Veteran-Owned Businesses Can And Should Be A Force For Good

Veteran-Owned Businesses Can And Should Be A Force For Good

Here are four reasons why veteran-owned businesses should think about joining the B Corps movement.

Businesses make money. Nonprofits make a difference. At least, that's how many view the divide between doing good and doing well. But for ScoutComms and Hirepurpose, two veteran-owned businesses serving the veteran and military community, there is no distinction between making money and making a difference.

On Sept. 8, as a result of the positive impact our two companies have had in providing services to our customers that support veterans and military families, we were each recognized by B the Change Media as "Best for the World" companies. Honorees set a gold standard for the high impact that business as a force for good can make on important societal issues around the world.

How did this happen? In 2015, our companies were certified — only months apart — as B Corporations, also known as B Corps. The B Corp movement was launched in 2006 by B Lab, a nonprofit organization that serves a global movement of people using business as a force for good. Its vision is that one day companies compete not only to be the best in the world, but the best for the world, contributing to a more shared and durable prosperity.

What makes us different from the more than 1,800 certified B Corporations across over 120 industries and 42 countries is that we are two of the only veteran-owned B Corps, as well as two of the only B Corps supporting the veteran and military communities. We should not be so unique.

Here are four reasons why veteran-owned businesses should think about joining the B Corps movement.

It makes you a better business.

Being a B Corps makes you put a critical eye on a number of the core elements of any business, such as the people you employ, the products and services you sell, and your impact on your community and your environment. It is an honor to be recognized, but the B Corps certification process is also a great way to look at your business and think how about how you can do better. Any veteran-owned business would benefit from a critical analysis.

It channels the desire of veterans to continue serving their country.

We all know and believe that veterans are more likely to volunteer to give back and to serve than non-veterans. B Corps taps into that desire to continue to serve and successfully funnel the energy into the business environment, enabling sustainable for-profit models of doing business while also giving back in a number of ways. Ultimately, a successful B Corps is making an impact in multiple ways, not just the work we do for our clients or the people we employ, but also our significant investments in charitable giving, employee voluntarism, pro bono work, and hiring from the community we serve.

B Corps certification is a differentiator to clients, employees and business partners.

Becoming a B Corps is not easy. It requires you to be transparent, to examine your business model and processes carefully, and to subject yourself to a public review. But because it is more than just a rubber stamp, it is meaningful to have an ethical business model as a B Corps. B Corps certification is verification for us and for everyone we engage with that we are doing something differently, that we care and that we are making a difference.

It proves that you can make profits while making a difference.

We are not charities, but because we have an ethical business model that is focused on how we can do good for the world, we always seek to serve the best interests of our clients and our employees. Ultimately, while we do not replace nonprofits, we fill gaps where they cannot thrive. We are not dependent on the charity of others, as we generate our own resources. We are able, unlike many nonprofits, to keep top talent by paying the salaries and giving them the promotions they deserve.

As profit-driven businesses, we are distinctly not charities. But we are committed to making the world a better place — in our case for veterans and military families — and becoming certified B Corps is a step that helps prove to everyone we engage with that we are serious about our commitment. There is no better feeling than to know that you are doing good while doing well.

Iran Dismisses US Claims of Navy Harassment in Gulf

Iran Dismisses US Claims of Navy Harassment in Gulf

A senior Iranian military commander on Sunday dismissed claims from Washington that US patrol ships have been harassed by Iranian boats in the Persian Gulf, saying Tehran acted according to international law.

"Iranian boats continue to act based on defined standards and are well aware of the international laws and regulations, so the claims are not only untrue, but stem from their fear of the power of Iran's soldiers," said Brigadier General Masoud Jazayeri, deputy chief of staff of Iran's armed forces, according to state news agency IRNA.

The Pentagon last week said seven Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps fast-attack boats approached the USS Firebolt on September 4 with their machine guns uncovered, though not trained on the Americans.

It was at least the fifth incident revealed by the Pentagon in the past month, with US military officials repeatedly criticising the Iranian military for its behavior in the Gulf.

