In this episode, we have a very special guest, Tony "Tank" Aponte, a former Air Force veteran who is now the Founder and CEO of Allegiant Giving, a non-profit organization that focuses on providing workforce development and DOD Skillbridge programs to military members transitioning into civilian life.

Tank shares with us the challenges that military members face when transitioning into the civilian workforce, and how Allegiant Giving is helping to bridge the gap between military service and civilian life. Through their various programs and partnerships, Allegiant Giving is helping veterans to acquire the skills they need to succeed in the civilian workforce.

One of their most exciting partnerships is with Coursera, a leading online education platform. Through this partnership, any veteran, military member, or dependent can access thousands of courses for free, for life. These courses cover a wide range of topics, from personal development to professional growth, and are designed to help military members make the most of their transition into civilian life.

So if you're a military member or veteran looking to transition into civilian life, or if you're interested in supporting those who are, this is an episode you won't want to miss. Tune in now to hear from Tony "Tank" Aponte and learn more about Allegiant Giving and their mission to support military members and their families.

In This Episode We Cover:

- DOD Skillbridge

- Allegiant Giving's Workfoce Development Program

- How to get free courses through coursera

Battle Buddy Podcast Guest Links:

https://allegiantgiving.org/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/tony-aponte/

Transcript from Episode 96 with Tony “Tank” Aponte:

Keith McKeever 0:01

Welcome back to another episode of the battle buddy podcast. You want to pay attention today, especially if you value education, because the nonprofit I got coming on today has got a an amazing education opportunity that you do not want to miss.

Welcome to the battle buddy podcast with Keith McKeever.

So tank. Welcome to the podcast.

Tony Aponte 0:24

Thanks for having me, Keith. Great to meet you.

Keith McKeever 0:26

I'm glad to have you on here and I'm super excited to talk about this because I meant what I just said during the opening like people do not want to miss this opportunity. i My mind was blown. When When we originally talked or first time you in a group zoom chat kind of mentioned this. I was like, Whoa, this is interesting. Like I've never heard of anything like this and started looking into it and was like Hey, we got to talk and then once I got access to the system I was my mind was absolutely blown before we get too far down the rabbit hole that tell us a little bit about your your background and your military story.

Tony Aponte 1:01

All right, yeah have to so I'm a 21 year retired Air Force pilot and my YouTube pilot by trade. So Intel surveillance reconnaissance guy Intel analysts background just kind of working in that field from for most of my career. The tie that into my last eight years so I'm retired at Edwards Air Force Base in Southern California and Palmdale, California. We are a part of LA County. LA county wants to extradite part of the city of Palmdale, the Kern County it's a big battle going on right now. Because we're not we're not down in the valley, right. And so we're in the high desert, and it's called the Antelope Valley. So about 3000 foot elevation are super hot during the summers, relatively cold during the winters, but always high winds. But uh, if you ever see the black jets of Air Force, right, this is this is where they were all built right here at US Air Force plant 42, here in Palmdale. So the dark side of the of the military, you know, exists here? And

Keith McKeever 2:01

is that what people might refer to as like UFOs? Or? Okay, I have

Tony Aponte 2:07

hundreds percent. So, you know, the SSME one, that one's in teens, the YouTubes any of the new UAS is that you see flying around, all that stuff is built right here, developed here developmental test exists here. And so I spent the last eight years on my Air Force career, working and learning this side of the Department of Defense, not just for the Air Force, but for the on the Joint Spectrum as a whole. So it was pretty cool. Got to network and learn a ton of new things, meet a bunch of cool people and get to touch really cool future weapons systems. Right? We'll just leave it at that.

Keith McKeever 2:46

Now. How about the past weapon system? Is there an sr? 71 there?

Tony Aponte 2:49

So there's no no SRS or flying anymore? I mean, we have the Blackbird. airpark you know, so I mean, okay, see the SR and the OXCART? 3017

Keith McKeever 2:59

None were flying. I just didn't know if there was one there. Because yeah, it's such an iconic

Tony Aponte 3:04

game. Yeah, they're not gonna, I mean, we got the SRS, the old UTC models on display, we got F on seven teams at Edwards Air Force Base on display. All that really cool. Like historic, like secret squirrel flying stuff is all is all here. Right. And it's unknown, which is good. Because, you know, people aren't supposed to want to come here, right? Because we want to keep people out for the most part. It's, you know, keep that prying eyes and ears away from here.

Keith McKeever 3:34

Makes sense? Absolutely. I mean, you know, it's, it's, it's important. Yeah, absolutely. You know, that's the future. So, but I do have to ask, I don't think I've ever asked this question. Where did the nickname come from? Is that was was that your callsign? Yeah, tank is my okay. What's the story behind that? One? Yeah.

