Veterans Day, Serving Your Country and Walmart

I am a proud Veteran.  In 1994, after four years of Army ROTC I entered the US Army Ordnance Corps as a Second Lieutenant.  Served my initial tour in Baumholder Germany-known as “The Rock”, and after a mere year was deployed with my unit to Bosnia-Herzogovina for 10 months as part of the initial force (or IFOR) in the country.  I met my husband, also a veteran, while we were both stationed in Germany.  We married and spent the next 3 tours (and 2 children) moving around as the Army dictated.

Yes, they make pregnancy BDUs. Yes, I was huge.

Taking a 1 yr old Princess into the military daycare before work.

We come from a military families.  Both of us have fathers & grandfathers who have served.  My “baby” sister and her husband are both in the service-Yankee Bill and I had the pleasure of attending her basic training graduation.

That's my BIL, Sister, Me & Hubs. Don't we look fine?

My husband retired from the Army as a Chief Warrant Officer 4 (CW4) with 22 years in.  At the rank of Major and with 11 years of service I made a difficult decision.  I left the service so we could move back to upstate NY and raise our kiddos without having to worry about the possibility of Mama being deployed.

I am very, very proud to have served my country, and am particularly proud of the fact that I was able to serve as Company Commander to a training unit that prepared hundreds of soldiers to perform their jobs and serve their country as well.

I feel very strongly about veterans rights and our obligation as a country to support and honor those who have made sacrifices on our behalf.  We give to soldiers charities, both belong to the VFW (Veterans of Foreign Wars), America Legion and American Legion Riders.  We display the flag prominently in our yard, march in parades and I even cry when I hear the national anthem.

Have I mentioned I feel strongly?

Anyway-I have told the folks that I work with at Walmart that if there are every any initiatives that deal with veterans to make sure I know.  I want to support those any way I can-whether or not they have anything to do with frugality.

The first thing I learned was that Walmart actively seeks veterans for employees at all levels of their business.

I was even more thrilled to hear that last year Walmart and the Walmart Foundation committed $10 million to serve the veteran community, placing a special emphasis on supporting job readiness and training. Their five-year commitment will also support nonprofits that assist veterans in their pursuit of higher education and enable veterans to more easily reintegrate into civilian life.

Walmart is also a partner at Mission Serve, an organization that uses it’s network to call through to thousands of non-profit affiliates, military installations, and veterans’ service organizations in order to locate and encourage participation in service projects that benefit and engage military communities. The site has a search feature that you can use to check for projects in your own community.

I want to close by saying a big “Thank You” to all the veterans out there. If you know any, please take some time to say the same to the veterans in your community this Veterans Day.

I am a participant in the Walmart Moms program.  Join me and my fellow Walmart Mom, Monica Brady of Mommy Brain Reports as we talk about Walmart’s Commitment to helping Veterans. Walmart has provided me with compensation for this blog post.  Participation in this program is voluntary. As always, all opinions are 100% my own.