ASVAB-Automotive-and-Shop education - ASVAB Section 4 : Automotive & Shop Information Updated: 2023

Deciding to leave the military might be as big a step as deciding to join. Most of us come in when we’re young, naive, and unprepared. When we get out we’re just as unprepared. Most of us. It doesn’t have to be that way, though.

You had what it took to support and defend the Constitution of the United States. You certainly have what it takes to support you and your dependents. You just have to be smart about it – and ask the right questions. Will you be getting a civilian job, and if so, will it be the same thing that you did in the military? Is remote work for you? Or will you go to school? Where will you do these things? How will you prepare to pay for them while you wait for benefits? Do you know how to get into the VA system?

No matter what your answers are, there are things you need to do in the two years leading up to your departure from the military that will ensure a smooth and successful experience.

Two Years to 18 Months from Expiration - Term of Service (ETS):

• Find a mentor who has faced the same problems you will likely face.
• Choose your civilian career and make sure you’ll leave the military with an education or a certified skill that will help you in that career.
• Learn about your G.I. Bill and decide what you plan to do with it.
• Start to save money and be prepared for the possibility of a tight job market when you get out.
• Start to build a network by meeting people in your desired career field or college.

One Year Out:

• Review your pre-separation budget and make sure you’re on track.
• If you’re going to school after leaving, choose where, what to study, and start applying.
• Learn about both VA home loans and the process of buying a house. If you’re moving to a new area, you might be able to get house hunting orders.
• Begin the process of getting out of the military, which includes informing your unit and command while starting relevant paperwork and taking transition assistance classes. You may even be assigned a counselor.

Six Months to Go:

• Make sure your budget projections still make sense.
• Write a resume, preferably with the assistance of a career counselor, and use it in your job search. Be sure to show this to your transition mentor and your civilian career mentor, too.
• Request your last household good shipment. The military will pack up and send your belongings to your new location or home of record one last time.
• Consider your post-military health care options. Unless your conditions are service-connected, your coverage will end. If you have a new employer who offers health care, enroll in that. You can also find health care coverage through the Affordable Care Act website. Tricare offers temporary health care coverage for newly-separated members under the Continued Health Care Benefit Program (CHCBP) and Transitional Assistance Management Program (TAMP).
• Update your wardrobe, leaning on your career mentor and the professional network you’ve been developing.
• Decide where you’ll roll your military blended retirement savings. For plans worth less than $100,000, consider a fiduciary app like Wealthfront.
• Update your important documents while it’s still free.
• Start your household goods shipments and other PCS/ETS procedures.

Three Months Left:

• Begin working on your VA compensation claim paperwork. Declare everything on your outgoing medical exam. Your duty station and Veterans Service Organizations (like the DAV) will assist with this process. Some states have offices to help veterans get this done.
• Review your budget one last time to ensure it’s still good to go.
• No matter your age, review your life insurance options, especially Servicemembers’ Group Life Insurance (SGLI) vs. Veterans’ Group Life Insurance (VGLI).
• Get copies of your medical and dental records to keep.
• Visit your doctor for free one last time.

One Month Out:

• Choose your health insurance.
• Know your home state’s veterans benefits.
• Stay on top of your VA disability claim.
• Keep looking for work, using job fairs, LinkedIn, and other websites.
• Meet with your school’s veterans benefits office.

This can all be overwhelming if you wait until the last minute to do everything. Remember that staying proactive and ensuring you arrive at each point when you’re supposed to will keep you from losing your mind as your ETS date approaches.

Then you’ll really be able to celebrate a job well done.

Read the full transition guide online here.

Listen, there are a lot of benefits to military service. There are so many the military actually hires people to explain them all to you. But chances are good this information was in a handout packet from your Transition Assistance class you didn’t read.

Luckily, I’m going to deliver you a quick and dirty rundown of the major points. It would behoove you to go seek out the details of these benefits, since they cover basic needs that people will need their whole lives, like income, housing, work and things like that, since your mama and Uncle Sam aren’t footing the bill anymore.

The first thing you need to do is file a claim for your VA benefits. The second thing you need to do is keep following up on it. Based on your submission and the VA’s subsequent (likely terrible) review of your records and a physical exam, the VA will designate a disability rating for you and assess if any of your chronic conditions are a result of your military service. If they find a condition like that, they call it a “service-connected disability” and will take care of that condition for the rest of your days. If they find enough things wrong with you that are related to service, they’ll just take care of all of you for life. You will also get a check in the mail every month to help ease your pain.

See how important that is? So you are strongly advised not to go through this process by yourself. Once you deliver up your military medical records, you will likely never see them again so you should photocopy everything and fill out your VA disability claim with an expert. Many Veterans Service Organizations (Like the American Legion) are more than just old guys sitting around drinking beer in the middle of the day. They can connect you with someone who can shepherd you through this process. If you do nothing else, take the time to do this right before you go to that new job or start school.

