The famous front man has led the British band Pink Floyd for the past half-century. Now he’s leading a practice session in a room filled with wounded military veterans.

MusiCorps, a music rehabilitation program for recovering armed service members, is seeking to expand beyond the 50 recovering veterans now participating in the MusiCorps Wounded Warrior Band yearly.

Waters is instrumental in the group’s expansion efforts and is vocal about what needs to happen to grow the project.

“What we need,” Waters said in an interview, “is to find a George Soros or someone out there who will give MusiCorps a few million bucks to support this program because it is hugely humane and worthwhile… We ought to be devoting our resources to looking after these men and all people who need our help.”

The program’s founder, composer Arthur Bloom, said music aids wounded warriors in their recovery.

To get them back in a groove, MusiCorps holds practice sessions and performances with accomplished musicians.

Bloom said he too has greater aspirations for MusiCorps, a project that started out as “an experiment” after meeting an injured serviceman at Walter Reed.

The recovering soldier had lost his leg to a roadside bomb, and was worried that he wouldn’t be able to play the drums again.

Bloom said that moment – eight years ago – inspired MusiCorps, the project that has become his “life’s work.”

Tim Donley, a retired Marine corporal, said he’s experiencing the benefits of the program firsthand.

“I’d say something like MusiCorps is saving lives, which I guarantee it has, and I know it has, and I know it still is,” Donley said in an interview, “but that’s that one-liner and it’s corny and people don’t think you mean that.”

Vimeo / Medill Washington – via Iframely

Waters, a singer, songwriter and bassist, is hosting a benefit concert featuring the MusiCorps Wounded Warrior Band on Friday, Oct. 16 at Constitution Hall, to raise money for the program’s future endeavors.

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Former Marine P.J. Kellogg is bringing together Crossfit athletes to remember 31 U.S. service members who lost their lives in 2011 when their Chinook helicopter was shot down in Afghanistan.

Kellogg is the general manager of Crossfit MetroCenter in Washington and organized the “31 Hero W.O.D” on Aug. 1 for Uprise Fitness’ three Crossfit gyms. He was inspired to bring the commemorative workout to his own gym after realizing the event honored a mission in which his friend had been killed.

“After losing a friend in the actual happening of the 31 Heroes, I had no idea that there was actually a workout that other gyms and affiliates completed and raised donations for,” Kellogg said. “It means a lot to me because I understand it on a personal level.”

The Boeing CH-47 helicopter was transporting a group of quick-reaction troops, including members of the Navy SEALS, Naval Special Operations personnel, Air Force Special Tactics airmen, National Guard and Army Reserve, when it was shot down. Everyone on board was killed.

“They knew what they were doing when they did it, and they’re heroes for doing it,” Kellogg said. “They didn’t want any recognition. They would probably hate how much they’re missed today because they feel like what they did, even though they lost their lives, was something that’s meaningful to them.”

Athletes who completed the workout remembered these troops, as well as loved ones who had served, to keep them motivated through the 31-minute workout. Kellogg plans to continue hosting the event annually.

“As someone who has been in that field and seen guys selflessly risk their lives for complete strangers is just awe-inspiring,” Kellogg said. “I never will have an excuse not to try my best to participate in these workouts and try to get as many people involved as well.”

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This week marks the 65th anniversary of the end of the Korean War, and the 20th anniversary of the Korean War Veterans Memorial. Service members and families gathered at the memorial over the weekend to hear the names read of the fallen soldiers. The Korean War Veterans Memorial Foundation is currently pushing legislation that would allow them to build a glass wall around the memorial with these names listed.

He had joined the Guard for college, but wasn’t sure the direction he wanted to go in life post-deployment. Being out in the Iraqi countryside, however, it became clear to him: he wanted to return to rural Montana and become a farmer.

When he got back to the U.S., Mikulecky received a preferential veteran’s loan, agricultural training and financial advising through Northwest Farm Credit Services. He purchased land in Rudyard, Montana and grow it into a thriving wheat and grain farm.