Tony Aponte 3:54

So I told the story on the vertical momentum podcast with Richard Kaufman. And basically, in the military, a call sign is given, and nine times out of 10. It's because you did something really insanely stupid, or like, it was one of those moments, you know, there are a few call signs that are tied to people's names because like anybody whose last name is Smith or callsign is usually Messer. Right. So for Mr. Smith, and those are like not too creative, right? So My callsign is actually half of drunk tank, because I got thrown in a drunk tank. During my YouTube initial quality training. It was this was one of those moments I thought my Air Force career was that I was a captain at the time I've been I've been in I think it was going on five years in the Air Force. And I was like, great, there it goes. My career right. Right down the toilet, you know. Thankfully, I was able to recover from that. But yeah, so along along with the drunk tank, obviously there comes the events of the Night that led up to that, you know, that's a long long drawn out story.

Keith McKeever 5:04

I think we all have one of those I've got one myself did not involve a drunk tank but it did involve drinking and police officers. But anyway,

Tony Aponte 5:13

get that get the same same elements to mine and so it was the only time I pretty much wore my Airforce blues my dress blues, like four months straight walking around the squadron is this new guy. Everyone knows when you're in your blue in your dress uniform more than one day, you did something wrong. So there was and then I still I had already sold in the YouTube through the basic quality training course I was waiting for my admission call upgrade to start. And I ended up so obviously I'm not flying you know, everyone's like what are we gonna do with this dumbass kid that just got in trouble the cops and lo and behold, like, it wasn't actually a big deal. Like it wasn't. I didn't get arrested. Right that that would have been a completely different scenario for me. So I spent the month refurbishing completely overhauling the squadron bar and everyone loved it. I just absolutely fell in love with it. You know and I think that helped you know this guy's he's a great handyman. What

Keith McKeever 6:13

would you do with the bar? Like he gave us new cake? New kegerator?

How ironic they put you on that task? Yeah. Oh, you, you get drunk and get in trouble. So we'll just have you remodel the bar. That's not the most Air Force shit I've ever heard. I listen to what is it with pilots in the bars? Like I was security forces. So obviously, I tried to stay away from the pilots and the hangars and stuff. But we did go into those every now and then. And it did seem like there was a bar and just about every single one I went into

Tony Aponte 6:49

it. So it's part of the heritage right? If you look back at the old Army Air Forces, they are Army Air Corps days before the Air Force segregated you know, it was it was beers and cigars, right? You look at old pictures. The you know, everyone knows for the most part who Robin olds is one of the most horrible fighter pilots we had. He had the big bushy mustache hence mustache March. Always Smoking Cigar. Lots of pictures of him standing next to Jeb with a with a bottle of beer. It's part of the heritage of growing up, you know, hopefully not doing anything stupid or, but it's part of the culture right? And it's hard to let go of that. Me being a 21 year that I saw the transition completely away from the squadron bars for the most part, right. So the the squadrons that had the lineage tied way, way back, right. So the ones that were started up maybe like in the 70s or 80s definitely still have their squat and bars. My squadron here we stood up we reactivated a squadron here at Edwards Air Force Base got a brand new building completely empty. The first thing we built was the squadron bar. Like it was hands down in necessity right walk in as a director of operations to the opso and I was like alright, I got it. office spaces over there hangars over there. This giant spaces for the bar get to work as you know like build a Heritage Room right let's put our memories up here. We're starting a brand new squadron I want pictures taken I want you know coins, I art ideas for Squadron paraphernalia, put it all up on the walls. And that's how that's how you record history. Right? And that's how you establish that culture, right? So we would debrief in there. All right, everyone debrief down in the bar, go grab a drink, you know, whatever it is, whether it's leaded or unleaded, right? And then I'll go Holic grab a drink, let's go debrief lessons learn, move on with the day.

Keith McKeever 8:45

Okay, that makes sense. Good place to do that. We didn't we didn't have that perspective of security forces. But then again, we're out driving around shenanigans. We just tried to get to try to not get caught sleeping in vehicles on the flightline so I'm sure you probably saw cops sleeping drunk. We won't go there but but we'll just move on with the topic today so so you've been with a legion giving let me get that scroll on there. So you did your skill bridge with them so I just wanted to just kind of paint a picture now they don't do the same anymore, but they kind of started with some action track wheelchairs originally and they've gotten some training, mentoring and different things but a lot of what they do now is Coursera training for veterans their spouses, skill bridge and some other things but let's start with skill bridge they got a five step skill bridge battle plan. So what explain that to us what that looks like for those who might be interested in skill Bridge Program.

