U.S. Reps. Mike Thompson (D-CA-5) and Don Young (R-AK-AL) on Wednesday announced the bipartisan Veterans Congressional Fellowship Caucus is now accepting applications for 2015 fellows.

The mission of the caucus is to increase the number of veterans working on Capitol Hill.

To do this, veterans Thompson (U.S. Army, 1967-1973) and Young (U.S. Army, 1955-1957) last year launched the caucus fellowship program.

“Every office on Capitol Hill would be lucky have a fellow from this program,” said Thompson. “Our veterans are some the most skilled workers our country has to offer. As a veteran, I understand we have a responsibility to help those who’ve served our nation find a job when they return home. This fellowship program helps us to fulfill that responsibility by increasing the number of veterans working on Capitol Hill and providing our heroes with new skills to help them excel in the civilian workforce.”

“As a veteran myself, I am always looking for opportunities to support our veterans,” said Young. “The Veteran Fellowship Caucus is a powerful resource for both Members of Congress and our veterans. Congress significantly benefits from the knowledge and expertise of these battle tested individuals, while our veterans learn the skills necessary to excel on Capitol Hill. I have personally benefitted from hiring veterans and would encourage all my colleagues to do the same. My goal is to change the attitudes of Congress, which has in recent years forgotten about the commitment our nation made to our veterans.”

According to a 2014 survey by HillVets, an organization for veterans in politics and government, the latest confirmed count of veterans working on Capitol Hill is 98 veterans out of approximately 6,060 Capitol Hill employees.

Fifty-five percent of Congressional offices responded to HillVets’ recent survey. By extrapolating a similar proportion of veteran hires to the nonresponsive offices HillVets projects that no more than 178 veterans are working in personal offices on Capitol Hill.

To increase the number of veterans working on Capitol Hill, the bipartisan Veterans Congressional Fellowship Caucus has created a fellowship program that will provide them with the resources and skills necessary to bridge the gap between military service and legislative work.

Veterans who are interested in applying for the fellowship program can apply here at http://mikethompson.house.gov/constituent-services/veterans-fellowship-program . 

Veteran fellows will be placed in participating offices. They will take part in an educational curriculum where they will learn the legislative process and how to assist constituents dealing with federal agencies.

The fellows will be provided a certificate at the end of their fellowship highlighting their completion of the program.