“The hours from the service and the hours that you put into agriculture are very closely related,” Mikulecky said. “Yeah, it’s a lot of hurry-up-and-wait, but we’re self-starters, always trying to go the extra mile.”

For military veterans like Dan Mikulecky, turning swords into ploughshares – both literally and figuratively – is becoming an increasingly attractive option.

With the drawdowns in Iraq and Afghanistan and thousands leaving the military, America’s veterans are facing over 20 percent unemployment. With 45 percent of armed service members coming from rural America, the draw to agriculture is a natural solution, according to the USDA.

“We should hope for all veterans to be able to come back and assimilate in the way they can, but we also need a lot of new, young farmers,” Mikulecky said in an interview. “Someone has to grow the food.”

The average age of farmers in the U.S. is currently over 58 years old, according to 2012 Census data.

For America’s aging farmers and ranchers, worried over who will take the reins in the next generation, an infusion of veterans into American agriculture would be a welcome relief.

“Almost half of those that have served in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have come from small, rural towns,” said Farmer Veteran Coalition founder and director Michael O’Gorman.

“We’ve become a disproportionately rural military, so we feel the health and prosperity of our rural communities is important to our military, and agriculture is an important and exciting avenue for those that are leaving the military,” O’Gorman said.

Since founding the Farmer Veteran Coalition in 2008 to guide veterans’ transition into agricultural careers, O’Gorman has seen the organization grow from 10 veterans to over 4,500 members, with over 200 joining each month.

The Farmer Veteran Coalition provides small grants, livestock and used tractors for veterans, and also helps them navigate the world of finance through coordination with the USDA, and Farm Credit, which is a national network of lending institutions – including Northwest Farm Credit Services – tailored to agricultural and rural America.

The skills and ethos of military service directly translate into agriculture, according to O’Gorman.

“There’s a lot of the same sense of determinedness, the same sense of hard work, taking on a mission, standing up when you’re knocked down, and [being] really purpose-driven,” O’Gorman said.

The barriers to entry into farm life, however, may be daunting to many veterans. Obtaining land, seeds, equipment and training in cultivating crops or raising livestock present enormous challenges to those considering a career in agriculture.

Air Force Brig. Gen. Kory Cornum, who owns a 690-acre farm outside of Paris, Kentucky advises vets to start small and expand over time.

“It can look like a big hill when you’re young, but if you want to do it, you can make it happen,” Cornum said.

According to Rep. Michael Conaway, R-Tex., Chairman of the House Agriculture Committee, taking advantage of the assistance and guidance provided by the Farmer Veteran Coalition and Farm Credit helps veterans survive the tough early years and “build the capital to allow them to then expand their businesses.”

“We’ve asked them to do things way too often, too many repetitive deployments,” Conaway said. “So we owe them our gratitude, and one of the ways we can help their post-military service lives is to get them into agriculture.”

Conaway made the remarks at a Capitol Hill reception last week honoring farmer veterans. The event showcased agricultural products grown by veterans with the Homegrown By Heroes label.

The Homegrown By Heroes label identifies products sold in grocery stores and farmers’ markets which are grown and raised by U.S. veterans. Since its 2014 national launch by the Farmer Veteran Coalition and Farm Credit, it has expanded to 165 farmers and ranchers in 43 states and brought in over $15 million in sales for veterans.

Calvin Riggleman, a Marine Corps veteran with two deployments to Iraq and now owner of Bigg Riggs Farm in Augusta, West Virginia, was the first veteran in the Mountain State to use the Homegrown By Heroes label and sells his produce at farmers’ markets around Washington, D.C.

“I think it makes a big difference,” Riggleman said. “People walk up to my stands and they know I’m a veteran without me having to say anything.”

For Dan Mikulecky, becoming a farmer has offered a stable career doing what he loves.