Now, if you decided more education isn’t for you, that’s okay. Be sure you transfer those G.I. Bill benefits to your spouse or children, though. But if you’re six months away from your discharge date, you still need to get moving. It’s time to find a job for yourself. By now you should at least have a post-military career resume squared away and know what field you want to go into. If you’re looking to go into government, you’re in luck, the government’s veterans preference policy gives you an edge over other applicants. Governmental agencies are required by Congress to weigh their applicants with this preference.

Not everyone automatically gets veterans preference. There are even different levels of it. You also need to be discharged under an honorable or general discharge, so I hope you kept your nose clean. You get a ten-point preference if you have a service-connected disability with the VA or were awarded the Purple Heart. You have a five-point preference if you are authorized to wear a campaign or expeditionary medal. There are actually a few gray areas and exceptions to these rules, so be sure to actually look up the details before you start applying.

The next thing we need to talk about isn’t something everyone in the military just gets, but it can be clutch when finding a job if you do have it: your security clearance. Chances are good that somehow the military actually trusted you with sensitive information. Lucky you.

If your military career required a security clearance and you want to do the same job as a civilian, you’re still gonna need it. Even if you’re looking to work in another field but still need a clearance, that clearance is going to save your new company time and money in hiring you, and they know it. So don’t go crazy after your last day in the military and lose that clearance. You can still pull stupid stunts when you retire from your $200,000/year aerospace defense job, so don’t risk it all now.

That’s not even the biggest benefit. There is one benefit so powerful as soon as you activate it, your phone will not stop ringing and your email inbox will explode: the VA Home Loan. The VA guarantees part of these loans, making them so attractive to lenders, they’ll throw themselves at you like you’re a female deployed to a tent city. If you’re smart about this, you’ll know exactly what kind of interest rate you want and how much you can afford. Do your research and get the right loan, the banks will take your money but they won’t do the legwork for you.

When Gary Pearson signed his enlistment papers in 1955, he wrote a blank check for his life to the U.S. Navy. But to get taps played at his funeral, and an American flag presented to his family, the honor guard needed proof of his service.

It's something his family didn't have.

"I will say that my parents moved around a lot when I was younger," said Jennifer Bonnett. "I don't know if really they were lost."

Over two weeks, daughter Jennifer Bonnett worked with the funeral home and contacted the County Veterans Service Officer, National Veterans Affairs, the Sacramento Valley National Cemetery, their Congressman, and the National Archives. With three days to spare before his scheduled service, they contacted me. I contacted Veterans Affairs and the National Archives, which assured me the request was expedited.

"And after all that, nobody pulled through in time?" CBS13's Kurtis Ming asked.

"No," Bonnett replied.

At his service, Pearson's family blared taps through a cell phone speaker.

"I think it's disappointing," Bonnett said. "I think that he should have more."

The proof of his service finally arrived, two days after his funeral.

"Just too late," Bonnett said.

Valarie Rose, who works in the funeral education program at American River College, said sadly, it is very hard to get military honors without the paperwork, and it is very slow getting it from the National Archives. She said in some cases, local honor guards will step in if a family can provide a military ID card or photos in uniform — it's not guaranteed. Gary Pearson's family didn't even have that.

We were surprised to learn Veterans Affairs does not have records for every person who served, but the agency says DD Form 214 is the proof families need which is given to every servicemember when they are discharged. If lost, the veteran or their family can apply for a free replacement through the National Archives.

The full statements from both the National Archives and Veterans Affairs are below.

With proof of his military service now in hand, Gary Pearson's family revisited his grave one week after his funeral with an honor guard giving him the respect we owe every veteran who honorably served our nation.

"Closing the final chapter and giving him what he deserved," Bonnett said. "He would have been tickled by that. That's the phrase my dad used a lot. So, I guess he would have been tickled."

Jennifer Bonnett is an assignment editor for CBS13.

NATIONAL ARCHIVES PUBLIC AND MEDIA COMMUNICATIONS STATEMENT

"We are sorry to hear the family was unable to secure an honor guard for the service.  Staff at the National Personnel Records Center (NPRC), many of whom are veterans themselves, are deeply committed to supporting veterans and their families.  Because the Center receives approximately 25,000 requests each week, we have specific guidance on our website, an expedited business process, and a dedicated team to focus exclusively on urgent requests to support burials and other time-sensitive emergencies.

In this instance NPRC received three separate requests from three separate parties for the same analog record at the same time.  It received a request from the Department of Veterans Affairs National Cemetery Scheduling Office on May 10th and furnished the requested records on May 12th.  It received a request from the Department of the Navy on May 11th and responded on May 13th.  It also received a request from the family of the veteran on May 9th and responded on May 15th.  The request from the VA's National Cemetery Scheduling Office was serviced first because this office has the primary responsibility for verifying eligibility for burial in VA national cemeteries.

