FROM OUR HEAVIER SIDE

Going Away almost always has negatives, even though you learn, serve and expand.

Title:
Going Away

The phrase, "from left, right and center" is from our theme song, after we have talked and listened to many, many West Virginians.

The photo before it was cropped for this ad, showed West Virginia.

West Virginia State University students in advertising designed this ad, and others, for you, under the direction of Professor Jack Skeens, WVSU.

We at Thanks! Plain and Simple strive to look realistically at the world and your place in it. We recognize that lives are lost in the military. We recognize that you often have difficult emotions. We recognize that relationships and work are disrupted. We often hear that life becomes "real" when you enter the military.

We deeply hope that our saying that we care about you helps you, now. We hope that reminding you of home helps you, now.

When you return home, we also want to help, through, for example, our partnering with other organizations, such as the West Virginia Council of Churches, to help you with family, education, finance and other needs you have when you come back.

But we also hear you say you worry about a job when you return. It's more difficult, and we take this seriously, too.

Jobs: Work when you return is one thing we think about a lot, and in the year that we have been preparing for Thanks! Plain and Simple, we have particularly looked for signs of jobs. We cannot promise, but we want you to know we are trying, and we believe you want to help us with this and that it is proper for you to help.

First, we start with these assumptions:

• You are being trained, you cooperate to get the job done, and you do not want to be dependent.
• Although unemployment in West Virginia is seriously low,
• Some industries say that they want to hire people who are willing to be trained and work hard.
• Tourism and other industries are growing in West Virginia.
• There is a direct relationship between image of an area and the number of jobs there.

Starting with these basics, we see the need for you to:

• Learn as much as you can, whether it is about a specific technology or leadership.
• Come home and help us create jobs here, by:
  • Learning what is here that can be taken advantage of now, and what the pros and cons are.
  • Travel throughout the state. Be our best tourists, while you learn about the state so that you can be among our best ambassadors.
  • Stand tall and learn ways to proudly claim to the nation and the world, who we are, what we have and wy it is important. Learn, be honest and be willing. With our unity and authentic ways, we will attract new businesses here.
  • If you must go away for work, don't be an export, to be used up somewhere else, be an ambassador.

We don't yet see white collar jobs for you, in any real numbers. But working with those of you who have white-collar skills, let's create the ideas and the actions to make them happen. Thanks! Plain and Simple is not just a project that makes people feel good, it is a way to bring West Virginians together in unity.

Why should we:

• Let ignorance about West Virginia keep us from finding ways to show how special we are to those who might come here to create work or for recreation?
• Let our own aversion to braggarts keep us from finding ways to teach people what we have and that it is what the whole world wants, including workers?
• Let people believe that West Virginia is hopelessness?

Why shouldn't we:

• Learn more, teach more, and show more pride.
• Be our own best tourists, advertisers, ambassadors, and spokesmen for jobs.

Thanks! Plain and Simple starts with the belief that West Virginians will come together in unity to show we care for you and to remind you of home, no matter what our political and other differences.

As we learn to come together in unity around concerns for your well being, please join us to help West Virginia unify around more jobs here, while we still preserve our deep, great and historic value. West Virginia is a very diverse state. Its separate regions keep many of us from knowing the state well.

A Burden or Opportunity:
Everything works together: Our concern for you, your training and wanting to stay here when you return, room for improvement in West Virginia's image, our pride in our culture and state, our own lack of knowledge about our state, our attracting people and companies to West Virginia, our history, our ideas, our cooperative nature, our music and entrepreneurial talent.

Now is the time for unity. We do care about you. The military has been a major employer and trainer of West Virginians for many decades. When you return, we need to bring it all together.

Negatives:

Leaving your buddies?
Looking for a job?