“Farming is something that we’ll only need to do a better job at as the population of the world increases,” Mikulecky said. “It’s an industry that never runs out of demand.”

His wife Adria Mikulecky agreed, adding that their success was due to the support they received through organizations like the USDA, the Farmer Veteran Coalition and Northwest Farm Credit Services.

“That’s what veterans need when they come home and try to transition: a lot of support.”

CLINTON, Md. — From soldier to CEO is a more natural transition than many veterans realize. A large support network has sprung up to help vets start their own businesses, but many do not know it exists.

On Tuesday night the Small Business Administration and VetFran partnered with Marriott’s TownPlace Suites to host a workshop aimed at educating veterans on the basics of entrepreneurship as well as special programs available to former service members. The two biggest components for veterans preparing to start their own business are choosing the right kind of business for them and securing capital, they said.

They also recommended that aspiring business owners take time to think about their passion.

“If they’ve always wanted to own their own business they should definitely write down what they’re passionate about, what their interests are, what they want to do,” said Paul C. Rocchio, senior director of development and member services of International Franchise Association, which owns the franchising organization, Vet Fran. “Maybe tie it into what they did in their military service – what kind of responsibility, what kind of job they had.”

VetFran Manager George Eldridge works with veterans every day

He helped an Air Force veteran start a franchise in his living room and garage that has become so successful the vet has opened a showroom and warehouse.

“He is in his third year of franchising and in the program and doing great,” he said.

Eldridge encourages vets interested in business ownership to do their research and examine all possibilities.

“In the military you think ‘I can’t fail,’ but sometimes you have to think about the risks you’re getting into and have a balance expectation when getting into something like this,” he said.

Veterans interested in franchise ownership may find a good match for their interests on Vet Fran’s website, which offers a plethora of options, he said. Over 100 different industries franchise, the most active being food, followed by hospitality, home-based businesses, childcare and pet care.

Contacting SBA is also a good place to start, advised Laurie Sayles Artis, a Marine vet who owns Civility Management Solutions, a management consulting firm.

“The reason I say that is because they are free mentors there to do just that,” she said. It’s a cost-effective way to decide what area a vet wants to work in compared with paying for training that turns out to be in an area outside of the vet’s passion.

“I’ve watched people fumble through who didn’t know what business they were getting into before they got there,” she said. “I highly recommend no training until you decide what training you want to get.”

Financing opportunities also abound for veterans. The Small Business Administration, which has 68 field offices around the United States and 1,000 resource partners, has Veterans Business Outreach Centers throughout the country offering information on how to gain access to capital.

For veteran-specific programs, the SBA helps businesses obtain reduced loan fees for any loan under $350,000.

Earlier this year, the SBA also launched LINC, Leveraging Information and Networks to Access Capital, an online tool that simplifies the connection between loan seekers and lenders. By answering just a few questions, an applicant can reach out to lenders all over the country.

“If you qualify for something, and even if it’s maybe a non-traditional loan or a micro-loan, the lender will reach back out to you and say hey, maybe this is we can talk about and this is the next level,” Chris James, a SBA assistant administrator said.

At least 3,000 vets have used LINC to make a connection since the program launched two months ago.

“That doesn’t mean it translates into a loan exactly, but at least it’s linking up a business with a potential lender all around the country, and not just your bank,” James said.

VetFran does not provide financing, but, like LINC, it connects veterans to help with funding, working closely with the Small Business Association and lenders within its supplier group to help them afford the franchise opportunity they want.

Those shopping for a franchise can expect to pay from $10,000 to $20,000 for a home-based business, Rocchio said, to in the millions for a McDonald’s or hotel brand, with options everywhere in between.

“Our members that are participating in the Vet Fran program are offering their franchise at a discounted rate or in some cases are waving the initial franchise fee to make it easier for [veterans] to become an owner operator and to own their own business,” he said.

Rocchio and the other speakers urged veterans to think like entrepreneurs and be aggressive in reaching out for help.