We regret that we were not able to respond to all three requests at the same time.  We strive to respond to all requests involving burials as quickly as possible.

While the NPRC supports the VA and the military departments with access to records, it does not secure honor guard services.  This is a function of each of the military departments."

VETERANS AFFAIRS STATEMENT

"VA politely declines an interview as military burial honors are handled outside our agency, but please see our statement below, attributable to Terrence Hayes, press secretary:

VA extends our deepest condolences to the Pearson family as they grieve. Unfortunately, we cannot discuss Mr. Pearson's military records or eligibility for military funeral honors, as both these functions fall outside our agency. Military funeral honors are provided by the Department of Defense, and military records are maintained by the National Archives and Records Administration.

Our goal at VA is to provide Veterans and their families with the lasting resting places and memorial services that they have earned through their service to our nation. We appreciate your interest in spreading the word to Veterans about the benefits available to them, and we hope your reporting will cover more the full range of planning that Veterans and families should consider. 

VA urges everyone to plan ahead. Veterans should include their military discharge papers with their wills, as these papers are key to securing a number of government-provided services. Veterans can order their records from the National Archives using the MilConnect website. To learn more, visit: https://www.va.gov/records/get-military-service-records/

We encourage Veterans to apply for VA life insurance to ensure their survivors have funds when needed. They should talk with those they trust and write their health care decisions in a Living Will or Advance Care Plan. Survivors' benefits may be available, including Dependency and Indemnity Compensation, a VA Survivors Pension, and Burial Allowance.  More information on these benefits can be found here: https://www.va.gov/family-member-benefits/

If a Veteran is considering burial in a national cemetery, we recommend applying now for Pre-Need eligibility determination: https://www.va.gov/burials-memorials/pre-need-eligibility/

Veterans should document their wishes to ensure their family will have access to resources at their time of need.

There is nothing more important to us than helping Veterans and their families in times of need, and we apologize if there was any miscommunication between this family and our staff at Sacramento Valley National Cemetery. Our job is to help wherever and however we can."

I readily reiterate below that my views expressed here don't reflect those of my school. That faculty and administrators shouldn't endorse political positions on behalf of universities was once self-evident.

The absence of official viewpoints bedrocks intellectual tolerance and academic freedom in higher education. The left was once the vanguard of this notion. Now, they've tragically lost their way, asserting various views as verboten violence--in what presents better as a Monty Python skit than learned discourse--on the one hand, and proclaiming political preferences as institutional values and interests on the other. The solipsism cannot be overstated.

Higher-education institutional values and interests are few and entirely procedural--a commitment to free speech, enlightenment, and tolerance towards all ideas (even incorrect ones).

Any expression beyond these core notions as official positions constitutes hijacking of higher education. Sadly, this occurs far too often.

My colleague Josh Silverstein recently reminded my faculty that, after the election of Donald Trump, the then-law dean, Michael Hunter Schwartz, wrote students and faculty offering counseling.

Silverstein further elucidated as follows: "[While] Dean Schwartz did not say that he abhors the views of all Republicans ... he did say that he abhors the views of some. And that is precisely how numerous conservatives and Republicans understood the email. (As did many liberals, including me.) Indeed, several conservative students immediately forwarded this email to Arkansas Republican elected officials. Those officials were furious and made their views known to Dean Schwartz and other members of the law school and university communities."

I was out of state, caring for my mother, when this occurred. I too was shocked by the email.

When the then-dean wrote his message to law-school listservs with the trappings of his position--including his decanal title bolded in his executive signature block--his actions imprinted the school's imprimatur on his expression of political views.

And a "mere four days after sending the email below, Dean Schwartz resigned, effective the end of the school year," noted Silverstein.

Had the dean communicated unofficially using different means, that would've been unremarkable. After all, First Amendment ideals don't exist to protect banal pablum characteristic of nursery rhymes and greeting cards. Rather, free speech shares guardianship of both the controversial and the foolish--and the then-dean's comments certainly demonstrated no shortage of the latter.

Similarly, when President Trump restricted transgender-military service, a law-school dean in another state officially communicated his disapproval and efforts at "amelioration."

Amelioration for a policy having nothing to do with legal education--what does that even look like?

I didn't endorse the trans-ban and opposed the military-gay ban from years prior. I always thought woefully circular the posited argument that potential blackmail of gay-military members justified their exclusion. After all, these proud warriors only had to hide their sexual orientation in the first place--creating the secrecy vulnerable to extortion--because of the proscription. (That's a paradox worthy of The Next Generation's finale.)

