Do you think Soldiers are fully prepared to be competitive in real life?

Spot on. Most civilians don't have enough intestinal fortitude to haul the Army's water.

SGM OLdsen, I appreciate your wit, yet I would like to draw your attention in regard to the rhetoric of the phrase vs. used it as a deride term. I was stationed at Fort Carson Colorado, being a soldier in the army was the easiest job ever, think about it. The military have an enormous safety net for its members; it is not the same outside the army, and most soldiers are not aware of that. If you are E-6 and below, getting from the army will consider a step down in competition. Those soldiers will not have enough critical skills to compete against fresh graduate with experience in the specialty.
Turn to your soldier coming Friday and ask them in the final formation if they can write a cover letter or a write a personal statement and what is the difference between a personal statement and a research statement. Those three questions are the ABC for any civilian candidate willing to apply for a position with a salary equal to E-4 in the job market or academia. Reflect the numbers you will get in final formation to a 350000 soldiers discharged from the army starting from 2012 till 2017. Put those numbers on a standard deviation ( I bet you will get -1 in a good day ).
Now ask yourself will you send such amount of soldier to a battle not prepared or not meeting a high standard? Success in civil life is continuous of the fight as the terrorist also targeting our economy and way of life. Failing in this particular battle will ease the terrorist mission. The military spent a big amount of money and resources on the transition process yet, in non-smart way.
Finally, I do apologize if the term "real life" I used offended you or my battle bodies. That was not my intention.

SPC Marwan Sweedan
I understand what you meant but you seem to have very little confidence in your fellow human beings. Just because they spent four or six years in the Army doesn't mean they are not prepared to function in the civilian world. I would challenge your statement against how many college graduates are prepared for the civilian world based off of four to five years partying in college without any real world experience.

Being a veteran really has nothing to do with being successful in life. You cannot lump 350,000 people into one category. Many will get out and be very successful, many will get out and live paycheck to paycheck, some will get out and struggle for the rest of their lives. Those numbers are no different from the non-veteran population.

a very valid point SGM, what you mention is a question can qualify for a reseach.

Seriously though, I don't think today's servicemen (or women) can blame the military if they are not prepared for life after the military --- there are just too many opportunities (career counseling, education, transition assistance, etc.) available in that regard. This is one area that has vastly improved over the past decade or so.

Spot on Gunny. When I retired in 97 I spent a week in Transition Assistance Program. Did it cover everything, of course not had to learn some subtle in's and out's myself and actually had the help of a few old vets in that too (The ones that got me interested in the Military in the first place). The only sad, disappoint part is the Age thing. In the Technical Fields your far less marketable once you hit that magic 40 number.

I will respectfully disagree for many reasons.
1- all people you mentioned perhaps can help you decide what do you want to do when getting out. but they can not, what so ever, make you competitive.
2- not all the soldiers have equal access to qualified people across different military branches, for example, Airforce vs. Army.
3- time giving by different units to their soldiers during the transition is vary from one unit to another and from branch to another.
4- there is a gap the system didn't take in consideration which is the survival job period. after discharge.
5- military skills are different than civilian, the military train you for their requirements. but the soldier fail to meet the required skills in civilian world as they are not trained for them.

Great Points. My Old Profession Cryptologic Technician Communications (COMSEC) doesn't even exist anymore. The (Crypto) codes are built into the Computers now and are not a separate part.

I can go along with that assessment.