About IAVA

Starting The Transition

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Readjusting to Work Feeling Keyed Up Getting Help

Getting back to civilian life isn’t as easy as just hanging up the uniform.

For months, if not years, you’ve shared a sense of purpose and camaraderie with your buddies. Suddenly that’s over, at least for now.

The challenges faced can vary from person to person. Maybe you miss being deployed. Maybe home seems unfamiliar, and you feel distant from the people you love. Work can seem meaningless, the old rhythms gone. Frustration can mount to the point of making you edgy. As with anything, different people grapple with different issues. They can surface as soon as you return, or they might not appear until further down the road.

Many vets will tell you that making the switch to civilian life is far from easy. It can be a minefield of challenges seen and unseen. We have to adapt to a new mission: readjustment.

The payoff can be huge. In learning to overcome the roadblocks to readjustment, one vet says he’s learned to live his life as fully as possible. “I’m a lot less tolerant of negative people now.”