But Jazayeri said the claims were exaggerated.

"When Iranian boats pass by them at a distance of a few kilometres, Americans claim that Iranian boats have approached them within a range of one kilometre," he said.

"Iran's marine corps will never be stopped by the propaganda of extra-regional enemies and their vassals in the region in guarding the Islamic Republic of Iran's sea borders and economic interests," he added.

U.S. Navy officials say ships from the two countries interacted more than 300 times in 2015 and more than 250 times in the first half of this year, and claims 10 percent of those encounters were unsafe and unprofessional. 

Funeral for Marine Who Killed Wife's Boyfriend Had Honor Escort

Funeral for Marine Who Killed Wife's Boyfriend Had Honor Escort

On Sept. 3, days before sheriff's office officials announced Marine Staff Sgt. Cody Wade Smith had been killed in self-defense after killing his estranged wife's boyfriend, a retinue of motorcycles bearing American flags gave him a ceremonial funeral escort to his final resting place in Crossville, Tennessee.

Smith, 33, had an honorable 15-year military career that was cut short in what appears to be a horrific crime of passion.

According to official accounts, he was served with divorce papers Aug. 11 after returning home to Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, from a deployment to Europe. Some two weeks later, on Aug. 27, he came to his wife's new home near Richlands with intent to kill her and her boyfriend, 43-year-old Gregory Pearce.

Official accounts say he tied up his wife, Monica, fatally shot Pearce and set the house on fire before she broke free and shot him with his own handgun. Onslow County District Attorney Ernie Lee said in a Sept. 7 press conference that the county did not plan to charge her, as officials had found she acted in self-defense.

The tragic situation creates a philosophical dilemma: How does one honor a decorated service member whose life ends, not on the battlefield, but in the commission of a crime?

For the Patriot Guard Riders, a veteran-led organization of volunteers who provide thousands of honor escorts for troops' funerals each year, the lines are simply drawn.

David Westhorp, the Patriot Guard Riders state captain for Tennessee, told Military.com the riders attend funerals only at the request of family members. They accommodate requests with only one exception: if the deceased service member is a veteran who was discharged from the service under less-than-honorable circumstances.

That happens very rarely, Westhorp said.

"If we get a request, we don't go into a background check or anything in depth," he said. "We did do one [escort] for a veteran who died in a bar fight. And we didn't investigate whether or not he provoked the fight or anything else. The fact is, he died."

Westhorp said he had been made aware of the circumstances of Smith's death after the Sept. 7 announcement from the Onslow County Sheriff's Office about their findings. But even if he had had full information prior to getting the request for an honor escort, he said, the guard would have likely accommodated the request.

"We came to honor his military service, not whatever might have happened subsequently," he said. "We are not here to stand in judgment on this."

Smith's family, still reeling from grief and in disbelief about the circumstances surrounding his death, described him as an honorable Marine and a leader who had always wanted to be a Marine. Smith's father, Delbert Smith, of Smyrna, Tennessee, told Military.com he entered boot camp out of high school, just months before the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.

A platoon sergeant attached to 2nd Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion, he had completed 11 deployments, including two tours in Iraq and two in Afghanistan.

"He's been shot at, he's been blown up in a Humvee," Smith said. "And then for him to come home and to die this way, there's just, you never expect it to end like this."

Delbert Smith said hundreds of Marines who had served with his son at various points in his career had traveled to Tennessee to attend the funeral. Smith had been approved for promotion to gunnery sergeant, he said, and his new rank insignia were buried with him.

He said he didn't personally request the Patriot Guard Riders -- it's unclear who did -- but he was thankful for their presence.

"They were wonderful. They came out, showed up, paid their respects," he said. "It was a beautiful addition to the funeral. That's something that we will be forever grateful for."

Delbert Smith said a sheriff's deputy had called him personally and described the same account of the double-killing that was later made public. It's an account he said he can't and doesn't believe.

But even if the events of Aug. 27 unfolded just as described in the official account, he said they should not detract from his son's military service.

