Some 80% of the military men and women who served in Vietnam held high school or higher degrees, making them the best educated military force that has ever gone to war for the United States. Today, ten years after the war, they continue to develop and use their talents and skills, and increasingly demonstrate this in public service, volunteer work, and community leadership.

And although the overwhelming majority of Americans in the military were male, same 8,000 women served in Vietnam, most of them as

nurses.

During the course of the war, nearly 58,000 U.S. soldiers were killed, eight of them wamen. Over 300,000 suffered wounds, and around 2,500 remain unaccounted for and are still carried on the rolls as "Missing In Action."

Despite the myths and confusions surrounding the war, American armed forces in Vietnam never lost a single military engagement involving units larger than company size throughout the entire course of the war.

Upon their return to this country, 97% of Vietnam-era veterans received honorable discharges from the service.

Vietnam veterans, as a class, retain their allegiance to the values of the nation they served. Ninety percent of them are proud of their tour of duty in Vietnam, and two-thirds say that, if called upon, they would serve again.

The initial reception accorded them as "killers," "losers" a "victims" in many quarters has by now largely disappeared. But still, memories die hard. More than half of all Vietnam veterans feel that their fellow Americans had a less than friendly attitude toward them when they returned. When viewed from the perspective of American history, this is a highly abnormal reaction displayed by the public to returning warriors by the protected civilians for whom they had offered their lives.

Like any large set of human beings, Vietnam veterans make up a normal distribution socially, economically and politically. While there are Vietnam veterans who are now doctors and lawyers, judges and bankers, even self-made millionaires, there are also unemployed Vietnam veterans down on their luck. There are Vietnam veterans who have problems, and who need help. This is statistically predictable for any large class of men who have left the service. The self-discipline inherent in military service, however, has left its mark. A Department of Justice study showed that Vietnam-era veterans are less likely than their non-veteran peers to be in jail.

Today, most Vietnam veterans quietly go about their own business. Most of them are now gainfully employed, productive members of society, and they have been smoothly reabsorbed into the fabric of America. In 1984, the average Vietnam veteran is approaching 37 years of age, is married and has two children.

In a normal course of events, they are just beginning to
take over the reins of leadership in their families, cammu-
nities, civic organizations and government. But they
remember their brothers from Vietnam who, for whatever
reason, have just not been able to succeed readily once
they returned to the "World", a phrase used by American
soldiers overseas during the war to refer to the United
States. This desire to help their comrades is the genesis
of the Vietnam Veterans Leadership Program.

The volunteers who have stepped forward to help came from the generation of veterans described above. Thomas Carhart, former program director of the Connecticut VVLP, described his fellow veterans as follows:

"Despite the negative image of them that has been spread
widely by the media, and which has too often been thoughtlessly
accepted by other Americans, Vietnam veterans are responsible,
contributing Americans. They are secure in that knowledge
as they increasingly take over the role they have earned as
the steel core in the nation's marrow."

John Garcia, National Deputy Director of WLP, observed:

"Today the Vietnam veteran is emerging as the doer, the
achiever, the one who is willing to stand up for his beliefs,
the one who looks for something extra to do for his country."

2. ACTION's Catalytic Role.

The WLP is first and foremost a volunteer program. Its initial seed money came from ACTION, to merge private sector leadership and volunteers into a program to help veterans.

Since 1971, ACTION has set an example of what can be done to encourage volunteers. It has given 350,000 Americans new opportunities to volunteer their services where needed.

ACTION is the federal umbrella agency for volunteer and service organizations. It was established by Congress in July 1971 to encourage and promote the volunteer spirit in American society. Since 1981, ACTION has renewed its efforts to restore voluntarism and private initiative to their rightful places in American society, based on the belief that voluntarism and personal initiative are essential forces at work in any modern, thriving community.

To achieve that end, many programs have been started through ACTION's catalytic, initiating role. As of August 1984, ACTION's programs are:

Thomas Pauken, who served in Vietnam as a military intelligence officer, became administrator of ACTION in 1981. He began planning to start a special volunteer program that would encourage successful Vietnam veterans to help solve the problems of their fellow veterans.

That goal having been accomplished by 1984, the WVLP now joins the ranks of many millions of American volunteers, both individuals and organizations, who volunteer their time, energy, talents and resources without pay to help each other and improve the quality of life. Americans every year perform an estimated $100 billion work of free labor. They also contribute aproximately $47 billion in cash every year to religious and charitable organizations. The productivity reflected in what they do is irreplaceable. Federal, state and local governments could never afford to pay for such work, nor could they manage the large number of projects that volunteers initiate and complete each year.