Tony Aponte 9:50

Yeah, so first I do want to say like I actually, as of a couple of weeks ago actually don't work for Legion giving anymore. I'm actively promoting and doing almost So all of the same stuff I was doing before, as I'm transitioning to a different job, a different opportunity. So with the five step battle plan, if you just think about it, from start to finish, the idea is to create is to start with a mind map of what is it? Person A wants, right? What do you want to do? Or do you want to vector your life? Where are you trying to go? Are you currently active duty? Or are you a veteran with a job? And where are you looking to transition to right, so all the intermediary steps before five, talk about developing the plan, and getting you established on that path? With step five being? Are you the question is being asked, you're on the road to success? Are you happy with it, and if not, if you look on the website, the arrow comes back and says, Alright, let's reattach step one. Because Allegiant, giving supports veterans for life, all the services are free. There's never any charge for anything that that is provided, whether it's the education part, which is the biggest program that they have, or the workforce development part, which is basically job placement rate. So for skill bridge, as we evolve through all the different branches, having their own rules for skill bridge, as a nonprofit, there's no there's no revenue that comes out of the skill rich program or anything. with it. What they've done is they've partnered with Coursera coursera.org. And, and have gotten a license essentially to give out an unlimited number of licenses to anybody who's active duty, a veteran, or dependent to have access to Coursera. Now there are three things there are three education, modes of Coursera. There's courses, specializations, and then there's accredited classwork, they do not touch that accredited classwork is that, like, you'll go on there. And you'll see all the universities and colleges that are actually on there providing syllabi courses towards a degree, but you have to actually apply to the university do all that. And then if you opt to do their program remote, they will then essentially give you a Coursera account to access you know, Yale's Coursera page or whatever it is. So we do the courses and specializations. There are currently almost 10,000 on there. And just to give you an idea of how how much Coursera is growing two years ago, there was only 7100 courses and specializations offered on there. So in two years, they've gone from essentially 7000 to just under 10,000. Right. And and if you're wondering, are these legit? Yes. So when you go do a Google Cloud, IT certification on their Coursera hosts the class, you're taking it on the Google servers, Google gives you your certification at the end, right? So when you go through your project management training, there is no PMI is not associated with Coursera. The project management track is a preparation for you to take the test, right. So once you're done with the Coursera, project management course, there, you're ready to go get your PMI cert, your CMP cert. So construction, project management, and anything else that that's in there, but that's a third party. So you go out, you register with PMI Institute, you pay and then you take the certification, you get the training for free of note as a veteran though, whenever you take, so if you get allegiance Coursera setup, and you go to take any of these tests, if you go on va.gov and go on to their education side, they will also fit the bill for your first attempt at a test. Anything any subsequent attempt that if you fail the PMI test, and it's on you. So they will reimburse you for for for the tests for any certification, as many as you want one time, right. So you could do PMI. If you had to pay for the Google it cert, they would pay for that. Right? So it's not just a one and done. It's one of each certification that you're looking at taking. So don't lose sight of that reference as well.

Keith McKeever 14:04

Yeah, there's an amazing plethora of opportunities there. Like I was just telling you before we started, I just got access, oh, maybe like four or five days ago. And when I finally got in and got my account, and I started looking around, I was just blown away because University of Illinois, Michigan, Yale. There was I think there was a couple of colleges in in England, Paris, Copenhagen, I think, couple in Canada. There's all across UC Berkeley, UC Irvine, Washington. I mean, it was just like, wow, you know, Google meta. Just just about anything you want. There's there's a ton of different training tracks. I guess this leads kind of into my next question, the education tracks there's 12 of them. Maybe maybe another one coming potentially down the line. I'm saying The minute the growth rate, there's probably maybe even more, who knows that will come down the line. But

Tony Aponte 15:04

yeah, there's a ton coming down the line. So by the summer, I imagine it'll be three or 4x, as far as the training plans that are put together in the DoD required skill Bridge Program Office format, right, to then be able to utilize for the skill bridge program itself. One thing that Allegiant prides itself with, with respect to the skill Bridge Program is the application process and how fast it is. So just like what you went through Keith, as far as filling out the Google Form, and then engaging once or twice, maybe with somebody from Allegiant, to get your access, that's essentially, outside of a webinar that you have to watch. That's essentially how long it would take any skill Berger to apply and receive, they're signed in official training plan for the education track that they pick, along with the other document, they need to set up with the command scholars command application, which is a memorandum of participation. Those two documents are needed for any branch, any service member in any branch to forward on up through their appropriate skill bridge application channels, because all the branches, unfortunately, have their own application method. Enabling the most strict right now.

Keith McKeever 16:16

I mean, should we expect anything different? I mean, but we know for those who have to back this conversation ups, we're talking about skill bridge. There's, I imagine two types of people listening to this, those who've gotten out, you know, never took advantage of this or those who are listening to it thinking maybe this works for me. I've heard of the skill bridge, or maybe I'm thinking about it. What were your experiences was it was skill bridge, in your thoughts? What have you seen from other people, too?