Duterte Orders US Advisers out of Southern Philippines

Duterte Orders US Advisers out of Southern Philippines

President Rodrigo Duterte ratcheted up his feud with the United States on Monday, ordering all American special forces out of the southern Philippines where they have been advising local troops battling Muslim extremists.

Duterte's order came a week after he called US President Barack Obama "a son of a whore", causing Obama to cancel their scheduled bilateral meeting at a summit in Laos.

The Filipino leader, the first to hail from the south and who claims Muslim ancestry, has been stepping up efforts to bring peace to the southern Philippines, where decades-long insurgencies with Muslim and communist rebels have claimed more than 150,000 lives.

Last month he restarted peace talks with the largest separatist group, the 12,000-strong Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), which like others has been fighting since the 1970s for an independent Islamic state or autonomous rule.

US advisers in the area help train Filipino troops but are barred from engaging in combat except in self-defense.

Previously, about 500-600 US personnel rotated through the Mindanao region but in 2014, then-defense secretary Voltaire Gazmin said this would be cut back to 200.

Duterte did not specify when or how many Americans would be expelled but said the Philippines alignment with the West was at the root of the persistent Muslim insurgency.

"These US special forces, they have to go in Mindanao," he told a gathering of government employees.

"The (Muslim) people will become more agitated. If they see an American, they will really kill him."

The US embassy could not be reached for comment.

The United States is Manila's main military ally and the Philippines' colonial ruler until 1946. In his speech, Duterte showed photographs and cited accounts of how US troops killed Muslims during America's occupation of the Philippines in the early-1900s to explain his decision.

Duterte's spokesman Ernesto Abella said that "the statement reflects (President Duterte's) new direction towards coursing an independent foreign policy".

The Filipino leader also hit out at Obama and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon for criticising his bloody crackdown on crime that has claimed 3,000 lives in a little over two months.

"This Obama, when you accuse me of killing... let he who is without sin, cast the first stone," he said.

In a brief encounter in Laos, Obama urged the Filipino leader to conduct his crime war "the right way" and protect human rights, but Duterte has dismissed it as being none of America's business.

US B-1 bombers fly over South Korea in show of force

US B-1 bombers fly over South Korea in show of force

North Korea claimed Friday's test showed it had a nuclear warhead that could be mounted on ballistic missiles, a possibility that increases fears for US allies in the region and also poses a threat to US bases in South Korea, Japan and Guam

A US B-1B Lancer bomber flies over the Osan Air Base, South Korea, on Tuesday.

"Today's demonstration provides just one example of the full range of military capabilities in the deep resources of this strong alliance to provide and strengthen extended deterrence," Brooks said.

On the diplomatic front, the US special envoy on North Korea, Sung Kim, said Tuesday that the US and South Korea will be considering "additional unilateral measures" in response to Pyongyang's latest nuclear test. Kim also said Japan may be included in additional initiatives.

The B-1s that flew over South Korea Tuesday were moved to the Andersen Air Force base in Guam in August as part of what the U.S. Pacific Command calls it Continuous Bomber Presence.

It is the first time the B-1s, which have the largest payload of any US bomber, have been part of the Pacific bomber force in a decade.

ULA chief says recovery from space launch accident typically 9-12 months

ULA chief says recovery from space launch accident typically 9-12 months

If history is any guide, Elon Musk's SpaceX could be grounded for nine to 12 months while it investigates the cause of last week's launch pad accident and makes any repairs, according to the chief executive of SpaceX's primary U.S. competitor on Thursday.

"It typically takes nine to 12 months for people to return to flight. That's what the history is," Tory Bruno, chief executive of United Launch Alliance, told Reuters. Bruno did not mention SpaceX by name.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 booster exploded on the launch pad on Sept. 1 as it was being fueled for a routine pre-launch test. A $200 million Israeli communications satellite was destroyed in the blast, the second failed mission for technology entrepreneur Elon Musk's privately owned SpaceX in 14 months.

The cause of the accident is under investigation. SpaceX has not publicly disclosed the extent of damage to its launch pad.

Bruno said the main issue after accidents involving space launches has "always been figuring out what went wrong on the rocket, being confident that you know ... how to fix it and then actually getting that fix in place."