The VVLP was established under the auspices of existing Congressional authorization to ACTION, under Section 122 (a) of the Domestic Volunteer Service Act of 1973, as amended, to be administered by ACTION. ACTION's enabling legislation under Part C of Title I, provides the administrator of the agency with the authority to develop and coordidinate special volunteer programs designed to meet a broad range of human needs by encouraging persons from all walks of life to perform meaningful and constructive volunteer service. This constitutes the "congressional approval" under which the WLP was formed and implemented. The VVLP was never intended to be a direct service delivery mechanism requiring a top-heavy bureaucracy, and Congress was never expected to establish it as such. The federal role was meant to be purely catalytic under the belief that volunteer structures developed by this program will best serve veterans if they became independent of the federal government. Consequently, each WLP has had to establish a firm base of support in their local communities.

Nor did the WLP compete with the Veterans Employment and Training Service. ACTION's interagency agreement with the Department of Labor provided funds that were unavailable to the DOL's Veterans Employment and Training Service. The funds came from appropriations under which veterans were included as a type of "program eligible" but under which veterans had never previously been able to benefit.

In keeping with established federal practices, the program made use of interagency agreements. This type of coordination was appropriate

to develop and implement VVLP objectives at the national level. The intent was not to create a self-perpetuating, permanent bureaucracy for VVLP.

The organization and structure of the WLP followed a traditional model in which the overall program was designed, funded and administered by the national office, and intentionally decentralized to the 47 field projects. Project leaders were encouraged to set their own goals and to develop creative ways to address local needs. Thomas Pauken described the plan in the following manner on October 22, 1981 in testimony before the Subcommittee on Education, Training and Employment, of the Veterans Affairs Committee in the House of Representatives:

"With regard to the individual communities, there is
basically the project director and the project chairman
who will be responsible for the overall program.
are really there to provide some assistance where
they need it. We will not come in and say, 'We
have all the answers. We know what ought to be
done.' I think that has been a mistake of a lot
of the Washington programs. I see our role in
ACTION as a supportive role of the kind of leader-
ship that will be out there and that will be in-
volved in putting together the program."

Each program was judged according to criteria such as quality and quantity of volunteers, cost effectiveness in serving the needs of veterans through existing programs, and approval by Vietnam veterans themselves. Selection of 47 field sites was made by the national office based on the following considerations:

Availability of an outstanding volunteer chairman.
Concentration of Vietnam veterans.

Unemployment rate in the area.

Geographical distribution of target communities.

O Mix of urban, suburban and rural sites.

Community responsiveness and commitment to Vietnam veterans.

The WLP was administered by ACTION's national office. The national program director reported to the director of ACTION. All local VVLPS in turn reported to the national program director. The program was directed and managed from top to bottom by Vietnam veterans.

The national director had a small professional staff to accomplish the following tasks:

Developed and supervised community needs assessments. Evaluated needs assessment reports and recommended site selection to the Director of ACTION.

Approved veterans Leadership Plans for each community and issued grants for approved plans.

Assisted local communities in the enrollment of volunteers.
Potential leadership volunteers were located and contacted in
consultation with the National Volunteer Advisory Committee.

Supervised the conduct of each approved project. Monitored
monthly reports and established and conducted systematic
reviews.

Provided technical assistance to projects by identifying success-
ful activities to be regularly disseminated to project directors.
This was a very significant service according to project directors.
Established a national media and image campaign.

Conducted training of project directors and assessed the need for
future training on an ongoing basis.

The following examples of accomplishments are only highlights from an extensive scope of activities that were undertaken by the national office over a period of 36 months:

Independently determined what WLP projects would be funded, how
much and where, as well as what projects would be terminated.
This included making contacts with Vietnam veteran leaders in
all 50 states, finding committed veterans to serve as unpaid
project chairmen and paid project directors, assisting them in
establishing non-profit corporations, funding the corporations,
and conducting systematic program reviews and periodic site
visits to help assure program continuity, and recommending ways
in which individual WLPS could improve their activities.

Altogether, these corporations have given more than 1,000
Vietnam veterans direct opportunities to take on leadership
roles in their own communities outside, but working with,
established institutions. The device of new corporations was
used to give veterans a fresh start, with some freedom to try
creative solutions to persistent problems.

Established new, working linkages with federal agencies and
Congress, to develop credibility and an atmosphere of trust.
This included the Departments of Labor and Health and Human
Services, and the Small Business Administration. The funding
that was obtained through these linkages was then channeled
to the 47 field projects.

Conducted three national training conferences in Washington,
D.C. for project chairmen and directors, and one future
planning conference in Chicago, Illinois, to establish the
network's goals for the next five years after federal funding
ends. These preparations involved working directly with white
House personnel, daily contacts with representatives of national
veterans service organizations, state and municipal government
officials, business and corporate professionals, federal