Legacy Of Service – Part 2: How One Veteran’s Disability Gave Him A New Purpose & Mission

For Michael Poyma, a sense of service is as much a part of his DNA as the long lineage of distinguished military service that runs through his family.

(If you missed Part One of this Two-Part Blog Series, click here)

Poyma with a group of Kurdish boys in Iraq, 1991.

Himself an Army veteran, Poyma was medically separated from the military after serving in the Gulf War as part of “Operation Provide Comfort”.

“Along all of this I had been hurt. I had been hurt in training, I had a pretty severe back injury and ultimately that is what led me to being medically separated out, of course, under honorable conditions, in 1993.” He pauses momentarily before continuing, “So I was able to, even though I was disappointed about being away from military service prematurely, I still had somewhat of a plan and I went home, I went back to Columbus, Ohio which is where I am from, I filed my disability compensation claim with the VA, got my rating and ended up going to the Ohio State University for my degree, and I got it through Vocational Rehabilitation & Employment, VR&E, the very program that I’m working for now.”

Allied Forces

Before starting the last part of my conversation with Michael Poyma, I pointed out how I felt there were a lot of parallels between his military career, and my experience with having acquired a disability later in my life and the subsequent events that led me to become an accessibility consultant and advocate for the disability community. We both had to reinvent our careers after suffering a disability. His VR&E is my Accessiversity, his InvestVets platform is like my Tales of the Reluctant Blind blog. We each have our own, but very similar tools that we’re leveraging to try and  reach a broader audience, amplify our message, talk about our experiences as a way of providing opportunities to share other people’s stories. And because of the high percentage of veterans with disabilities, there is even overlap with our missions, leading me to suggest (and no disrespect to those brave men and women who serve in the real special forces) that him and I, we’re kind of like that special forces for this niche population of people who we are trying to build awareness to hopefully improve the quality of services and resources that are available to help them.

Poyma thought about this for a moment, and added, “Unless you have been in the workforce development field, you may not appreciate this as much. And you, coming from that background, having that background, perhaps even as a participant, and as a service provider, you’re  a person with a disability like me, and so we have a lot of different perspectives on this, but most of all, we have the perspective of knowing what it takes to get things done for our job seekers.”

I asked Poyma about some of the challenges of serving veterans, suggesting that as someone on the outside looking in, it is a very complex system, that in my experiences working on training projects for veterans, hasn’t always been the easiest system to navigate.

