhood mentor dropped six percentage points over the past decade, and access to mentorship is far from equitable. Roughly one-third of teens nationwide, most from the lowest socioeconomic quartile, report never having experienced a mentoring relationship. When asked, many unmentored youth said “they didn’t know how to find a mentor or didn’t think mentors were available to them.”
Fortunately, a growing number of military and veteran-led nonprofits are stepping up to fill this gap. Veteran mentors trained by Travis Manion Foundation, a national organization committed to empowering veterans and families of fallen heroes, have reached more than 650,000 young Americans teaching them character and the impact of service.
Another veteran nonprofit, The Mission Continues, operates active service platoons in more than 40 cities. The organization has executed 8,650 service projects since inception — a vast majority of them led by veterans serving side-by-side with teenagers who need positive role models.
These organizations only started, because former military members took action. They did not wait for permission or a knock at the door, and even if rebuilding the ranks is not the purpose of their chosen nonprofits, their presence and continued service will have that effect.
The potential to leverage these kinds of for-purpose organizations, with the backing of DoD and corporate America is enormous. It is also completely under-realized at a critical moment. Imagine companies like Wells Fargo, Amazon, RTX, and CVS Health – and their thousands-strong veteran employee resource groups – actively partnered with nonprofits to engage with schools in key regions.
Imagine if they worked with local military recruiting teams to monitor and measure the outcomes of these efforts, creating a powerful synergy that benefits communities, young people, veterans, and the military.
Better still, imagine if we looked beyond the private sector’s biggest players and called up the 2.5 million veteran small business owners that employ nearly a quarter more of the 8.6 million veterans in the workforce, as agents of change. This particular pool of mentors is severely underutilized and could contribute significantly with support and infrastructure from the public sector.
In two weeks at the Military Thriving Change Forum at Georgetown University, we will put these words into actions that will be executed in high touch community wide engagements in 2025 with the companies and nonprofits, mentioned above and more, that have thousands of Veterans and military spouses sitting on the sidelines.
This is not a distant dream but a reality within our reach, if we as veterans find ways to share the benefits of service with young people and the public and private sectors join forces to support us. Perceptions will shift. Propensity to serve will rise.
Rebuilding the ranks is on all of us, join us at Georgetown on October 23 and show the entire nation, we’re ready to play ball.