Tony Aponte 16:47

Yeah. So first, yeah. So what is Gilbert, right? So a congressional mandated Pro is a congressionally mandated program that allows active duty service members to plan up to 180 days from their official Separation Date, any any opportunities they can get to, to go get an unpaid internship, because you're still getting full time active duty pay as a title 10 federal agent to do an employee skills training program, which is education based, which is like a legion giving, schedule, all your any other permissive leaves, all your terminal leave and everything all that has to be scheduled and laid out in a timeline. So that it all happens within that 180 day window or less, right, depending on what you get approved for. And for the active duty service members. I always recommend everybody start your planning two years out, start giving it providing your leadership with situational awareness that you do plan on using skill Ridge, everybody should plan on it, whether you get it or not remember, because it's skill bridges and entitlement and is not a privilege. Because it's when when somebody gets approved for skill bridge, that units Manning bill, it, that slot that you fill, is you don't the commander doesn't get a backfill, because you're on permissive, permissive TDY or permissive ta D, depending on what branch you're in. And you can be recalled at any time if unit mission dictates right, so you're on a TTY, essentially, during your school bridge. So until you had terminal, they're not allowed to backfill that slot. So they're doing more with less, we're deliberately doing more with less at this point. And so just be patient with the process is what I tell everyone like I do want to say this, as far as what you put on social media, based on what's going on during your skill, Bush application, be very, very careful, everybody who are active duty, because your commanders and your supervisors are also on social media. And if you go blasting them because there's a delay with your application, or because maybe instead of providing you with 180 days, they say hey, I can I can give you 120 Day skill bridge, you know, dudes and dudettes be happy with that because this is not it's not. It's not a requirement, right. And the DoD is doing what they can right now to help facilitate a better transition for all active duty service members. And skill Ridge literally in the past, maybe a year and a half or so has blown up. It has been an unknown, even though it's been active since about 20. So Congress delineated funds for the DoD skill bridge program back in 2010. They it so they got activated around 2014 for the quarterly quadrennial Finance Review budget reviews. So it's been blowing up so of course everybody wants to take part of it. But commands cannot just say skybridge for everybody 180 days, because then there would be no defense, right? Everybody won't be on school boards because people are not doing more than like six years anymore. Oh, you know,

Keith McKeever 19:53

they get so much turnover every year they there's so much that leadership has to take into account and I think Do you bring a very good point I'll and I'll, I'll throw a word in there. Be grateful for what you do get, because I got out in 2011. So this was not a thing when I got out. And so the generations before now did not have this as an opportunity. So just you know, if you get 60 days, 90 days, 120 days, be grateful for it, because you're getting something that the generations before you did not get at all. So, you know, just be grateful. It's an amazing thing. I would have loved to have had it. I don't know what I would have done. But you definitely got a good point like it's been over the last year or two years. Definitely over the last three years. This has just exploded, I mean, just, I think, three years ago, when I started this podcast, it was one of those things. It was like, Okay, what is this skill bridge thing? Like I'm hearing about it, but what is it? It wasn't a whole lot, but now it's just, it's everywhere?

Tony Aponte 20:54

Yeah, so, and the army calls it CSP career skills program. So same thing. So if you go on to the army site to look at how they do the application process, everything they call it Career Skills Program,

Keith McKeever 21:06

of course, because it's, you know, one branch has got to be different than the rest.

Tony Aponte 21:10

Yeah, standardization is an amazing thing in the military. So, but plan early, be patient, and understand the instructions and the regulations for your command because they will change the Navy just released NAVADMIN 064 23 023. On February 17, that changed the scope of the application process completely and added actually a lot of restrictions based on time and service on how long commanders are allowed to authorize scope ridges for so the younger you are the longer scope as you can have, the more senior or the shorter the scope as you can have. I don't like it. But at this point for the Navy, there should be a lot less back and forth for the personnel on on fighting with the CEOs or the leadership's on on trying to get on a longer school bridge, because now they have a solid planning factor. And keep in mind, again, I don't support the NAVADMIN. But you have a solid planning factor. And it's a good place to grow from for the Navy, as the DoD will continue to evolve the congressionally mandated rule set right instruction set for skill bridge over time to hopefully implement skill bridge into a contractual service. Timeline, right. So basically, everybody will get 180 days in the future. At some point, obviously, that's probably a couple of years out. So once we fix the recruitment and retention problem, for the Navy, unfortunately, if you if you follow the news, I mean, the hotspots around the world, and the Navy is going to be the most active, alright, so they can't let their people go as much in today's time. So something to think about, be aware of that. And just keep in mind, you know, you sign a contract to fulfill X years or however many months you have left in serving active duty not not being on skilled bridge.

Keith McKeever 23:06

Yeah, you know, I'm gonna, I'm gonna agree with you. I was gonna guess, cuz I wasn't familiar with the change to that. I was actually going to guess that it was the opposite of what they did you know that the more senior you were the more time but I guess I can see why. You know, the longer you've been in, the more skills you've heard, the Wiser you are in years, I guess, and experience. I guess what you know, as well, as I do, you know, once once you joined the cool kid club and put on the title of veteran like, it's not really easy. You're I don't care if you were in five years, or 20. Still, you still have struggles? Like, I don't know that the Navy in their infinite wisdom really realizes that, but I guess I get where they're going from. And you're right, like, you know, they're definitely going to be projecting power around the world. And they need to be right now. But hopefully, hopefully, it is a long term thing for all the branches here and a couple of years. Because I've been I've been trying to advocate for that for for a while. Because a lot of people don't realize it is the Department of Labor that runs the transition programs. And it's not the Department of Defense. I hear a lot of civilians be like, wow, why don't they do more for the military's like, well, the Department of Defense does it. Like when you're done, you're done. Here's your DD 214. Goodbye. Like it's the Department of Labor. And it's one of those training classes. That's why they tell you to get a LinkedIn profile and dust off your resume or create a non militarized resume. It's so like, there's more that can be done. And I think this is something using skill bridge would be a great way somehow I think you'll still have some lost souls that will be out there being like, well, I got 180 days what am I going to do with it? You know, I don't know how you solve that matchmaking. But it gives somebody an opportunity to maybe do During that period, go do something else, and start getting a taste to civilian life, maybe take off the uniform, you know, five days a week for work, and get into a different environment and start testing those waters a little bit, you know, help ease that transition a little bit more, because you know, what goes into? Yeah, we were both Air Force, you know, the taps program, sitting in that meeting for a week, or whatever it is, you know, like, that doesn't prepare, you know,