“Unfortunately, in the eighteen, nineteen years that I’ve been in state and federal government, even within our own agencies, there are just simply too many eligibility criteria, and this gets extended out to almost any organization that you come across, eligibility criteria for the VA, for VR&E, you know, you have to be a service connected disabled veteran to be eligible for our program. If you’re going into the one-stop, the American Job Centers, i.e. Capital Area Michigan Works!, et all, you know, if you want to see that vet rep, the DVOP, veteran career advisor, you have to hit certain eligibility criteria. If you go to Volunteers of America, you have to have certain eligibility criteria to be able to participate, Michigan Rehabilitation Services, I could go on and on and on, I think you understand that. And so what I realized early on in this career, even when I was a DVOP, back in Chicago in 2002, 2003, 2004, in that time period, I recognized that veterans employment is not, and very much like persons with disabilities by the way, this is not driven by or can only be concerned or consumed by just one agency, it involves that so called village. In order to be successful, you have to have everybody on board, that takes time, and it takes time to foster those relationships to know, on several levels. One is that it’s good to know who’s out there. From my perspective, I found it very valuable that I had to find out who all the federal entities were that dealt with veterans, especially with veterans’ employment. Then I went to the state, regardless of the state, said, ‘who are the agencies that are in place here that deal with veterans, and also with veterans’ employment?’ Then I went to the, I guess you could say, quasi private/public types of organizations like the MEDC, Michigan Works! agencies, the Workforce Development Boards, and non-profit organizations and anybody and everyone who would have a hand in the hiring of veterans. And so when you line all of these up, and that number could be arbitrary, you could pick a hundred, you could pick fifty, a thousand, doesn’t really matter what the number is, but if you look at all of these players, entities, as  individual entities, and line them up, what you’re going to find is the main mission, the purpose, the goal, is the same regardless, it’s getting people hired. But what prevents us, what has prevented us from getting that done to a much higher effectiveness, level of efficacy or efficiency sometimes, are the very own eligibility criteria within our own silos that either restricts us in terms of the number, or the type of person we can work with within our organization, then when you factor in performance measures, performance goals, the competition for grant monies, and all of these other factors, is it any wonder that historically, the system was built up in a very siloed way. It made it very challenging, and I saw this for sure in Chicago, in Illinois, that was one of the greatest examples I saw of how it was just simply, almost an impenetrable barrier. But in Michigan, I found that it was easier for me to forge relationships, but once I had a snap-shot of all of these organizations, and who they were, what they do, how they work and play with others, by the time InvestVets came along, by the time it came to the involvement of our community action teams, or regional veterans coalitions, I already knew who all of these entities were, and are. I already knew the eligibility criteria, and the differing ways that veterans can engage with them, and you know what, that’s the real underpinning in an organization like InvestVets, is that when we were building this model, I didn’t create this and say, ‘if you are interested, help us,’ you know what I did? I took all of these people, all of these representatives, of all of these different organizations, and I said, ‘I’m doing this, for this reason, I need you. Come join me, and let’s make this happen.’ And to be fair, I don’t think anyone told me no. And again, that’s what I’m trying to illustrate is that for a few of us that have been in this sort of industry for a while, can really appreciate the work that goes into, and I’m not just patting myself on the back, believe me, I have a lot of folks who work hard with me as partners, who help me with this. But we have had to put in a lot of time, there is a lot of  blood, sweat and tears that go into forming just the basis of being able to get that sort of cohesive, collaboration, not only just in a city, but arguably around the state.”

According to Poyma, “Generally speaking, probably 25% or one in four service members transitioning to becoming a veteran will have , or at least will file disability compensation claims with the VA.”

When I asked him to define “veterans with disabilities”, exactly what that constitutes, he said, “For the purposes of defining disability, let’s put it this way, the very basis of establishing a VA disability claim can really be based on anything that occurred to us while on active duty, or even in training. This is a 24 hour clock here, in other words, there are people who have been in other accidents, automobile accidents, other kinds of activity that may have led them to become injured, that might not have necessarily even been while they were in uniform, but generally speaking, anything that occurs to us from the time we go in until the time we leave is subject to disability compensation.”

Poyma went on to clarify, “But, like everything else, this stuff has to be substantiated, in other words, while you are in service it’s inherent upon the individual to go to the Troop Medical Clinic, you know, to go to the hospital, the doctor, or those entities that are out there for getting treatment. That of course establishes the military service connection link from the very beginning, right? An easy example is when I got my back hurt, I immediately had to go to the Troop Medical Clinic, and then of course that started this whole chain of events involving x-rays, and CT scans, and all kinds of stuff involving my lower back because I had done some considerable damage to that. And then of course you could just look at the wide variety of really any disabling condition, any disability is subject to us receiving compensation if that injury can be attributed to our military service. But again, that linkage has to be established, that there had to have been some kind of either diagnosis or recognition, acknowledgment of something that actually occurred to you, and medical treatment in some way, shape or form, doctors, and clinic’s recommendations, and their notes, and their clinical records, diagnosis, etc. The short version of this is that veterans who get out of the military, and even active members who are within six to twelve months of their getting out, if they are going through the Medical Evaluation Board or Physical Evaluation Board process of getting out of the military, they can apply, for example, for some VA benefits including VR&E while they are still active.” 

