Adjusting to civilian life

When I left the service everyone told me it would be hard to adjust. I did not realize how challenging it would be until I started at college. transitioning to a world that relies on you as an individual to hold yourself accountable is alot more daunting than it seems.

In the service we had our own unique challenges to navigate. Waking up at four in the morning on a training day which was sleeping in for me as a typical work day started at three in the morning. Working shift work that lasted at a minumum 12 hours and sometimes could extend as long as 24 hours straight. Sometimes those hours were not set and stone.

As a young airmen there were weeks that I worked 12 hour shifts four to five days straight, had one day to recover followed by a full day of training then straight back to the field working this time on a night shift. Do you know how hard it is to transion from working all day for a week and then to work all night for a week straight? Coffee became my best friend along with its sister energy giver, Red Bull.

Lets also not forget the gear I carrried on any given day. At a minimum I had 80 pounds of weight from weapons and gear not including the rest of the equipment in the uparmored vehicles we also carried around and expected to run as hard and as fast as we could when drills and alarms happened. My first base was FE Warren, Wyoming and the heavy gear was only nice to have for one reason; it was freezing cold most of the year and multiple days where the temperature did not get above negative ten.

In 2023, after 7 years of dedicated service to the nation, I was medically retired from service and had to figure out a new life and world I had not really been a part of since high school. When you leave home at such a young age and rejoin normal civilian life at almost thirty years old, you start to feel behind and like an outsider.

In the military I knew the routine. Wake up at around two am to shower and shave before heading to work at around three am. Work for twelve to sixteen hours a day with drills, reporting statements, exercises and security checks happening all day. I knew at any given week I would have maybe one day off a week to rest and who wants to spend that time doing stuff when I am exhausted?

In the service we formed tight bonds from the experiences we had. Stories of things the average civilian will probably never experience and the sacrifices made by many service members that civilians do not have to make.

Fast forward to today and I have been out of the service for just shy of two years. I am a full time student and decided to persue my passions in acting and journalism. The industry I show and the path I am on comes with a-lot of freedom to fill your time. Its not that you dont have tasks and goals and instead it's that you are self-motivated.

In the military you had a commander or a supervisor to tell you essentially exaclt what to do and when to do it. College kids may have assignments do but, as my professors put it, its up to the studen to build the connections and reputation to be able to secure a job and finishing your homework only matters to the student as they are paying to be here.

Civilian life is mostly a pick your path journey where many things can go wrong and you have to be self-motivated to achieve those goals and be successful. Reflecting on that, I better understand why many vets like myself struggle to adjust to civilian life. It isnt the same and it can be challenging to adapt.

If there was one thing I would tell a service member with my limited few years of being civilian it would be this:

Be a self starter. We were trained to get up and go and to always keep pushing so find a healthy balance of military routine combined with civilian flexability.