We are not all doomed to perform the same career in our civilian life as we did in the military. The military provides a unique set of skills designed to bring out the best cohesive team to get a mission done. This pure authoritarian system has the potential to carve out any candidate into a better version of themselves. The difficult part is figuring out what our career should be in the civilian world.

The exposure gained from the military can exceptionally triumph that of the civilian world. All of this began with an ASVAB score many years before. It was this test that determined our career paths and placed us within rigid categories of military application. Breaking from this path back into the civilian world should require a similar approach. It was a test that got us placed into the military, then perhaps a test is what is needed to get us back into the civilian world.

I gave up a military electronics career. I gave up my Cisco Certified Network Professional certification. The military told me that is what I should do and I did it. I did it right up until the moment I had choice again. But after my enlistment the reality of choice and the infinite career paths before me was overwhelming.

So I took another test. This one told me what I was good at. Some extremes were on the list but it told me about how I thought and what civilian career paths would be good for me. The question of what can I do and what should I do became clearer until a decision was made. For me it was back to school for an engineering degree. An environmental engineering degree of all things.

Now giving up all of my electronics experience to go back to school gave me great anxiety about whether this was the right choice for me or not. I could have stayed with a career that was marginal for me and embarked on an information technology career in the civilian world. That would have been the safe approach.

Very quickly I found out how important the military perception is. It didn't matter that I went back to school at a later age. It did not matter that I had limited experience in environmental engineering. The only thing that mattered on the other side of that interview table was the fact that I was a veteran of the United States Air Force and it was valued by the right company. The right company looked at my skill set and rewarded me on the pay scale with years of experience because they valued the time I spent in the military.

Translating from military brat, to military and then to civilian was one of the most difficult things for me to do. But after getting it right and making the transition, I learned how being a veteran of the United States military is a great benefit for many companies and the communities for which we are a part of.