Poyma continued, “So the establishment of, what you can say, an official service-connected disability is sometimes already sort of inherit because that’s the nature of them being separated from the military, kind of like what happened to me. But that doesn’t happen all of the time, and others just simply get out of the service, but because they have hopefully received good information, the briefings through transition assistance program, Soldier for Life, TAP kinds of classes, that they know that if they sustained any kind of wounds, injuries, disease, anything disability related, that they should probably file a claim with the VA. And so that’s where I kind of get this number of roughly about one in four veterans who transition, are said to be with disability. Now granted, I’m sure that that number, if you really slice and dice it, is probably a lot higher than that because the military in and of itself is a very, it can really break your body, it can certainly break your mind at times, look there is probably a lot of people out there who have served who have service connected disabilities who just simply don’t pursue the compensation end, or benefit end of going to VR&E or other things, and part of that could be reluctance, it could be pride, it could be that they are unaware, you know, it could just simply be not knowing that they can do this, which still happens.”

Poyma explained that, “Of those veterans who do apply and get service-connected disability compensation, I don’t know, again, this is not a hard and fast number, but really the vast majority of these disabilities are orthopedic in nature. It’s from getting beat up, it’s bad, broken bones, bad feet, ankles, knees, hips, I just go up the body with all of the joints , all of the bones, and shoulders and back and everything else, you know because there have been plenty of times and opportunities where people have said, ‘oh my god, you know all of these veterans, they’re all disabled and stuff, I bet that they all have PTSD and all this kind of stuff’ and I’m like, ‘well you know, you might think that, if you believe in what the media tells you, and what Hollywood tells you’. But the reality is that it’s mostly orthopedic in nature, and VR&E for example, can really help veterans in that regard because we have the ability to support academic pursuits, you know, college degrees. From body to mind, you know, a lot of us can’t just perform those rigorous or manual labor intensive types of occupations, but you know what, I’ve got the aptitude, I can get through some college, I can get an Associate’s degree, I can get a Bachelor’s degree, if I still have physical capabilities but want to do something a little different, you know, VR&E, we can help support apprenticeship programs for those who want to go into the trades. We have non-paid or unpaid work experience opportunities for veterans who want to serve in government, because we have an exclusive arrangement with our government partners out there, where we can place veterans for between six and twelve months, full-time, at no cost to the employer, to get the requisite experience to become a government employee, for example. I’ve had the honor of helping many, many veterans participate in non-paid work experience in Michigan, and get transitioned over into full-time permanent positions. So we can do a lot, my role has again, kind of circling back, my role has primarily been, ‘okay, whether you have received a college education or training or otherwise, my job is to look at you and see what do you got , how well are you presenting it, how well are you branding yourself, where can I help you improve in that branding, and let’s see if I can get you matched up with a company if I can, and try to introduce you to potential opportunities,’ especially if I can make that one introduction or that warm, so-called handshake. There’s the proverb that I’m sure you have heard about whether you can feed somebody a fish, or if you can teach them how to fish , I think it was the Chinese proverb I believe, and really what we’re talking about here is the difference between enabling and empowering. And I have always been, from day one, I have always been the empowerment guy. I’m going to share everything that I absolutely know with you, so that you can help yourself. Over eighteen or nineteen years, I have yet to develop or create a veteran’s resume for them. Not once. I have always shown them, you know, I will admit that there have been a couple of times where I’ve gotten some veterans who are really, some of their disabilities, some of their skillsets are simply just not there, and yes, I have sat down with the veteran and said, ‘okay, so we’re going to put your contact information here, we’re going to put this other information over here,’ I’ll show them examples and things, but for all intents and purposes, 99.9% of the veterans that I have worked with, I’m showing them how to do these kinds of things, how to network, how to conduct themselves in an interview, how to follow-up, all of those things.”