“As veterans you do have a few more opportunities than some other folks,” he said.

Text by Holly LaFon. Video by Nick Kariuki.

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WASHINGTON — The Philadelphia branch of the Department of Veterans Affairs has already fixed some of the problems noted by federal inspectors who said the office altered quality reviews, violated claim policies and had stacks of unopened mail, a top VA official said Monday.

Last week’s report by the VA inspector general’s office is the latest blow to an organization routinely accused of chronic mismanagement, cooked books and retaliation against whistleblowers. The investigation began in June when the inspector general’s hotline received numerous complaints about the Philadelphia VA regional office. According to the report, many of those callers were VA staff concerned with reprisals against employees who raised problematic issues with management.

VA Under Secretary of Benefits Allison Hickey told reporters in a conference call that while she agrees with the findings in the VA inspector general’s report, recent restructuring has already solved most of the regional office’s problems.

“The report that was released by the IG, from my perspective, reflects conditions as they were over a year ago, and we knew that,” Hickey said.

The VA inspector general’s report was released last Wednesday. It documents numerous problems in the way the office operates. They include confirmed cases in which the Philadelphia VA violated claim processing protocol and, in at least one instance, concealed bins of unprocessed mail. The report also expressed concern for employees at a VA call center, who routinely complained about a lack of bathrooms, leaking roofs and insect and vermin infestations.

Hickey claims that the report does not reflect changes made last summer, including improved claim dating procedures, new call center facilities and mass retraining of VA staff. She also noted that the VA encourages employees to report problems without fearing reprisal.

“We are inviting our employees to tell us when they see something that causes them concern,” said Hickey when asked what will happen to those employees who reported the Philadelphia and National Call Center problems.

“The majority of [problems raised by the report] have already been fixed,” she said.

Hickey is overseeing a parallel internal investigation of the Philadelphia VA that will be completed at the end of June.

Many veterans’ groups were unimpressed with Hickey’s assurances.

Joe Davis, director of public affairs for the Veterans of Foreign Wars, viewed the Philadelphia VA’s story with skepticism.

“When the VA says they’ve fixed everything, you better make sure somebody goes in there and does fix everything. And that’s a trust problem that the VA has,” Davis said.

Davis also pointed to the culture of the VA, which he believes is out of sync with the military it serves.

“The problem with the VA is they forgot who they work for,” said Davis. “They don’t work for the next line supervisor, director, hospital manager or regional office director. They work for the veterans.”

WASHINGTON — Under clear skies, President Obama blasted an air horn Thursday to start the Wounded Warrior Project’s Soldier Ride from the White House’s South Lawn.

Speaking before the bikes rolled out, Obama said the event was “a chance to say to all the returning heroes that you’re not alone. That we’ve got your back. We’re going to be with you every step of the way.”

The nationwide, annual ride offers wounded service members and veterans the chance to salve the physical, mental and emotional wounds they may have suffered through cycling and the common bond of military service.

Over 50 riders from all branches of the armed forces signed up for the three-day, 60 mile challenge, many riding on adaptive bicycles.

Obama was joined by Vice President Joe Biden and Veterans Affairs Secretary Bob McDonald. This year marked the sixth time that the event was welcomed to the White House.

The first Soldier Ride was in 2004 when Chris Carney, a Long Island, New York, bartender, biked across the country to raise money for the Wounded Warrior Project, an organization that supports injured troops.

The WWP claims over 68,000 alumni and more than 10,500 family members involved, as of April 1.

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CHICAGO — For many in the armed services, valor means courage against impossible odds. But for one group in Chicago, valor has a different meaning. Veterans Advancing Lives of Rescues, VALOR, is the name of a new program created by Safe Humane Chicago. The nonprofit organization pairs veterans working through tough times with dogs that have been confiscated in criminal cases for abuse or neglect and are now property of the city of Chicago.

“They are a little on a parallel track, in the sense that they have suffered some setbacks in their lives emotionally and sometimes physically,” said Janice Triptow, manager of behavior and training at Safe Humane Chicago. “So the marriage of these two populations is interesting and I think heartwarming.”

VALOR’s eight-week pilot program finished in November, when five veterans from the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps learned training techniques and socialization skills to help the dogs become more adoptable. All of the veterans in VALOR are part of Thresholds, a Chicago-based provider of recovery services for people facing mental health challenges.

According to the Department of Veterans Affairs, “more than 1.3 million veterans received specialized mental health treatment from VA for issues related to mental health.” The 2014 Annual Homeless Assessment Report to Congress estimated that 49,933 veterans were homeless in the U.S. on a given night in January 2014.

Christa Velbel, VALOR co-founder and a Safe Humane Chicago volunteer, said the goal of the program is “to use this magical but scientifically documented human-animal bond to take people and dogs who have been through a lot of difficulty and a lot of pain and make their lives happier again.”

Donald Birdsong discusses why he joined the Army in the 1970s.

Army veteran Donald Birdsong, who suffered setbacks after losing his job, participated in VALOR’s second session along with four other veterans and graduated from the program on March 23. Of the 19 dogs that went through his session, seven have been adopted, nine are in foster homes, two remain in city custody and one was returned to its owner, according to Velbel.

VALOR’s next eight-week training session begins Monday and will include five more veterans. Learn more about this endeavor here.

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WASHINGTON — The minds behind TestBed, Inc., a Virginia-based IT consulting firm specializing in IT planning, analytics, testing, prototyping and business advice for the public and private sectors, gave journalists a crash course in digital safety and encryption techniques at an April 3 seminar in Washington.

The daylong event, “Cyber Security Skill Workshop for Journalists: Sending Secure Email,” was co-sponsored by the Medill National Security Journalism Initiative and the Military Reporters & Editors Association, and held in the Medill Washington newsroom.

The seminar began with an introductory lecture on cybersecurity basics and common misconceptions about online privacy and security. Security-related superstitions, such as the idea that browsing in so-called “incognito” or “invisible” modes will keep your digital whereabouts truly hidden, were promptly dispelled.

TestBed’s Aaron Rinehart and David Reese then transformed the event into a hands-on lesson in PGP – an acronym for “Pretty Good Privacy” – as well as understanding other aspects of digital fingerprints (including how to create a public key, how to register it in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s PGP directory so that you are more widely contactable by those in the encryption know and how to revoke (or deactivate) a key for security reasons.

The program also included a brief introduction to the Tor network, a group of volunteer-operated servers that allows people to improve their privacy and security on the Internet. Tor, originally developed by the U.S. Navy, hides the route taken from a computer’s IP address to its eventual browsing destination.

Learn how Tor works via Medill reporter William Hicks’ helpful primer and infographic here.

When asked for the top three lessons he hoped attendees would take away from the event, Rinehart emphasized the importance of “good key management,” or not sharing your private PGP key with anyone, operating “under good security practices”(such as updating software and antivirus programs) and making email encryption a regular habit.

“Don’t compromise convenience for security,” Rinehart said in a post-workshop interview. “Try to make this something you can use everyday.”

The event drew a mix of reporters, security experts and students, which included military veterans and defense journalists.

Northwestern University in Qatar journalism student James Zachary Hollo attended the event to research encryption resources available for foreign correspondents and to report on the workshop for the Ground Truth Project in Boston, where he is currently completing his Junior Residency.

Hollo said the seminar gave him a better understanding of how to use PGP.

“I had sort of experimented with it before I came here, but this gave me a much better and deeper understanding of it, and I got to sort of refine my ability to use it more,” he said.

Hollo said he was surprised that many attendees came from military service or military reporting backgrounds, since, in his view, “one of the blowbacks against the NSA story [involving whistleblower Edward Snowden] was that it’s like reporting is like betraying your country.”