Fort Polk sits in west-central Louisiana, just outside Leesville in Vernon Parish. It is one of the Army's premier combat training centers. The base is home to the Joint Readiness Training Center, the JRTC. Brigades from across the Army rotate through here to train before they deploy. That means a steady flow of sharp, combat-tested soldiers move through Central Louisiana every year.

Some of those soldiers separate near the base and stay local. Their kids are in Vernon Parish schools. Their spouses have jobs in the area. They want to work near home. For a midsize employer in Central Louisiana, that is a talent pool sitting right in your backyard. Most companies never tap it.

You do not need a national veteran hiring program to win here. You need to know what these soldiers did. You need to read it on a resume. And you need to find them before they sign somewhere else. This guide walks through all of it.

Why is Fort Polk a strong place to hire veterans?

Fort Polk has trained soldiers for war since World War II. During Vietnam it was called "Tiger Land." Today its main job is the Joint Readiness Training Center. Units from active duty, the National Guard, and the Reserve come here to run hard training before they deploy. You can read about the mission on the official Fort Polk Army site.

The base was renamed in recent years, so search results can confuse people. It was Fort Polk for decades. In 2023 it became Fort Johnson. In 2025 the Army restored the Fort Polk name, now honoring a World War II Silver Star recipient. Most locals still say Fort Polk. Both names show up in job searches, so it helps to know both.

What matters to you as an employer is the people. The soldiers stationed here run real operations. They lead teams. They fix equipment under pressure. They manage supply chains in the field. When they leave the service near Leesville, many want to stay in the area. That is your opening.

Veterans are not sitting around waiting. In 2025 the veteran unemployment rate was 3.5%. That beat the 4.2% rate for non-veterans, per the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Good people move fast. If you want Fort Polk talent, you have to reach them early and treat them well.

What units are stationed at Fort Polk?

Knowing the units tells you what skills walk out the gate. Fort Polk is not just an infantry post. It runs a full base with many job types. Here are the major tenant units.

So the pool runs wide. You get infantry leaders. You get engineers who run heavy equipment. You get aviation mechanics. You get medics and nurses. You get military police. A midsize logistics firm, hospital, construction company, or security outfit can all find a fit here.

Do not assume every soldier is an infantry rifleman. Read the resume for the actual work. Many of these jobs map straight to civilian roles you are already trying to fill.

What civilian jobs do Fort Polk veterans fit?

Match the unit to the role you need. A combat brigade is not just trigger pullers. It runs like a small company. It has supply, maintenance, medical, communications, and admin. Each of those is a civilian career.

Here is how the skills line up for a Central Louisiana employer.

• Logistics and supply: Soldiers who managed parts, fuel, and gear in the field. Great for warehouse, inventory, and supply chain roles. See our guide on how to hire veterans for logistics and supply chain roles.
• Maintenance and equipment: Mechanics from engineer and aviation units. They fix complex machines and keep them running. Strong for fleet, plant, and field service work.
• Healthcare: Medics and nurses from the 32D Hospital Center. Many already have clinical skills. Read our take on how to hire combat medics and corpsmen in healthcare.
• Security and safety: Military police who handled access control and incident response. A natural fit for corporate security and safety roles.
• Frontline supervision: Sergeants who led teams of 5 to 40 people. They train, coach, and hold people accountable. That is shift lead and operations manager work.

The skills are there. The trick is reading them on the page. Military resumes often hide the real work behind job codes and unit names.

How do you read a Fort Polk veteran's resume?

A military resume can look strange the first time. It is full of codes, ranks, and unit names. A civilian hiring manager may not know what those mean at first glance. But the work behind it often matches your open role exactly.

Start with the job title, then read the duties. A soldier might list "11B Infantry Squad Leader." That sounds like a battlefield job. But look at what they did. They led a team of nine. They ran training. They owned hundreds of thousands of dollars in equipment. That is a supervisor who manages people and assets.

Our full guide on how to read a military job title on a resume breaks this down step by step. The short version is below.

This matters a lot at Fort Polk because so much of the talent is combat arms. Many employers see "infantry" and stop reading. That is a mistake. A squad leader plans missions, briefs leaders, and makes calls under stress. Our guide on how to read combat arms experience on a resume shows you how to spot the management skills hidden in a combat job.

One more tip. The service record backs up the resume. It confirms dates, rank, and training. Learn what a veteran's service record tells you as an employer so you can verify what you read.