Poyma summed it up this way, “Disability, in fact, really does not come into play, if we are succeeding in our overall VA mission. Because that’s really it in a nutshell. Our role in VR&E is to mitigate the impact of disability, from occupations and activities that you either shouldn’t do or can’t do, into occupations and activities that you can do, and should pursue.”

Of course, preparing veterans with disabilities for the workforce is one thing, but I was curious whether Poyma had any thoughts about how the system can do a better job of getting the employer community to engage with this population.

“It’s very true, that especially in the last fifteen years or so, we have been saturated with all of these so-called values that veterans bring to the workforce. Focusing on those, you could put any number in there, the five best, or twelve best reasons for hiring veterans, and most of the time, they happen to be these less tangible aspects, soft skills, if you will from military service, and these are great items to help promote hiring veterans, things like leadership capabilities, accountability, attention to detail, taking responsibility, perhaps being drug free, taking on an assignment and completing it and looking at it as ownership. Those are some really valuable work ethics and things like that, but unfortunately those things aren’t necessarily skills that employers would look for, they might recognize, and would desire those within their organization, but these are not qualifications for jobs. But to be fair, there has been enough messaging out there over the years where employers certainly recognize the value that persons with disabilities, veterans, veterans with disabilities, can certainly add to their workforce. The big issue I have noticed is, where do I find these veterans? That’s really the key here, is that you can tell me about them all day but whenever I go down the street to like the VFW post, or if I walk into the VA hospital, because that’s where people are going to go, they’re going to think, ‘well, where am I going to find veterans?’ Well, we’re going to go to places that we recognize, we’re going to go to the Legion Post, the VFW Post, we’re going to go to the medical center because that’s all that we know, and then they leave disappointed going, and you know, it’s just kind of a fact and has been for many years, but if you walk into any average American Legion, VFW Post in this country, typically you’re going to find more retired, older veterans who are, you know, retired, and sort of relaxing, you don’t see as many of the active folks in workforce, for example, going to these brick and mortar locations, I mean that’s a whole other subject, but it’s no wonder to me that so many employers here they get stuck, and it’s like, ‘Where am I going to find veterans then?’ So, definitely, VR&E, Veterans Readiness & Employment, we are, without a doubt, probably the largest VA entity that exists, that actually has veteran participants who are seeking employment at any given time, that are directly affiliated with a VA program.”

Poyma admits that, “We have not always done the greatest job at broadcasting this. I think we’re going to get better at it as we now are revamping our national model. But VR&E can certainly be a source of veteran talent, and I think I would want any employer, small, medium, large businesses, to just simply contact me directly, at my email address, Michael.poyma@va.gov is really the best way to engage with me, and say, ‘hey Mike, I heard about you, I’m looking to hire veterans, I would like to learn more about hiring veterans, whether it would be in Michigan or anywhere for that matter, how can you help me get started?’ It’s as simple as that.”

“InvestVets is another organization,” Poyma adds, “we’re not, of course, like the VA or the federal government or anything like that, we’re kind of the opposite of that, we are community-based and very much an all-inclusive organization, we have so many wonderful partners out there. Employers can also engage with InvestVets, and all they have to do there is they could still email me, but they could also email info@investvets.org for more information. And we also do have a social media presence out there too, InvestVets has a web page, we have a LinkedIn presence, Facebook page, I think we are even on Twitter and Instagram, but InvestVets is definitely out there in a variety of ways for employers to engage with as well.”

To wrap up our conversation, I asked Poyma, when you look back at your career, and all that you have done, how is it that you are going to want to be defined in terms of leaving your print on a more accessible world?

“How I would want to be defined in terms of leaving my print on a more accessible world is that in spite of being a disabled veteran, and at the time, trying to comprehend and accept the end of my military career, I can truly say that I have done my absolute best at continuing to serve, in more ways than I ever could have imagined, for my fellow veterans, particularly those with disabilities,” Poyma explained, pausing momentarily before continuing, “if (my work) matters to others, and if it helps even just one person, than I’ve done great, I’ve done well.”