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A group representing congressional staffers who served in the military is urging lawmakers to hire more veterans.

According to nonpartisan HillVets, fewer than 3 percent of staffers in Capitol Hill offices are military veterans — a number below nearly every federal agency.
"We have a number of veterans who are consistently looking for positions, who are very well-qualified, but, for whatever reason, they're just not getting positions," HillVets co-founder Justin Brown said in an interview Tuesday.

Brown, a Navy veteran and Capitol Hill staffer, said veterans bring valuable insight, especially as Congress reforms the Department of Veterans Affairs and with more troops deploying to Iraq.

"They bring a broad worldview. They have a solid understanding of conflict and foreign affairs, and the interchange between diplomacy and the armed services," he said. "They know when not to utilize our military."

The group has been keeping track of offices hiring veterans. Brown said lawmakers who are veterans themselves tend to hire other former service members, but he noted that Rep. Virginia Foxx’s (R-N.C.) office has more veterans than any other lawmaker.

Brown said there are current opportunities for hiring veterans on the Hill, especially with a new class of Republican lawmakers coming in.

The group's members have made it their goal to double the number of veterans working as congressional staffers by the end of next year.

HillVets, founded in 2012, recently conducted a "Coat Crawl," where it collected about 250 winter coats for distribution to the D.C. General homeless shelter.

"We were looking for a way to utilize Veterans Day as way for veterans to give back to their community," Brown said. "So far, it's been hugely focused on our needs — we wanted to focus that back on the community."

http://thehill.com/policy/defense/223702-group-urges-lawmakers-to-hire-more-veterans