What It Takes To Have A Successful Life In Or Out Of The Military

Very true words -- thanks for sharing

Great advice and insight. Military member tend to stick together on and off duty. Learning how to make me friends and network outside the military means making an effort to connect. Volunteer work at animal shelters and meet up groups in the community offer opportunities to hike, bike, and do many other things that build your profile as a person! Grow!

Having got out of the military the best advice I can give is this. You are not done, you can't put down the pack, life in general does not owe you a dime, you gotta go out there and get it yourself. Simple, you had to claw your way to the top while you were in, you gotta claw just as hard when youre out. You have an advantage though because many folks aren't as saavy as you, that's your skill and experience over them. You had purpose, you had drive and motivation, those are the keys now, find purpose, motivation, drive and get on that train. You cannot rely on your past to set you up for the future, you cannot let these so called veterans organizations define who you will be either. So many people do and they end up on the bottom of the woodpile, pissed off and resent everything. You need help, get help, don't wait for the VA, talk to service officers in the local organizations. Talk to other vets, ones that are successful not the ones in the bottom rung with you. The absolute worst thing happening to the veteran community right now and I mean this, is the stigma that is being promoted within the media, the main stream school of thought and even in the VA, that we are victims, that we all have debilitating life skills, that we are mental, that we need to be filled up full of psych pills to function. That thinking literally kills vets. These people are here to help you if you need it but don't rely or depend on them, they will drag you down into a deep dark hole. I knew a vet from a local VFW, turns out he was a straight up asshole, justified his actions and attitude as being an "unstable veteran" citing PTSD and other reasons. Very capable otherwise but he got caught up in the stigma and was essentially waiting out a payout for his VA claims. When you get like that, you are often told by sea lawyers to act out, display no filter, that these things will help your cause, etc. Well turns out that not only did it not help, but this guy became a drege to society trying to fill that shoe, first rate asshole lost his family and friends, still got nowhere in the VA. I say that's what the current system is wanting from us, they want us to be perpetual victims and utterly dependent on it so that we aren't a threat because we do know something about defending our country, and we can smell a rat a mile away. The last thing this system needs is a success story staring them in the face and putting them to task. So Im telling ya the best thing you can do getting out, take what you learned and know and make it work for you, use the elements of the system to help you along, but you remain self sufficient. Talk to successful vets and get advice from them. DO NOT GET CAUGHT IN THE STIGMA OF VICTIMIZATION THE MAINSTREAM WANTS TO USE YOU TO PROMOTE.