Transitioning out.

The thing we all must do at some point in our military careers if we don’t die first.

Some do 4, some do 20+. Either way, you must leave eventually. The Army tried to prepare me for how it would be after my six years of active duty, most of the time by telling me I’d never make it in the civilian world. My friends and relatives claimed the exact opposite, saying with veteran status I’d have the world at my feet.

The following are the realities of life on the outside I wish I knew before I learned them the hard way.

1) No one cares.

No one cares that you served. America was at war from the day the twin towers fell to somewhere there in 2008. Otherwise, they were oblivious to us even having a military outside of our massive spending budget.

The fact that you served will maybe get you a “thank you for service” and a free meal at Applebees once a year if you can swallow your dignity enough to walk in and get it. That is precisely the line where people’s goodwill towards you for being in the military ends. You could’ve punched Bin Laden in the face and single-handedly killed everyone in ISIS; unless you’re a SEAL with a book deal or you’re starring in a videogame, no one in the civilian world cares.

You do not have life on easy mode now; no one owes you anything, and no job is guaranteed. The days of employers selecting you above your peers because you used to wear a uniform are long gone. Now, if they hire you, it was probably just for the tax break.

To tell you the truth, I never bring it up outside of my resume. No one cares.

Accept it now.

2) There will be a culture shock.

Like it or not, you were institutionalized into a lifestyle that does not exist anywhere else in the civilian world. None of what you used to do translates to the civilian world, even the little things you don’t consider. In the real world, you can’t be the leader your soldiers loved and the man or woman of conviction you used to be. Civilian side, if you say the wrong thing, use the wrong tone, or even betray your thoughts with body language, you can and will be fired, quickly.

In the civilian world, your honor, industriousness, and proficiency don’t matter; above all, civilians value like and relatability. I have been in many situations where my peers were barely functional and I was achieving the most of anyone in the company; I put optimal efficiency above all else whilst my peers did nothing except charm the boss. 

Guess who wound up fired?

Civilians will never understand what it was like to be in uniform. This is not a rallying cry to band together with other veterans and shun the civilian world, this is just reality. The average person will never encounter violence in their day to day and even fewer will ever have a life or death situation.

Emerging from your past life into the civilian world, most people will be more concerned with the lack of non-vegan sweeteners for their starbucks than things going on in reality. The most pressure the average person you’ll ecounter will have endured was meeting their spouses parents for the first time.

Outside of Call of Duty, they will never understand what FOB life was like or having to watch your six for weeks at a time. Gone are the days of the hushed reverence, respect, and appreciation for the veteran coming home. Now, if someone finds out you were in the military, the conversation will usually go something like:

“Wow, you were in the Army?”

“I was.”

“Did you see combat?”

“Yep.”

“Did you ever kill anyone?”

Sure, stranger I just met, I’ll tell you all about war. Would you rather hear about the 14 year old I saw get shot in the face or the dogs eating corpses?

The case could be made that the current American populace is the most out of touch with reality group of people Earth’s ever seen.

If I were you, unless you’re shooting the breeze with a fellow vet, keep it to yourself. If they don’t naively tiptoe around asking you about it, they might react like those covered by my next bullet:

3) Some Americans will be hostile to you for your service.

Luckily, this is a minority (for now), but the sentiment is growing. 

In colleges, certain states, social circles, and cultures around America, people will actively go out of their way to sabotage you because you served. They’ll spread rumors so you’ll become a social outcast. They’ll manufacture drama and crises to injure your reputation. They’ll downgrade your assignments or demean your performance where they can.

Especially in college, I have found it far better to keep my service a secret than to open up about it, even if the situation might’ve called for input from an area of my expertise. You weren’t fighting Nazis and you are no longer the valued warrior class of old; for many, you were nothing but a foot soldier in the army of whatever tyrannical regime their mental gymnastics devise. 

For all intents and purposes, the idea of a grateful nation is a far gone myth and you risk far more by making your prior profession known than you stand to gain from letting it slip.

4) Avoid stagnation at all costs.

To be successful, you must stay productive. The past is over and done with, no matter how it went; what matters now is what you’re doing to progress and the goal you’re aiming for.

You must create goals for yourself; otherwise, you will fall victim to doing and becoming whatever will put food on the table. Generally speaking, you can either be happy to work or work to be happy; in the former you find a job that makes you happy to show up every day and the paycheck is just the icing on the cake (think sky dive instructor, forest ranger, etc); with the latter, you do a job that doesn’t make you miserable but gives you the money and time off to do what keeps you stoked in your off hours.

Finding something that both pays well and makes you happy to put in hours every day is super rare, but it is out there; more than likely it’ll require you build your credentials or innovate the job yourself. Either way, you’ll only get there if you continue to make progress. Keep going to school, networking, and learning; otherwise, you’ll find yourself doing whatever you can to survive, and you will be miserable.

