Last year veteran advocates throughout San Diego County began noticing a surprising number of troops leaving the military with no idea what their benefits were.

This lack of knowledge often resulted in hardships for veterans and their families; especially when times turned hard and they were on their own in a civilian world without the military to fall back on.

Some vet advocates and service members have suggested that military branches are doing this on purpose to discourage combat veterans from leaving.

Others like David Dickey, a former Marine officer now president of the San Marcos defense firm Alpha Ten Technologies, Inc., believes the information gap is unintentional but real and troubling nonetheless.

"What we are seeing is that veterans just aren't retaining anything of what they are told during their transition briefings," said Dickey, who helped form the Veterans Retraining Initiative more than a year ago to assist veterans in their post-military lives.

Problems identified with the military's transition program included: not being geared toward the individual; veterans feeling rushed; bad timing, veterans more focused on being discharged then gathering information.

"This information is critical to their futures," Dickey said. "But it's being lost."

Maybe not much longer. A program scheduled for San Diego County in August aims at giving veterans another chance to learn about their benefits.

"The current transition class that the service members go through is given at a time in the service members' career when they are just ready to get out of the military," said Mike Judd.

"There isn't a lot of useful info coming out the classes simply because they haven't changed in 20 years but the rest of the military/civilian world has changed."

Judd is the outreach coordinator for the Warrior Traditions Program at the Veterans Village of San Diego and heads the effort to build the Veterans Transition Assistance Program.

"So we're attempting to create a more useful, better timed transition program that caters to specific needs. We'll have a two-hour class every Wednesday this August," Judd said.

Scheduled for Aug. 4, 11, 18 and 25 from 6 to 8 p.m. at La Jolla VA Center, the class will focus on:

· U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and state veteran entitlement programs and how to enroll in each
· How to access healthcare at the VA and vet centers
· Educational benefits under the new GI Bill
· The job process, including resume writing, interviewing and an overview of the local hiring market

This is believed to be the first program of its kind in San Diego County and one of just a few like it across the country.

Dickey, while unfamiliar with the details of this program, thinks it holds a lot of promise.

"The opportunity to get this information again is critical. I think this is a great idea and much needed," Dickey said.

For more information, call Jerry Mailhot at (858) 642-3671.