Nonetheless, why should any school have an institutional position regarding military policy, with the dean deciding that stance, no less? If that's subject to official opprobrium, why not also, say, abortion and gun rights?

Moreover, I know of no administrators declaring conservative values for mainstream academic institutions. That's why we see a near perfect mapping of leftist politics with stated-institutional positions--evidencing that these expressions of entity ethics are embellished-individual preferences of those with engorged views of their roles.

It's hard to overcome leftist-academic hypocrisy as progressive professors palpitate over preferred populations' "under-representation" in particular professions, while these same liberals stand decidedly dumb despite the dearth of conservatives in higher education.

Don't get me wrong. I actually want academics to opine on policy more, because, as I discussed recently, the three academic components of teaching, scholarship, and public service work in unison. These opinions just shouldn't be embossed with a counterfeit Great Seal of the Realm.

My 40 law-review articles and essays and the two editions of my Freedom of Information Act treatise not only undergird my over 100 columns and hundreds of media interviews--my varied commentaries allow me to disseminate dense scholarship popularly along with my policy recommendations.

In ensuring I'm not presenting official-school positions, however, I grant license to colleagues to do the same when we disagree. And, rest assured, we often disagree.

Further, as my examples imply, the problem rests more with administrators, who sometimes view their leadership roles with outsized scope. One dean agreeing with the restraint encouraged here told me he's not interested in being a moralizer-in-chief.

Indeed, freeing administrators from this recent role engrossment allows them to focus on their core responsibilities: getting the trains to run on time and mapping a course for growth. Some call the latter "vision." That's fine, as long as that somewhat lofty descriptor doesn't cause macrocephaly.

We can take or leave individuals moralizing. Everyone has opinions. Sermonizing from institutions of higher education through official commentary, in contrast, smacks of indoctrination and oppression. History has well documented the significant dangers of those.

This is your right to know.

Robert Steinbuch, professor of law at the Bowen Law School, is a Fulbright Scholar and author of the treatise "The Arkansas Freedom of Information Act." His views do not necessarily reflect those of his employer.

© Provided by Montgomery-Selma WSFA It was just two months ago Montgomery was chosen as one of the five outstanding defense communities in the nation.

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (WSFA) - It was just two months ago Montgomery was chosen as one of the five outstanding defense communities in the nation.

Now Mayor Steen Reed says life in the capital city is getting even better for members of the military, thanks to the newly formed Montgomery Military and Veterans Commission.

“We believe in active commissions and active boards, and I think given the people that are a part of this and that have helped us get this far, you will see just that,” said Mayor Reed.

Mayor Reed says the commission will stage special events, establish military monuments, and most importantly, share important local resources and information. Air Force Colonel Ryan Richardson says the commission is a much-needed addition to the community.

“I think these partnerships bring the barrier of specific issues, some of which are unique and exceptional to military families military members but some of which will help the community real large,” says Col. Richardson

And it’s not only the city and Maxwell Air Force Base that are partnering, so is the V.A.

“There are so many resources available between federal VA on the veteran health care side and on the veterans benefits side and with the state, and often folks don’t know that there are opportunities for them to get those resources again not just on the health care side but from education housing benefits,” stated Amir Farooqui, Director/Chief Executive Officer of Central Alabama Veterans Health Care System.

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The WSWS encourages its readers in the Toronto area to attend the IYSSE sponsored meeting “The War in Ukraine and How to Stop It,” at the Lillian H. Smith Branch—Toronto Public Library on June 4 at 2:30 p.m. Click here for more information.

The Justin Trudeau-led Liberal government is pursuing a predatory imperialist foreign policy, expressed most clearly in Canada’s provocative participation in the US-NATO war on Russia and fulsome support for Washington’s advanced preparations for war with China. A critical aspect of the rapid escalation of Canadian militarism over recent years has been the co-opting of major universities by the military and defence sector, turning them into research agencies for weapons of death and destruction, and the global geostrategic and economic interests of Canadian imperialism.

In a process that has been escalating for years, the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) has extended its tentacles into higher education. In 2017, as part of an announcement of the Trudeau government’s bellicose new national defence policy, the government stated its desire to redouble its efforts to increase cooperation between the military and universities. As part of the initiative, $4.5 million per year was dedicated to the expanded “defence engagement program” with scholars and $1.6 billion over 20 years for the Innovation for Defence Excellence and Security (IDEAS) initiative, for developing “new cooperative partnerships with the private sector, universities, and academics.”

The funding from the Department of National Defence (DND) and related programs is designed to provide Canadian imperialism with the intellectual, technological, and scientific know-how it requires to wage war around the world. The government is funding research into high-tech technologies intended to transfer competitive advantages to Canadian big business as trade wars mount, especially in economic areas that bring significant military applications.

Relationships developed between the military and Canadian universities include: