Life After the Military: 5 Things You Might Want to Do Next

It doesn’t matter whether you served in combat, administrative, or standby duty where nothing happened that makes it into the history books. It also doesn’t matter if you served in the infantry or the galley. The important thing is that you served. 

We thank you for your service.

After you’ve served, it is vital to have a path back into civilian life. Some people never leave the military life. They find that it is the only life for them. When they are done serving in the field, they serve at a desk.

Others serve only for a season. Those people are the ones with some hard choices to make once their service is complete. Many have an incredibly difficult time transitioning back into society. The find that becoming a soldier has changed them too much. If you are nearing your last tour of duty, here are some things you might want to do next:

Start a Business

When you complete your tour of duty, your first unpleasant reality is the same as when you first completed high school: you are unemployed. You need a job. And you need one quickly. 

Depending on what type of service you did, a job may not be sufficient. Your life after the military may involve some type of franchise opportunity where you can work for yourself without having to commit to building everything from scratch.

With a franchise, you don’t have to create a business model. You are dealing with a proven formula. Yet you still have the freedom and responsibility to work for yourself and lead others in the process. There are few better ways to reintegrate into society than starting your own business.

Go Back to School

If you joined the military fresh out of high school, you have a lot of catching up to do. One of the best ways to do that catching up is to go back to school and get a degree. 

The workforce is very friendly to veterans. It is even friendlier to veterans with relevant degrees. If you get your degree fresh out of the military, you will very likely never have to worry about finding a decent job.

Invest

It is no secret that we do not pay our service men and women what they deserve. It is ultimately up to you to make sure you have a financial future. One of the first things you need to do is calculate your risks for investing, and start putting what money you have to work for you.

Reconnect with Family and Friends

After the hometown parade is over, soldiers often report feeling disconnected from the people around them. Disconnectedness is a common theme among those returning home from war.

Going through boot camp changes you physically, mentally, and emotionally. Going through the hell of war mercilessly cranks the dial up on all those changes. Your family and friends have also gone through the change of building a new life without you. 

It takes time and work. All parties have to get down to the uncomfortable business of getting reacquainted and merging their lives together. Just remember that the end result will be something different than what it was before. Different is not necessarily worse.

Get Involved

You just spent some part of your life serving the greater good. That means you are the type of person who values serving others. The good news is that you don’t have to stop serving others just because you no longer sleep with a loaded gun nearby.

The business you start might be a charity. The degree you pursue might be for some field of service. You might reconnect with family and friends by volunteering in some type of community service.

The important thing is that you find a way to get involved with the world around you. The best way to fight disconnection is to get connected, get involved, and continue to make a difference. 

At the end of the day, it doesn’t even matter why you served. Some served to do their part. Some served for the college fund. Some served because they had nothing better to do. That’s okay, too. Because the important thing is that you served. And we want you back as a part of society.

And, again: we thank you for your service.