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SEP/OCT
2012
The Essential Military-to-Civilian Transition Resource
Moving On... and Up Veterans tell their stories about relocating back into civilian life by Carolyn Heinze, Contributing Editor
W
hen Ted Williams emerged from the Mekong Delta after serving 18 months in the Vietnam War, transition assistance for veterans consisted of a few flights. “I spent Christmas in three time zones,” Williams recounted. “I started the morning getting on a plane, first stopping in Guam and then Hawaii, and then Oakland, California.” It was Christmas, 1971. Williams, a newlywed prior to being drafted, hadn’t seen his wife in almost two years. Needless to say, he was in a hurry to get back to Illinois, where she was going to college. In Oakland, however, no clerk knew how to process the appropriate paperwork. A minor delay, since in the military, Williams worked in personnel management. “I knew how to do it, so I ended up processing myself, and the guys I was with, out of the Army,” he said. “So when I told the guys in Oakland that I knew how to do that, what that meant is they didn’t have to work late. And, they let me do it. At the time, believe it or not, typing 65 words a minute was almost unheard of, particularly for a guy, but I was motivated.” Several hours later, Williams was in Illinois, shopping for the groceries for Christmas dinner with his wife. While the grocery thing was a bit surreal - “Here I am, 36 hours ago, walking around with an M-16 all the time, and now I’m sitting here in jeans and a T-shirt – and remember, it’s cold in Illinois,
too!” – Williams, originally from Memphis, Tenn., admits that thanks to the support of family and friends, his transition was easier than it was for many of his fellow vets. He and his wife finished up college in Illinois and then moved to Berkeley (“…to see what the hippies were up to…”). There, the couple applied to several law schools around the country; it turned out that the one that accepted them both was in San Francisco. With the help of the GI Bill, Williams got his law degree. “College for me, after that, and law school, from my perspective, was a piece of cake,” Williams reflected. “I was on full academic scholarship and the GI Bill, and I had this lovely woman who was my wife. I was like: It couldn’t get much better.” Today, Williams heads up his own company, The Williams Group, a human resources management consulting firm based in Des Moines, Iowa. “I knew, deep down in my soul, that I was probably not going to be an employee after my experience in the military,” he said. “But I knew I needed to get the training to position myself so I wouldn’t have to be an employee. And I had a frame of reference to work from.” Ajmer Singh entered the U.S.M.C. Reserves in 2009 after high school. He attended boot camp in Parris Island, S.C., then Motor Transportation School at Camp Johnson, N.C. From September 2010 to April 2011, Singh was in Afghanistan on a combat deployment. When he returned, the economy and unemployment were destined
to work against him when he searched for work. ”When we got back to the States, the Corps gave us a list of online job search firms to help with the search,” he said. “I signed up on so many sites.” One of the sites was Civilianjobs.com. It was Pete Charest, Director of CivilianJobs.com, who called Singh and recruited him for a position at Star Leasing, a company that leases trailers to trucking firms. Singh was placed as an operations assistant. While the position is in the transportation field, he is not turning a wrench as he did in a combat zone. The position of operations assistant has him in the bigger picture of orchestrating the dispatch and return of leased trailers. According to Singh, “Star Leasing was very receptive to my military background. My supervisor, Mr. Rusty Swarts, said that he knew my experience in the Corps would bring responsibility and flexibility to a high-tempo operation.” Singh also attends college at Augusta State University and is on schedule to earn his Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science in 2015. He utilized his Post 9/11 GI Bill benefits to pay for tuition. [SEE “ASK THE RECRUITER, PAGE 3 TO LEARN MORE ABOUT THE GI BILL]. For Troy Johnson, transitioning out of the military was more of a rocky ride. After 21 years serving as a combat engineer specializing in bridges, he decided, one day, to get out. “I retired in 2004 after the initial invasion into Iraq,” he explained. “I said, ‘I’m done.
I’ve got 20-plus years in.’ I made an emotional decision to get out instead of thinking it through.” Originally from Indiana, Johnson and his wife moved to the Tampa area in Florida, where finding work was not easy. He took a job as an armored vehicle driver while still on terminal leave, with minimal pay for a lot of hours. Eventually, Johnson paid a visit to his veterans’ rep at the local OneStop Center, and he got lucky: it just so happened that several positions were open for Disabled Veterans Outreach Program Specialists (DVOPs). “(My rep) told me how to apply through the state website. He told me to use my transferable skills on the application to help market myself. I did that, and I got the job about two weeks right before I retired,” Johnson said. Johnson remained a DVOP for about a year and a half, until he was relocated to the MacDill Airforce Base as a Department of Labor (DOL) TAP Workshop Facilitator. Again, he worked there for a little over a year until a term position opened up at the Army Family Readiness Center’s transition program. “I kind of took a bit of a risk there, but sometimes you’ve got to get your foot in the door with the federal government,” he explained. The risk paid off: the position became permanent, and today, Johnson is the transition program manager at MacDill. Still, Johnson admits that he got lucky; if he did it all over again, he probably wouldn’t have made the spontaneous decision to retire right continued on page 5
Visit Career Advice at CivilianJobs.com to learn more about these topics:
Assessment & Career Counseling
Tools to help you clarify your career choices and identify jobs that might suit you.
Research
How do you find information on the things you are interested in?
Networking
Links to other information sources related to careers, job searching, relocation, transition assistance and more.
Interviewing
Communicating who you are and why you can do the job.
Offer Stage
continues page 5 Getting the compensation package you want.
INSIDE THIS MONTH’S SPECIAL MOVING & RELOCATION ISSUE Ask the Recruiter:
The GI Bill ......................page 3
Spouse Series:
Embracing civilian life ................ page 4
Get your dream job!
................... page 6
Job Fairs
Polish up your resume ................... page 8
Career Coaches' Corner Improve your job app skills......page 9