Tony Aponte 25:26

it doesn't it's a, it's a, it's a good eye opener, if you if you can pay attention, because it's tough because tap is scheduled for, you know, like, anywhere from four to eight hours a day. But everybody knows that humans can only sit in one spot and actually pay attention for like 90 minutes, right. And then your last, like, doodling or whatever. So part of skill bridge is also incorporating a good skill Bridge Company, a good steel bridge partner will also ensure that not only are they training this active duty person in this new skill upskilling them in something, but they're going to help them out with the transition. Hey, you understand that during active duty service, the DoD just chunked out a part of your paycheck for life insurance. Have you thought about New Life Insurance yet? We mean, I have to go buy my own life insurance, hey, for your retiree, you have to opt out of the survivors benefits plan SBP, right. And it's a whole life or uniform. Index life insurance, some weird thing that I didn't know about until I went to tap and sign the form that you have to get notarized because your wife has to sign it if you're married to opt out. But it's very expensive. And what are the what are your other options? Besides the Survivor Benefit Plan for you on outside? Well, they don't cover that. All right. And for those of you watching, just get term life insurance, if you're young, younger, healthy, you're not like sickly or dying, you know, just get term life insurance, it's standard price for the next 3040 years, whatever term you get, and you'll save time money. And so, you know, it's things like that, hey, when I set up my LinkedIn profile, like, you know, am i Where's the best place to go get like a portrait, right? You get a professional photo, right? So there's portraits for Patriots, right? It's a great service that's free out there. And then how do I optimize my profiles? Right? So everyone probably doesn't realize you can go on to a campaign the name social, social outposts, I'll send you the link after this. But how do you how do you get your one year free LinkedIn premium account as an active duty service member? So you can start networking now? And then,

Keith McKeever 27:43

like, what do you what do you do with that LinkedIn profile? Great, you got a profile? What do you do with it?

Tony Aponte 27:48

So so the nice thing about Legion is, we incorporate all of that knowledge, because the current staff we write, so I obviously just left the Legion, but the current staff 90% of them just went through skill bridge and transitioned. And neither, you know, they had every all of us had our ups and downs, right? To include VA processing, right. So for those of you that are getting 180 Day skill bridges approved, you also know that on that 180 Day from your separation, you need to be going on to va.gov and filing your BDD your benefits delivered at discharge, intend to file Form to set your date for for your claim at your date of separation. So it will be six months later. And it gives you the number one priority, you become the BAS top priority to deliver a rating. Right? Upon separation. I got my reading two hours after midnight, on the day I separated, which was one October 2023. Right now, let me

Keith McKeever 28:51

tell you, you know, to just know when or roughly when you might get your writing. Yeah, you'll get it which is a huge stress reliever, because, yeah, look, if you do it 10 years down the road, and you open up a claim who knows

Tony Aponte 29:08

two years to get ready. Who knows how long I've been minimum two years to work through

Keith McKeever 29:13

all that. Yeah, I know some people who have gone you know, gotten lucky and you know gone through the process and you know, six months and yeah, some two years. I heard some guy on a on a Tiktok the other day saying it took them you know five years to get one to claim claim through you don't have to keep refiling denied and it's like can be a pain in the butt. So like if you know like, Hey, I'm going to have an answer may may not be the answer you expect or want. But at least you have an answer at that at that six month mark. That's huge.

Tony Aponte 29:42

For the pro tip for the VA stuff is whether you get the rating number that you want. 0% is a rating and what you want is anything that you file for as a claim 0% With everything listed a service connected, is gold is apps. Look, go for everybody. From that date that you filed your BDD get the intent to file date established, which is your Separation Date, you have one year to re attack that all that stuff that you didn't get, if you'd like a second or third opinion, right, and you can go to the VA clinic or go do your own insurance, you know, if you're retired, you can use TRICARE for life, if you're not retired and you got a job, go through Blue Cross Blue Shield, whoever you have, and upload everything back to the VA, you have one year to do that, to hit to get everything reset to that date. So let's say seven months, after you separate and you went through all these appointments, and you filed everything, and you got a rating of 60%, they will back pay you that entire time to that date. That's why filing that BDD and establishing a date is so important.

Keith McKeever 30:49

So another thing, it's important, since we're trying to say what skill bridge and the timing of everything is, this also gives you six months or less, whatever however much time you got, this is your last opportunity to go to your doctor, your primary care doctor and say and tell them about all the bumps and bruises and scrapes and anything else that you experienced while to get it on record. While you're in service, not a month or so after get it tied to when you are in service tied to a medical record, then. So like that, that's that's important because you wait 10 years later, or something like that, or 15 years later, 20 years down the road. You just can't prove some of that stuff.

