Separating from the military with all your experiences should make civilian life a piece of cake. You are a survivor! Coming off of active duty, the major challenge is to figure out what you can do to move forward with your life. Fortunately in today’s military, the professionalism and job specialization has made a great deal of advancement. Today’s troops are trained in a large variety of jobs and are acquiring more technical skills and qualifications. You are generally well trained and adept in many areas suited for today’s job market and veterans are able to enter jobs that have been secured due to their military schooling and experience.

To start this journey back to civilian life, put yourself in the driver’s seat. It is sort of like when you got into a Humvee for a patrol or supply delivery - you would never just haphazardly climb in and go without any thought as to what you would need to accomplish your objective or planning for a way out if you ran into trouble. But as innocent and peaceful as the environment back in the States seems, it might not be as comfortable for you when you see yourself respond to the challenges involved.

I once attended a veterans’ employment symposium. After a few hours of encouraging lectures and presentations, veterans were invited to look through several large reams of papers for a job that would fit for us. Supposedly these huge stacks of copied and bound books contained civilian jobs that could be paralleled and matched with the MOS in which we were trained while on duty. Most of the military specialties listed had a good amount of civilian jobs matching them. For example, an administrative clerk had thousands of possible civilian counterparts that a trained person could consider pursuing. My MOS was 11B - infantry rifleman. I had been trained to take care of my feet while on long marches, and learned how to ensure all the gear on my back was strapped on properly so it did not make noise while on patrol in enemy territory. I knew how to keep a weapon clean in wet and dirty conditions, and I could use it effectively to defend or aggress against opposing forces. Matching jobs? Maybe I could be a policeman, a correctional officer, or perhaps even a park ranger if I could get myself through enough of the years of college that were needed. This was pretty doubtful, since the political climate on college campuses would have created too many problems for me to deal with at the time. As much as I looked through those stacks of papers I found few, if any, civilian jobs that matched my training and experience in the service.

The training in today’s military for every MOS should give you an edge in choosing a desirable field of work. There are many organizations that give veterans special consideration in employment matters and you should always mention that you are a veteran when inquiring. However, if your military occupational specialty is difficult to translate to the civilian workplace, take advantage of the various educational programs that are available for veterans.

Here are a few organizations that have dedicated themselves to the task of helping veterans transition into civilian work and education:

One-Stop Career Centers is a federal government program and HireVetsFirst (www.HireVetsFirst.gov) will direct you to more than 2,000 of these centers nationwide. Other websites that help both veteran and employer connect are www.usajobs.gov, and www.ajb.org. At USAJOBS you can create and post job listings for positions within the Federal Government, as well as search for veterans who are looking for employment. America’s Job Bank (AJB) is a component of the One-Stop Career Center network. Here you can post listings, create customized job orders and search resumes to find highly trained veterans with all types of skills. As for resume work, many Goodwill organizations around the country have free training in resume writing for veterans. It is a branch of Goodwill Vocational Services.

A combat-ready mindset is to maintain the inner resolve and strength to face fear, obstacles, and trials in battle with courage and coolness of character. I hope this helps. Welcome home.

Chuck Dean
http://www.amazon.com/author/chuckdeanbooks