What advice would you give your fellow service members and veterans about transitioning back to civilian life?

Start learning all about your GI Bill benefits and look into what college you want to attend a year before you exit the military. Make a 5 year plan and find a new purpose. After that right up a detailed plan on how you are going to accomplish your new mission.

Don't expect anyone to have your back that you don't know. In the service you can expect a degree of professionalism and integrity that just doesn't exist in civilian life. Great leaders dragged me kicking and screaming from ignorance into a proper soldier capable and competent in my expected skill set. From there I learned how to cross-train to be an asset to my unit. This mindset failed me in civilian life. I did not transition successfully, and it has cost me.

You are responsible for making yourself into a productive member of society able to support yourself and your loved ones. The methods for making this happen aren't the same in civilian life, and all of the responsibility for finding out how and accomplishing your goals is entirely on you. You're pretty much the only one who suffers when you fail, so there's no incentive for strangers to help you outside of taking your benefits.

To summarize: arm yourself with knowledge, seek advice FROM VETERANS, and set clear measurable goals, short term and long term. People have told me these things my whole life, but I made myself learn this the hard way. You don't have to.

My experience seems to be a bit different than most, and I don't mean to sound overly negative. My failings were mine, and they were certainly preventable. We here at Rallypoint definitely have your back. Share your difficulties. Collectively, we've seen and overcome every obstacle. You may feel alone, but you're not.

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