Tony Aponte 31:35

And you're not gaming the system when you do this. The problem with the issues that come with military service are things that you may not be able to see right now. And the human body is very resilient honestly. But elements will will kind of kind of fall in place as things take time to degrade. Right? So for example, a lot of ejection seat pilots, right, we have back problems back issues. I can't tell you how many times I get on the jet. And I'm like, I can't even stand up straight. Right. And we when we deployed as you two guys, we would you get free chiropractic services, right? These were the full pressure suit. It's heavy. And the human body isn't meant to stay kind of compressed like that. So you know, you lower lumbar pain, like everybody has that. Yeah, but you got it because of your military service. Guess what, that lower lumbar pain might turn into later, you get a sore back, you start walking funny, you start walking funny, your knees start going out, your knees start going out, you start having feet problem, you start can't You can't reach stuff, all that stuff is tied, right as a second or third order effect of that primary service connected disability. Right? Ignore the word disability, I hate that I wish they would just call it a service connected like ailment, you're not disabled. But document it and have it on file because the good doctor will see that you have an ailment documented, you go in for something completely different. And they will write a Nexus letter to help tie that to something that you already had service connected. It could be a decade ago, 20 years ago. And then you'll start getting you'll start getting money from the VA to help you compensate for that.

Keith McKeever 33:16

Yes, I mean, it's important to tie those things in like, you know, when I when I was young airman got to my first base, they operational readiness exercises going on. So training was like, We want you out of sight out of mind. So a group was getting ready to deploy. So they're like, hey, these guys are untouchable. They're about to deploy. The specters are not even gonna look at them. So just go hang out with them. So everywhere they went, I went with them. They're doing weapons retention. So like some idiot, I should have known better because of handle weapons my whole life. I'm out there and I'm holding the plastic m nine. And I had my thumb out like this for some reason, right? So normally I comes up like this, it goes like this to take the weapon away from me. goes just like this, right? Man, it hurts so bad. And I'm like, oh, you know, I've jammed a lot of thumbs, you know, the fingers over the ear. I'm like, man, it really hurt and you're like, oh, you know? Young airman just walk it off. You know what I mean to the baby. And I'm like, God, you're freaking hurt. You know? I come in the next day, dude. Black and blue. The whole thing just swollen black and blue. And NCIC training was like, are you okay? And I'm like, Yes, I'm good. I'm good. He goes, can you go see the doctor? No, I'm good. I was like, I'm gonna tough this up. I couldn't even type dude, I couldn't even move their thumb. I was. I was like, one handed typing like, it was excruciating ly painful. It was throbbing it was like for a week, you know? And, you know, it's subsided. It went by just took some pain meds never went to the doctor. And here you know, for for last 10 years, like every now and then, like my grip gets a little sore. Like it hurts to grab things. And it's like, man, dude, I'm not even 40 yet. Like, I never it's not documented anywhere. Like, it's just one of those things like, I was a young dumb airman who was too prideful to go to the doctor and get my records. So I'm kind of I'm kind of screwed on that, like, just so things like that, like, just, you know, I could maybe get lucky. You know, I could maybe get a letter one of those guys might be attract one of those guys down and get a Nexus letter. Who knows? Well, buddy letter,

Tony Aponte 35:19

write

Keith McKeever 35:21

a letter. Yeah, buddy letter.

Tony Aponte 35:22

That's all you need is they don't. I mean, for the most part, people aren't just gonna go out and ask their friends start making up letters, right? So if the if somebody's down from your first base, who remembers the incident? I mean, they're gonna be like, oh, yeah, that we see this guy was assigned here. You guys were on duty at the same time?

Keith McKeever 35:40

Yeah, he's easier said than done.

Tony Aponte 35:43

But the buddy letter is what will help you tie that, that service connected it ailment, right, to what you have what's going on now, like, let's say you started developing arthritis there sooner than any other joint right? Guarantee is because you jammed your thumb and didn't get in, take care of it. Right. And you probably have some calcified buildup in there, blah, blah. Yeah.

Keith McKeever 36:02

I mean, as bad as it was, I probably broke it. And never, never, I mean, you know, whatever, who knows, but that's why it's important when you're in to, like, I don't care if it's an ankle or thumb, everything you have to do to tweak your need, you just kind of deal with some pain meds until it feels better, but never quite feels right. Like go get those checked out. Like those things that kind of linger, like, get it checked out. Be an advocate for your own your own health and because you don't know what's going to happen when you, you know, pack on some extra pounds and an extra decade later, like they're gonna hurt. You know, there's no doubt about it, it's gonna hurt. So but that's, that's, that's a good stuff that everybody should should know. Going through that program is there's there's time there to do those things.

