2008 Woodie Awards
Officers assimilate life after military
Praveen Sathianathan
Issue date: 4/30/07 Section: News
|
For the majority of people, moving from one stage of their lives to the other may pose little or no obstacles. However for those in the armed services the transition from military to civilian life raises many challenges.
"Military life is a completely different lifestyle," Brookhaven student Matt Barnes said. "It's very structured, regimented. It's a different culture from civilian life."
Barnes, who served in the Marine Corps as a motor transport operator for eight years, compared military life to a book that's already written.
"Everyone knows the expectations and the limitations," Barnes said. "It's very black and white as to what you can and can't do. People in the civilian world do what they want."
Senior Airman Solomon Odom, who served in the Air Force as a systems intelligence analyst for more than four years, said there was no free will in the military.
"Someone tells you when to work, how you're going to do your work, how long you're going to work for and when you should finish your work." Odom said. "If you don't like your boss, or don't get along with them, you just can't quit and get a new job, you're stuck in the situation. I have worked with a lot of people I did not get along with."
He said in the military there is a common phrase among individuals. He said the phrase is, "We defend democracy but we don't practice it."
Web sites for the armed services offer career development advice, educational benefits, insurance opportunities and other services to veterans and their families who are in a transitional period between military and civilian life.
"They have programs on the base to assist you with transition from military life to civilian life but those programs, in my opinion, are highly inadequate," Odom said. "Not much would prepare you for civilian life because you really don't know what to expect."
He said he felt the programs the Air Force had were also geared toward certain individuals.
"They did have information, however I feel it was more for people with college degrees," he said.
Odom said he feels as if the Air Force led him on by telling him he would be able to get a job in the civilian world with the job skills he received.
He said when he left the Air Force he learned there was no civilian job similar to his position in the Air Force that did not require a degree.
Be the first to comment on this story