21. "Be open-minded & vulnerable to change" — Chapter 5: Part 1
This is the last chapter of the book, but we could really carry-on forever talking about "what's different when we discharge?" That's because there really isn't any cardboard cutout for discharging, everybody's experience is different. But what we can acknowledge as being standard, though, is our need to change. We all leave a military workplace for a non-military workplace; we leave the known for the unknown. Which is kind of similar to how we felt when we enlisted, it was all unknown territory. We might have had some idea of what it was going to be like, but the stories we hear and the movies we watch only scratch the surface of what it's like to spend a career in uniform. If we think about it, the mental picture we all had about the military when we enlisted is the same idea that civilians have of veterans after we discharge. It can be hard for us to remember what that picture looks like, especially after serving for a minimum of 4 years.
If we leave the armed forces with the same vulnerability that we entered it with, we can have faith that we will navigate the unknown well-enough to succeed. The vulnerability I am talking about is that feeling we all experienced at the start of our careers. It's how we felt in Recruit School, standing formed-up in the cold on the parade ground, in the pitch-black dark at 0500, with zero knowledge of what was going to happen to us. It's a feeling of being completely open to whatever comes our way and trusting that we are capable enough to work out any tough situation that hits us.
This is the same feeling we need to embrace when we discharge, but there are a couple of major differences: (1) we don't have a lot of the securities that we get while in uniform that allow us to be amenable to change, and (2) we don't endure the struggle of our new environment with others. This is the hardest part and it's what makes discharging even more vulnerable than enlisting. Most of us will discharge alone. We will do it with little help, limited guidance, and no instruction. This sees many of us awkwardly celebrating our last day in uniform without being prepared to enter another civilian job or career.
So how do we fix that? We can do stuff that prepares us for discharge, and should do it well-before our walk out date. What stuff? Anything that helps us get better acquainted with the civilian workforce. Many of us might need to work on things like talking about ourselves and our resume, others might need to get better at understanding civilian industry vocabulary, and some will need to get a handle on how to interact with colleagues in a lower-risk work environment. There's a lot of stuff that's new and it will feel weird or different at the beginning.
The best thing we can do while we're still wearing the uniform is to surround ourselves with the people and environment that we are looking to transition to. It can be as simple as joining a local sports team and grabbing postgame drinks at the local bar, or as committed as doing some volunteer work with a local civilian business. Whatever we do, our main goal should be to immerse ourselves in a new civilian environment, learning about what they value, then choosing to either (1) align to those values, or (2) pick a different civilian environment. We will feel like the odd-man-out at the beginning, but after we get more comfortable with civilian settings we will become more confident in knowing how to apply our military skillset in a non-military workplace. It takes time and I'm obviously biased, but once we work it out, I am 100% sure that all veterans have the ability to integrate into any business and do a better job than the average college graduate would.