Tony Aponte 36:47

Yeah. And to close the loop on the skill bridge piece. Yeah, we're big on that. Like I've set up automations. So we use Slack messenger to communicate with all the skill bridges, because there's, there's over 1000 in the pipeline right now. And keep in mind that Allegiant only graduated 100 and 49. Last year, and in January alone, there was over 150 people actively enrolled in silver. So the stuff I did for marketing, that there'll be a whole different podcast, but the, the automations, and the reminders that go out to everybody, everybody has access, who's enrolled with us to get those automations via slack, or even emails on that are tied to their timelines or reminders like, you know, don't forget to do this. And those go out every week. Like I was, like, you know, I'm going to set these up to be an overabundance, so people see them versus just once a month, because then somebody's going to be like, oh, yeah, I remember last month, I saw a Slack message for something. What is it? Well, now they get it every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday, there's slack messages that go out to remind them to do all these things, right? Hey, you know, we have a resume review training coming up, you know, for free, right, we have the job interview prep resources, like let us know who needs it? Well, you know, who needs help with their LinkedIn profile, you know, just email or reach out to someone so via slack, and we'll get you on the calendar to go over your profile. All that stuff on top of keeping track of where that student is on the train plan schedule, right for their education track. And then, to close the loop in whole, at the end, we have a workforce development team. It's still a little immature with a number of partners that Allegiant has to look to have kind of flow SkillBuilders out to companies direct, but just in the past two months alone, it has grown substantially. And when I say substantially, it's not a ton of partners. But the partners we have are the ones who are consistently putting open job ranks out that are tied to the skills we teach via the education tracks that are selectable for the skilled teachers, right. And that's key. It's not just any open job, which a lot of other skill rich companies do. We try and place on our on our Virtual Job Board the jobs that matter to the skilled readers because of what they're learning what their upskilling. So for anyone to it's not just the skilled workers,

Keith McKeever 39:18

I think that's really important. And you had told me some of that stuff was kind of in the telecommunications field. Which, which is huge. You know, I think it was all 5g stuff. I didn't know you didn't say specifically what company but you know, as we look at the cell phone networks around our country, and everything's going to 5g, like there's there's job demand there. Like there is a opportunity there for the next handful of years for gainful employment advancement. You name it. It's not something that's you know, it's just a was. It's not just a job, there's career opportunities, not for jobs. Get my word for it. on that one. So it's not just get out and get a job, because nobody should get out of the military just get a job. Because you know, you did 21 years. And I've said this a lot to a lot of people, I don't care how long you were in, you still get out, and you still have an opportunity to work another at least 15 to 20 years until you're that typical retirement age. That's a whole another career. That's a whole nother huge chapter in your life. That's not just a job, a job could be part time work, you know, being a Walmart greeter, like that's a job, you know. So you can do amazing things over a long period of time. That's, that's a career. So there's a lot of opportunity there. And a lot of a lot of training stuff. So I highly encourage everybody to, to jump on this. I've got a scrolling across the bottom for those watching, but I'll have it in the show notes. But how? How can people sign up for every for all this.

Tony Aponte 40:53

So just as far as skill bridge, or the free Coursera, the signup is actually the same method. So when you go to the homepage, you can just scroll down a little, there's a big button that says literally step one, right? And it says skill rich goals slash dream job survey or something like that. So you just click that it takes you to a Google form, fill out the form. There's only a very, there's very few minutes required fields on there. And I believe it's question five ish, don't quote me on that right around there. You'll see, you know what, you know, where are you filling out this form, and you have to one of two options to select a seat of skill bridge, or free Coursera. So obviously, for those of you wanting to apply to Legion scholarship program, select storage for those of you that are already past your transition. Or if you're active duty not approaching a transition, you can still get a free Coursera account, then hit free Coursera you would need to fill out a separate form for your dependents. That way we can track them and get the information to upload to build their Coursera profile as well. Right. So just like he did fill one out for your spouse, fill it out for each of your kids. And we'll get them hooked up with a login.

Keith McKeever 42:06

Yeah, and you know, that process went really easy. I mean, it's just I sent everything in. I think it was like a day, maybe two days later, like, you know, we all just had emails popped up, like, Hey, here's your free free stuff just signed in and started looking around. And if I would have thought about it in advance, I would have had everything I could have pulled it up and shared it right here. screenshare. But you know, a handful of different just different types of courses, and you just click on it, you look through and like you said you had, you know, individual courses or like series of courses and a bunch of different things. But just out of curiosity, before we wrap this up what, since I know you're familiar with quite a few of them in there. I know there's like 10,000 or so different courses in there. Is there anything that jumps out to you as some of the most interesting or intriguing trainings offerings, you know, in there?

