There may be some misconceptions about what military benefits are available to veterans depending on the circumstances of their separation (talking about anything other than dishonorable discharge). Disclaimer: I'm an Army brat running down some seriously second-hand and peripheral knowledge of the subject. But as I understand it, VA benefits are applied to all veterans -- which generally requires you to go to a VA hospital for treatment; and there are other restrictions and constant eligibility reviews. If you SEPARATE from active duty, this is what you get. If you RETIRE (20+ years service), you are eligible for TRICARE coverage and VA benefits. This is what I'm more familiar with as a dependent. Coverage tends to be pretty good; you can utilize military and civilian facilities.

Another family member who is a veteran of the USMC and not a retiree is in the VA system. I'm not intimately acquainted with the details but it seems he has to jump through way more hoops to get care.

Basically, military medical benefits != VA benefits. A lot of it depends on length of service and other factors. Clarification/correction/refutation from active duty, vets and retirees welcomed.

This article explains some of the difference:

http://www.npr.org/sections/he...

Now we know why.

You could potentially stay with a company for a while if you demonstrated the ability shift roles and learn new technologies as they emerge. The death knell for any IT worker is when they proclaim "I only do [this speciality]!" Work on your IT jeet kun do and you are likely to preserve your longevity with a company that keeps in-house IT. I'll admit to having worked in non-traditional technical roles at non-traditional companies, so YMMV.

I've had the same type of failures happen to wired network gear. A 5-port 10/100 switch would start malfunctioning when it had more than three live network cables attached to it. I suspected the switch until the same symptoms happened while using a different, known working switch with the same old power supply. Also had a fibre to copper transceiver act up similarly until I replaced the power supply. Whouda thunk that a stable power source was essential?

I'd especially tell them what it ISN'T. There are a lot of misconceptions about what computer science actually is and a lot of is perpetrated by well-meaning adults who tell kids "go learn about technology" and glom computer science into that extremely broad category of "tech".

I work for a youth organization, and I always have kids watching what I do and going "Cool, can you teach me how to hack?" Invariably, they get disappointed when I show them how to ssh into a remote machine and recompile the kernel instead of breaking into a DoD mainframe and launch missiles at China or something. And anytime I do try and generate interest in actual programming, it is hard to get past the "How do you program games?" point. Let's work past printf and scanf first, junior.

It's a toughie. IANACS, but I've taken programming and numerical theory classes and it can be tedious and detail oriented. It's hard to put that up against a generation who has a lot of instant gratification when it comes to their experience with anything technology related.

My only complaint about the Tactile Pro (at least the ones I used that came with the PowerMac G4) was that it collected all manner of human detritus and served as a DISPLAY CASE for it. Gross.