Listen and subscribe to Warrior Money on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you find your favorite podcasts.
For veterans transitioning back to civilian life after their military service, the public sector can offer a fresh purpose and career path.
A job in government actually can be one of the best options for veterans to pursue, according to Rob Diamond, a US Navy veteran who served as a senior aide to former President Barack Obama and as an adviser to the Biden-Harris campaign.
So why aren’t more veterans stepping into the political arena?
“Running for office is intimidating,” Diamond said on the Warrior Money podcast (see video above or listen below). “There needs to be a more collective effort to recruit veterans into government and to recruit veterans running for office.”
Diamond admitted his role in government wasn’t something he “sought out” at first. “I think for anybody, let alone service members transitioning out of the military, where do you start? What office do you run for? How do you raise money?”
Fundraising can feel like a major barrier for most veterans who are considering running for public office. Even at the local and state levels, the amount of money needed to run a campaign can seem exorbitant.
But Diamond noted that running for office isn’t the only way a veteran can contribute in a public service role.
“I think people also need to realize it’s not just about elected office,” Diamond said. “There [are] so many opportunities to serve in government — in non-elected capacities in city government, in state government, in the federal government, working for agencies that have a national security focus, have a veteran’s focus, have a real benefit to the community broadly.”
As podcast host Patrick Murphy pointed out, “There [are] 600,000 elected positions in America. You don’t have to go for the top 535.”
Murphy also served as a former US congressman and as the 32nd Army undersecretary, which he said he did as a way to “pay it forward” for the men he lost in his unit in Iraq.
Diamond’s efforts with the Obama and Biden administrations, as well as the efforts of other veterans in public service roles, have helped put policies in place that aid fellow veterans in the community.
In particular, Diamond highlighted how initiatives across presidential administrations brought the veteran unemployment rate down from nearly 10% in 2011 to its current level of 2.8%, well below the national rate of 4.1%, per the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
“My only regret is that we constitutionally ran out of time,” Diamond reflected on his time working with the White House. “It hits you every day walking into that building, the scale of the work you’re doing — that the decisions that are made there affect the lives of millions of people, not just here in the country, but across the globe.”