Tony Aponte 42:58

Yeah. So, as we were discussing before, for anybody who's an entrepreneur looking to maybe bring some efficiency to your business, I really recommend I have in my business as a consultant, I push people to learn and understand the Google workspace and the provisions that come with it. For the extremely low cost that comes with you'll be able to cut out a lot of other usernames and logins because of everything that's included on there. The course that I signed up for recently, as I told you, I just completed a training pant plan to add to legions docket is Meadows AI course as a full stack developer. I think AI is it? I mean it's obvious it's the future, right? But how do we learn it and how do we develop a culture that will promote people wanting to jump into AI? Kind of like what raspberry how Raspberry Pi blew up in the past or even the Python coding language with some of the games that are out there Minecraft and Roblox but everybody knows Mehta. Everybody likes Facebook every you know, I mean, a third of the population has an Oculus, right? So go out and learn how to make games on that. Or as a as an entrepreneur go out and learn how to how to do meta ads, right? And in the metaverse go out, learn how to put market in the metaverse that is there's courses for that right and while Coursera feeds that too, you can also get all of the metal courses via the Facebook blueprints. For those of you that haven't heard it, Facebook puts all their training out for free Facebook blueprint comm I believe you log in with your profile, and you get like all of their training how to use a business page effectively. You can do the full stack developer course right from there. And anything that that offers but I like I'm a tech guy right so I will always lean towards something maybe it cloud computing techie kinda on that side. Everything's on there. And, and again, as Coursera keeps adding courses that just lets everybody know that they're adding relevant courses as things change, right? Google Cloud, the Google Cloud, it computing curriculum completely changed. Elysian actually has to adjust the profile or training plan a little because some of the classes are outdated. Now, the nice thing is, when you click on Google Cloud it in Coursera, it gives you the list of your syllabus, right? So we essentially just take that copy and put it into a DOD skill bridge program approved format. And that's, that's our training plan. That's what we that's what we set up.

Keith McKeever 45:35

So yeah, there's a lot of stuff on Google and meta that are huge. But there's a, there's a lot of stuff from, like I said earlier, big, big name, colleges, universities, places you've never heard of, I kind of looked through each one of those different tabs that are on there for the different categories. I was just blown away some of the courses. I mean, some of them are like, wow, this is useful for business. This one is just just would be interesting knowledge to know. Yeah, you know, and it's, some of it's like, wow, gee, I would never even want to know this. But it'd be interesting. Some of its like, I would love to know this. And it's interesting, but I don't, couldn't use it anywhere. Other stuff, it's like, wow, it's like, I don't even know where to begin. It's like a kid trying to clean their rooms like just Google Gluster. Meta, do I take this business class, that business class, you know, what a lot of them look like? Looks like a lot of them are setup, versus their sector, some individual classes might be able to take really quick and a couple of hours. And in some of them are going to be four week or six week, couple of hours here. You know, each week, it kind of tells you, which is kind of cool, like this is how long it's gonna take, the instructors got to set up like maybe a couple of hours, and a couple of readings and a couple of quizzes, and then the next week is going to be kind of same thing in their syllabus. So you kind of know what to expect. Yeah, you don't have the material. But you kind of know what the outline is.

Tony Aponte 46:57

Yeah, I'm glad you brought that up. So I will say this, the Coursera outlines their timelines, as if somebody is taking all the classes and they had a full time job. So you will see that, like the full stack developer courses for meta for meta AI, will say something like one of the courses is like it's four months, but then you knock down all the classes. And it's like, this module requires you to study for four hours a week, right? So again, they're expecting people that have a full time job. So what we do is, we take that schedule and compress it to 25 hours of classwork a week. As a skill rich partner, you're allowed to task or employ your skilled workers up to 40 hours per week. So we did 25 hours of classwork and we allocate 15 hours for homework, self study, testing and certification. Which honestly, means you're gonna have a lot of free time, and you can potentially finish a class early. But again, the nice thing with Coursera is you can continue to upskill yourself to reach your skill rich end date, right? Or, if you've got a crazy convoluted VA process going on, because you want to deploy people maybe like SF guys who go out for a whole year, like three times in a short career and, and you're just hurting, we'll go spend time doing your VA stuff, right? Because it's all about the transition picture as a whole, not just the training plan that is assigned by Allegiant giving more by your school bridge company. So don't we say that picture?

Keith McKeever 48:25

It's more than a time of the week to take care of that and your other other things in life. So yeah, awesome. Any any last words for us anything else that we that we've missed that really need to be highlighted because I, I will scream this from the mountaintops to every veteran that I meet, like they need to sign up for this, I firmly believe that this is amazing, great opportunity, even if somebody just takes one class, or if they do class after class after class, just because they love, you know, learning stuff. Like there's something for everybody here. But anything, anything else to add? Yeah, just

Tony Aponte 49:01

just one thing for anybody who goes on to Legion giving that org you'll see up in the header, there's actually, Allegiant is a nonprofit, right? So it's tough to continue. We're always seeking ways to fund all the programs that are set up. So I would ask everybody, if you could click on that link in the header to and make a donation. I mean, every dollar counts when looking for giant donations. For those of you that are coming off active duty and you're used to the Combined Federal Campaign stuff where you're doing like a monthly donation, our donation page does allow you to do like a recurring donation of like $10 a month for a year, for example, right. And while those are small donations, you do get the tax benefits from those but I will fix them over and over again to everybody like hey, every dollar counts help us out because we want to keep these provisions going for everybody.

Keith McKeever 49:52

Absolutely. Well take I appreciate you coming on here and sharing with us because this is once again like I said my mom million people really need to jump on this opportunity. So, I appreciate you sharing with us. Everything that, that you know about Allegiant giving.

Tony Aponte 50:08

Yeah. Thank you for having me Keith.

Keith McKeever 50:13

There you have it, folks, I hope you enjoyed. As always, if there's resources that are not on my website that you think should be pleased, let me know. The website is battle buddy podcast.net. And if you're struggling for any reason, please remember the national suicide hotline number is 988 Press one