Stalled careers; was there an event or decision that you saw stalled somebody's career?

Unfortunately for me it was a deployment right in the middle of my degree program.

I do not by any means regret the decision to hang up my education for a year to go overseas, because those are some of my fondest memories as a soldier. But it was hard, I mean really hard to get back in the mindset of finishing school. It took quite a while to get back in a grind where I could actually sit down in class and pay attention. Nothing medical related just hard to pay attention. Gone for a year, money burning a hole in your pocket, there was just so much else I wanted to do.

As far as advice goes, that's tough. I would say try to finish school before heading overseas, or even a CONUS mission, get that degree that's paid for, then let the deployments happen, only if you have that option like we had.