Military Service Counts As Work Experience

“Don’t expect anything from anybody when you get out.”

That’s what Gunny Mo used to tell us back at Camp Pendleton. He said not to expect a pat on the back, a thank you or even a free beer when we became civilians. Of course I had seen the videos of how Vietnam veterans were treated after their war, but I was pretty sure things would be better for me. And they have been. As an Iraq war veteran I did receive a nice welcome home and even a few free beers, but it still hasn’t been easy. This Veteran’s Day I’d like to remind everyone about the difficulty all veterans face when transitioning from the military to civilian life.

Plenty of times I’ve seen someone on the side of a freeway off ramp with a sign saying homeless vet, but I never felt sorry for them. I always thought that anybody can make it in America and that a job is easy to come by, especially for vets. Well I’ve found that that’s not exactly true. Unemployment is plaguing the country, the economy is on a roller coaster, America is engaged in two wars and the affects of it all are especially hard on veterans.

Every so often I go to the vet center in Albuquerque where I talk to old Marines, squids and soldiers. Many of them have PTSD, amongst other disabilities, and are struggling to deal with life as a civilian. One of the topics we’ve discussed is working while collecting disability. I heard one of the guys say they could work as long as they lied about what medication they were taking. Others have said they just couldn’t get hired because of their service connected disability. For me it hasn’t been so hard getting a job, as it has been dealing with the fact that no job feels quite as important as the one I had as a Marine. As a Marine I had the responsibility of having to choose whether to take a life or to save a life on a regular basis. Nothing can feel quite as a great as knowing you can change someone’s future so much.

My dad, who is also in ex-Marine, explained that employers don’t understand that this is a job skill and counts as work experience. He said employers see 23-year-old men and women fresh out of the service as though they are just starting life.

“No matter what job I do I always feel like I am 4 years behind my peers,” my dad said.

I tend to believe him because my friends who didn’t join the service are much further along in their careers than myself and the Marines who got out around the same time as me are. For those of us who were in the infantry it’s been even harder to find jobs where our military training transfers over into the civilian sector. A couple guys I served with joined Blackwater, one of my good friends joined the reserves to go back to Iraq for what he called a vacation from the civilian world, and another one of my friends is collecting disability and going to school. My old sergeant wrote me and said he was turned down from the New York Police Department because he couldn’t pass the mental exam and is back to the same job he had before the Marines, and another guy I served with is working at Walgreens. There’s nothing wrong with any of these jobs, because as my grandpa, also a veteran, said, “A job doesn’t bring you dignity, you bring dignity to the job,” but I still have a hard time thinking about my friend who was once in charge of guarding thousands of dollars worth of high tech equipment working at Walgreens as a cashier.

Both my dad and I agreed that it us up to the individual as to how they want to use their military training in the civilian world, but I still wonder if there are vets out there who just can’t convince employers that their military experience does count in the civilian sector.

For all those who served thank you, and for all those considering hiring a vet, remember running a squad or a platoon counts as managerial skills, being able to monitor a radio and call in air support counts as communication skills and firing a weapon in combat counts as critical decision making skills. Happy Veteran’s Day!