It will be hard at first, but do not fall into the same trap most veterans do when we get out; we go back to our home towns, get angry at the culture shock, we self isolate, start drinking, and eventually find ourselves in situations we can’t easily get out of.

Luckily in this regard, the military doesn’t toally abandon you, which leads me to my next bullet:

5) Take advantage of your benefits, all of them.

Referencing back to my first bullet, no one cares if you fail or succeed, and no one cares if you use your benefits or if you don’t take advantage of them at all.

The GI Bill is essentially a ticket to do whatever you want with your life and relocate to somewhere new if you play it right. It’s ok if you don’t exactly know what you want to do yet either; it’ll buy you the time to figure it out, decompress, and move forward in a positive direction. 

I got out, wanted to try living somewhere with an outdoor scene, bought a van, and lived in it while going to college in southern Utah. Had no idea what the fuck I wanted to do outside of the vague plan of working in the outdoors, and for a year and a half I busted out my bachelor’s while having the adventures I wanted to do while I was enlisted, tending bar here and there for some pocket change. 

The GI Bill paid tuition, paid housing allowance that put food on my table, and eventually, I figured out what my big picture plan was. Had I gone straight into the work force just looking for a decent pay check, I most likely would’ve never wound up anywhere close to as stoked as where my trajectory is now taking me.

You get 36 months of GI Bill benefits, and its actually worth more than people realize. Nowadays, no one cares where your degree comes from, as long as you have one. If you find a college cheap enough, the GI Bill will pay a lump sum every semester to cover your tuition, and you can take as many classes as you want to bust out your degree. 

In a year and a half, I took no less than 18 credits a semester, and now I still have 20 months of GI Bill left to do whatever I want with. For the hell of it I went to the Florida Keys and became a PADI certified dive instructor. After my MBA (doable in 12 months), I’’ll take what I have left and become a fly fishing, hunting, and survival guide. Even after that I’ll still have time to play with and get other credentials that’ll help me out.

I found out about the chapter 31 benefit from a buddy I made at the dive course. Chapter 31 is similar to the GI Bill, but you have to be at least 10% disabled and still have some GI Bill time left to use it.

Chapter 31 is Vocational Rehab (or whatever the exact name is, this is the cliff notes version); it’s aim is to provide opportunities for vets who want to start their own business or become freelance contractors that require specalizied training or gear the GI Bill doesn’t cover. 

My dive buddy was using it to start his own dive shop. Chapter 31 covered his course tuition from the basic entry level PADI diver all the way to Dive Instructor, it bought him roughly $20k worth of equipment, and paid him BAH the whole time he attended the course. For me, it’ll cover my 3 year master’s degree program and liscensing fees to start my own psychology practice, BAH included. Since it’s separate from the GI Bill, I’ll still have my 20 months of GI Bill to use afterwards to continue my education.

Use your benefits and find something you’ll either love doing, will pay you well, or create something that’ll do both. They’re given to you wether you use them or not; honestly, in my opinion, you’re crazy if you don’t. It might not work out for you how it did for my buddy and I, but its at least worth looking into.

At the end of my rainbow, I’ll be doing work I’m passionate about, helping people I care for, and I’ll be my own boss; if someone’s a dickhead, I can tell them to get lost, and I’ll get paid either way. Sounds pretty good to me.

Make your own way in the world, or your way will be made for you; chances are, you won’t like how it plays out if you settle for the latter.

6) The military was harder than anything you’ll have to do in the civilian world.

One of the good things to keep in mind is that no matter how bad the civilian world can get, you’ve already been through worse. The hardships you’ve previously endured will give you the perseverance to do things most normal people will say isn’t possible.

The last semester of my bachelor’s degree, I took 26 credit hours of classes. The first month of the semester while taking classes onlne, I passed my NREMT exam, and then took and completed the two week Wilderness EMT course through NOLS. The second month of the semester, I completed the PADI Dive Instructor course. I finished the semester and graduated with a 3.8 GPA.

Was it hard? For sure. Did I have a life? Debatable.

What is without question is it was not a fraction as hard as living in a foreign country where people were actively trying to kill me for months on end, rationing food and drinking dirty water because it was all I had.

You are prepared to succeed and do whatever it takes to make shit happen; chances are, you’ve already been through worse. College is easy as hell, and most of the people who stress it hard probably haven’t experienced real stress before.

Whatever it is you want to do, your benefits will give you a head start, and your past life gave you the character building to see it through.Won’t all be a cake walk, but that’s life.

What transitioning ultimately boils down to: you can either choose to push it to the limit and succeed, or let time go by, and fail.

Choose what you want to do, and make it happen.