What if the candidate is "just combat arms"?

This is the biggest screen-out mistake near Fort Polk. A resume says infantry or armor. The hiring manager assumes the person only knows how to fight. So the resume sinks to the bottom of the stack.

That is a costly habit. Combat arms leaders run some of the most demanding jobs in the Army. A squad leader manages people, gear, and training every day. A platoon sergeant runs a 40-person team. They plan. They report up. They fix problems fast when things go wrong.

Think about what your floor really needs. You need someone who shows up, leads a crew, and keeps the work moving. A combat arms NCO has done exactly that for years. The setting was different. The skill is the same.

If you want a clean way to size up leadership, compare scope, not job titles. A staff sergeant and a junior officer may have led teams of similar size. Our guide on how to compare officer and enlisted experience helps you weigh them fairly.

Will the resume make it past my hiring system?

Most companies run resumes through an applicant tracking system. People think the system rejects resumes. That is not quite how it works. The system racks and stacks. It ranks resumes by how well they match the job posting.

So a veteran resume does not get rejected outright. It gets ranked. If the words do not match your posting, it sinks low and never surfaces to the top. Your recruiter never sees it. The person was qualified. The language just did not line up.

Here is the fix. Search your candidate pool in both languages. A veteran might write "motor pool" while your posting says "fleet maintenance." They might write "munitions" while you wrote "inventory control." Search for both. Our guide on how to evaluate a veteran's resume gives you a full screening method.

How do you find Fort Polk veterans before they leave?

Timing is everything. The best soldiers line up work before they separate. If you wait until they are out, the good ones are already gone. You want to reach them in their last few months of service.

There are a few channels that work near Fort Polk. Use more than one.

The base transition office is the front door. These offices help soldiers prepare for civilian work. As an employer, you can connect with them and share your roles. Our guide on how to recruit veterans through base transition offices shows how to build that relationship.

SkillBridge is worth a close look. A soldier can work with you full time during their final 180 days of service. The military keeps paying them the whole time. You learn the official rules on the DoD SkillBridge site. One thing to be clear on. SkillBridge is a tryout. The job offer comes after they separate, not during the program.

Why does a midsize company win this market?

You might think the big defense primes scoop up all the talent. They do not. Large firms hire for a narrow set of roles. They cannot take everyone who leaves Fort Polk. Plenty of strong people fall through the cracks.

A midsize company has real advantages here. You move faster. You can make an offer in days, not months. You give a new hire real ownership early. And you are local, so you are not asking them to uproot their family.

That last point is big near Leesville. Many soldiers settled their family in Vernon Parish. They do not want to move to Dallas or Houston. A local job that respects their experience is exactly what they want. You can offer that. The big out-of-state firms cannot.

Texas is close too. Fort Polk is within driving distance of several Texas bases. If you operate across state lines, our guides on how to recruit veterans near Fort Hood and how to recruit veterans near San Antonio cover those markets too.

How do you keep a Fort Polk hire once they start?

Hiring is half the job. Keeping the person is the other half. Veterans want clear goals and a path forward. They are used to structure. Give them a plan and they will run hard.

The first 90 days matter most. A new veteran hire wants to know what good looks like. Spell it out. Set goals for 30, 60, and 90 days. Check in often. Our guide on how to use a 30-60-90 plan to onboard a veteran manager lays out the steps.

One more thing helps a lot. Pair the new hire with someone who knows the ropes. A buddy who can answer questions cuts the ramp-up time. Veterans are used to this. They had a battle buddy on day one. Bring that idea to your floor.

Where to start hiring near Fort Polk

The talent near Fort Polk is real and local. Combat leaders, mechanics, medics, and military police separate near Leesville every year. Many want to stay in Central Louisiana. They bring leadership, work ethic, and skills you need. Most employers never reach them.

You do not need a big program to compete. Read the resumes for the real work. Search your pool in both military and civilian terms. Reach soldiers before they separate. Then onboard them with a clear plan. That is the whole playbook.

BMR keeps a growing pool of veterans who have already built civilian resumes and are open to work. We add over 1,000 new profiles every month, and more than 60,000 resumes have been built on the platform. Many of those candidates are near bases like Fort Polk and open to local roles.

Reach out to access BMR's veteran talent pool and start finding Fort Polk talent for your open roles.