Repairing damage to the launch pad is usually not a significant issue, he said. "Historically, it had never been the pad that's taken the longest time," he said.

Bruno spoke with Reuters a few hours before ULA, a partnership of Lockheed-Martin Corp and Boeing Co, was preparing to launch its 111th rocket, so far all successfully.

The Atlas 5 rocket, carrying a NASA asteroid sample-return spacecraft, blasted off at 7:05 p.m. EDT (2305 GMT) on Thursday from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, about 1.2 miles (2 km) away from the SpaceX launch site.

Bruno also said he had called SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell shortly after the accident to extend his sympathies and offer help.

"It's a small community and issues especially around safety - but even mission success - kind of transcend the competitive piece of this," Bruno added.

ULA and SpaceX are rivals for private space missions and launches by U.S. government agencies. Musk's company in May broke ULA's monopoly on flying U.S. military and national security satellites, winning an $83 million Air Force contract to launch a Global Positioning System satellite in 2018.

NASA probe blasts off on quest to collect asteroid samples

NASA probe blasts off on quest to collect asteroid samples

An Atlas 5 rocket blasted off from Florida on Thursday carrying a robot space probe on NASA's first quest to collect samples from an asteroid and return them to Earth in hopes of learning more about the origins of life.

The 19-story rocket, built and flown for NASA by United Launch Alliance, lifted off at 7:05 p.m. (2305 GMT) from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, hurling the satellite explorer Osiris-Rex on its voyage to the near-Earth asteroid Bennu.

The 3,300-pound (1,500-kg) solar-powered probe separated from the rocket's upper stage an hour after blastoff, soaring into space at 22,000 mph (35,400 kph) - more than 28 times the speed of sound - to begin its $1 billion, seven-year mission.

It will take Osiris-Rex two years to reach its destination, a dark, rocky mass roughly a third of a mile wide and shaped like a giant acorn orbiting the sun at roughly the same distance as Earth.

Bennu is thought to be covered with organic compounds dating back to the earliest days of the solar system.

“You can think of these asteroids as literally prebiotic chemical factories that were producing building blocks of life 4.5 billion years ago, before Earth formed, before life started here,” NASA astrobiologist Daniel Glavin said before launch.

Scientists believe asteroids and comets crashing into early Earth delivered water and organic compounds that seeded the planet for life. Atomic-level analysis of samples from Bennu could help them prove that theory.

Once it settles into orbit around Bennu in 2018, Osiris-Rex will spend up to two more years mapping the asteroid's surface and taking inventory of its chemical and mineral composition.

Scientists will ultimately choose a promising site on Bennu to sample and command Osiris-Rex to fly close enough to extend its robot arm to the asteroid's surface. A sampling container will then release a swirl of nitrogen gas, which will stir up gravel and soil for collection.

"The more big pieces we can get the better ... they could contain the carbon molecules that we want to see," Jim Garvin, chief scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, said on NASA TV.

After gathering at least 2 ounces (60 grams) of material, Osiris-Rex will fly back to Earth, jettisoning a capsule bearing the asteroid-sample container for a parachute descent and landing in the Utah desert in September 2023.

Only one other spacecraft, Japan’s Hayabusa, has previously returned samples from an asteroid to Earth, but it collected less than a milligram of material because of a series of problems. A follow-on mission, Hayabusa 2, is under way, with a return to Earth planned for December 2020.

The U.S. space agency also hopes Osiris-Rex will demonstrate the advanced imaging and mapping techniques needed for future science missions and for upcoming commercial asteroid-mining expeditions.

Although Bennu occupies the same approximate orbital distance from the sun, it poses little threat to Earth. NASA estimates that there is a one-in-2,700 chance that Bennu might hit Earth sometime between 2175 and 2199.

United Launch Alliance is a partnership of Lockheed Martin (LMT.N) and Boeing (BA.N).

(Reporting by Irene Klotz at Cape Canaveral, Fla.; Editing by Steve Gorman and Peter Cooney)