Transportation Department wants veterans to become truck drivers

The federal government is hoping that veterans who drove heavy military vehicles will drive large freight trucks. On Friday, the Department of Transportation announced a new interagency effort to encourage veterans to step in to fill commercial trucking jobs around the country.

Specifically, the campaign wants veterans with a particular career history of having driven similarly large vehicles. The new push, which the Trump administration is calling the “Freedom Haulers” initiative, argues that they have the skills to make the transition into truck driving. The government is launching an ad campaign to help sell the pitch.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy saying that “there’s never been a better time for America’s former service members to get behind the wheel of a big rig.

“Trucking requires the precision, independence, and discipline that they forged in the military — there’s no one better to tackle the challenge,” Duffy said in a statement.

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The Department of Transportation formally announced the campaign on Friday, after President Donald Trump first proposed the plan earlier this month. The new push echoes one from the spring of 2025, when the department encouraged veteran military air traffic controllers to join the Federal Aviation Administration in parallel roles.

Veterans interested would need to acquire a commercial driver’s license. Veterans with heavy military vehicle experience can apply for waivers from the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration to get licensed without certain “redundant” road tests. According to the Department of Transportation, Veterans who served at least three years qualify to get the training funded by the VA, with its tuition cap “typically” covering all of the cost.

The push to hire veterans also comes as several truck drivers have been taken off the road as part of a crackdown in the past year. The Department of Transportation has canceled commercial licenses and taken drivers off of routes for failing to read and speak English, a requirement under federal law. The administration has argued it is taking “dangerous foreign drivers” off routes, part of the wider anti-immigrant crackdown by the federal government.

The trucking industry, as with the wider international shipping industry, has been hit hard in the last year. On top of thousands of licenses being revoked, drivers and companies have been dealing with economic hardships from tariffs, rising fuel costs from the ongoing war with Iran and impacts from last year’s government shutdown. In June, trucking rates were up more than a quarter of what they were a year prior, according to industry analysts.

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