costigansblog.com

I awoke this morning to another request for a TV interview with Sue and me.  We still can’t get over the amount of attention that one interview could generate.  I guess we underestimated the power of the media.

The new website has four new job posts and one of them was ours.  We think we already have found another vet to hire starting the 16th of April.  He spent 6 years in the Navy and we have great hopes for him! Dave has the experience to bring a lot to the company and I’m sure we can talk him into finding ways to hire a few more veterans along the way.

We’re going to take off this weekend and spend some time with our kids and grand kids and then off to the White House next week.  We have no idea what that trip may bring, but we’re hoping it may result in some ideas about finding more jobs for these kids.

Our PR Firm found a law firm in Washington DC that has agreed to do some pro bono work setting up a 501 (c) 3 corporation so we can raise money to setup an employment agency for veterans.  I should know more next week.  Happy Easter and have a blessed Passover.

One of the folks who wrote us after the Northwest Herald piece was a fellow named Scott who lives in our area and does some wonderful volunteer work with one of our local churches.  Today he was kind enough to invite me to help him find a Special Forces Vet who showed up in his church a while back asking “for a can of beans”.  Evidently he hadn’t eaten in days.

Scott had an idea about where this Vet was staying and after about 20 minutes of following a couple foot paths through some trees behind a factory, we found his campsite.  The Vet named Steve is living in the woods in our town in a tent.  Right under our noses we have a veteran who is living in the woods and needs to ride his bike to a church in Crystal Lake to ask for a can of beans. Gosh, there must be more we can do for these patriots of ours.

How do we find these people and identify their needs and help fill them?  They have risked their lives for us and we let them sleep in the woods and beg for beans.  We must find a way to help these souls.

Scott and his wife had put together a “care package” for him with a cooler, water and food.  We found his tent, but Steve was nowhere to be found.  Scott said that he would keep coming back until he gets hold of Steve.  We have to find a way to help these people even if it’s one at a time.  maybe that is the only way to do it; one veteran at a time.  Don’t be afraid to reach out to these young men and women.  They certainly stuck it out there for us and still do every day!

Sorry, we’re out of pocket today.  Back tomorrow.  We heard about a vet living in a tent here in town and we’re going looking for him tomorrow with the help of a new friend who has had some contact with him already.

We woke up this morning to see the Northwest Herald had written a lovely article about Charles Weaver and the events that led to him working with us at Kelly Car Buyer.  The nice thing about the article is the emails that we have received so far this morning asking for help hiring veterans.  We also received an email from a fellow on disability NOT from the military but he wants to volunteer to help get these kids a job. It really has been heartwarming to hear from so many people wanting to help.  We need to find a way to  embrace all these folks and create a way for them to help when and how they can.

We also got a great email this morning from a gentleman who wants to hire some veterans for one of his companies.  Thank you Mr. G!  Here was his email:

Hi Mr. & Mrs. Costigan,

I saw your segment on Dateline NBC and want to say how very impressed I was about your efforts to hire veterans.  You and your wife were right on target.

I too have several businesses, one of which I am preparing to hire and could use a similar workforce.  I am launching an over 50 magazine shortly and have openings in several areas.  How would I go about engaging local veterans?

Your help would be greatly appreciated.

We all need to give back to the great men & women of our county for protecting us from harm’s way.

Best,

Glenn M. G

Yesterday we finally caught our breath and could catch up with all the emails and requests for interviews and offers to join several other folks out there doing some wonderful things for veterans and totally unsolicited.  We heard from Dave Ferguson who, along with a few friends raised $30,000 last year from a golf outing and donated it for the treatment of PTSD.  http://www.holesforheroes.org/midwest/

Sue spoke to a lady that takes soldiers out on boat rides to lift their spirits.  Jamie Dimon was interviewed and said that JPM was hiring about 10 veterans a day.  Comcast and NBC Universal committed to hiring 1000 veterans over the next three years.  NBC has really spent a lot of time and money on raising awareness for these veterans. I know I sound like I’ve drank the Kool Aid but you have to take your hats of to them for their efforts!   The Chamber of Commerce has a goal of hiring 500,000 veterans by 2014.  Hopefully, we can keep this issue alive.

I’ll try to catch up on work today because tomorrow may get busy again.  We’re hearing that The Northwest Herald is going to publish something about NBC’s story and Tom Brokaw’s visit to Crystal Lake sometime over the weekend.

I didn’t sleep very well last night thinking about the plight of these new found Vets who poured their hearts out to us the night before. I’ve just opened my email to find another 200 emails and I can watch them come into my account every 5 or 10 minutes.  By 8AM they are coming in faster than I can read them, let alone answer.

Here are a few:

My name is XXX. I am a highly decorated disabled special operations gulf war veteran. I served a total of 8 years,  6 active 2 inactive with an Honorable Discharge. Previous I worked as an Aircraft Repairer for XXX International working on the same helicopters that I worked on when I was in service,  those were for  Fco. 1-160th S.O.A.R.  We are known primarily through the block buster movie “Black Hawk Down”. Sir the reason I am writing is that in 1996 after being Honorably discharged,  found that my Unit during the Desert Storm campaign was one of the few subjected to nerve agent poisoning and came home with a heart defect, which in 2004 caused me to have a stroke.

I just watched Dateline.  You and your wife are two more reasons to be proud to be Americans.  God bless you, your families and the troops who make our lives so wonderful.   go U.S.A!

Thank you for your service!  My nephew Cpl. Jacob XXX also served and was stationed at Ft Stewart.  Unfortunately, Jacob was KIA 19Apr2005.  He too was 3/7.  I just wanted to let you know I just watched you on Dateline and wanted to thank you & your family.

How pround I am of the Costigans. Thank you from a mother of three soldiers. You made me believe again that there are truly good people left in this world. God Bless all you do!

There are hundreds of these and we are trying to figure out what to do about all these folks looking for a job and can we leverage all the good wishes with a request to network or suggest someone who may be hiring?  We built a website the other night: www.hireoneveteran.com  it’s barely going yet but we may be able to match people up with jobs.

We are at a place now that we need to think about how to take advantage of this time to make a difference.  Maybe we are at the right place, at the right time to raise some awareness and get some more kids hired.

More to come.