What things do you remember about adapting to military life?

Adapting to the military life was a cultural shock for me. I have to left my son behind and I wanted to change due to a domestic violence relationship. I was only 22 years old when enlisted. I was very scared of what might happen to me or my child while I was serving. Each day my mind often wondered.
I have multiple service members in my family even high-ranking retired veterans. Looking at my family members I wanted to make a change in my life that would benefit me, my child, country and financial situation.

Understanding and embracing the fact that the mission doesn’t exist for you; rather, you exist for the mission.

Boot Camp in the Navy had its challenges but I was able to survive knowing that I was there for a purpose. I did the best that I could and after graduating boot camp, living in the barracks was similar to a college dorm. It was literally like a 9 to 5.

Comrades, cohesion and teamwork.

It wasn’t a very difficult transition for me. I found military life easy as I was a self-motivated person. Now retiring was difficult. I miss the people now.

Learning that can't and won't were no longer part of my vocabulary. That was challenging, but not too terribly hard. Learning to speak Army, now that was hard. I learned what a Goat Rope, a Clusterf@#$, a Soup Sandwich were, and the definition of 11 up - 3 down.

I joined the Air Force in 1985 and headed to Lackland Air Force Base for basic training. I was not your average 18-year-old recruit. I was 24-year-old recruit. From the beginning, I refused to take anything said in Basic as personal. The mission of the Technical Instructor was to tear down what made each of us different and build up a Team that would accomplish the task at hand as a Team and not individuals. Later, General John Jumper would visit Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson, Arizona. During an address to the base, he would say "Flexibility is the key to Air Power!" I've adopted that thought to life. Flexibility is the key to Life. You may have a plan, but things change. Be flexible enough to bend a little when those changes come along. Still works for me today.

We all made some change even if we didn’t know it. When holidays came around we had to be in other places with different ways . So where was your best cookies or pie .
Mine was when my wife made peanut butter cookies with the Hershey kisses , she had a few extra kisses so put two on each of the last batch , guess what I looked at them and said Hooters cookies then I got hit up side the head . But we still make a few every year and remember that day .

Overcome and adapt to the situation

Adapting to military life was easy for me as I was already used to a steady routine. The problem that I had was adjusting from a graveyard schedule to the early morning schedule.