Hi. I am a former Marine, and I am now in school doing a research paper that might benefit our kind (veterans). I want people to know that it's not easy to just reincorporate a person into society after they have undergone such lifestyle changes as happens in the military. Please let me know what situations that you may have encountered as a veteran being re-released into the general population.

For instance, when I got out of the Corps, I had a difficult time looking at civilians as anything other than targets -- fat, excuse-making targets. I think that the thing I noticed the most was that civilians made so many excuses as to why they couldn't do so many things. Any military person knows that excuses go NOWHERE in the service, and I just couldn't understad how people even made progress with all the excuses they made - I'm tired, I am sick, my leg hurts, my alarm didn't go off, my car wouldn't start, etc. They made me so angry sometimes... lol

I also noticed things like the fact that civilians tend to drink less. It seems to be taboo to drink alone, while many people I knew in the Corps regularly drank alone.

It's different for me now that I have lived among them for a few years, but it wasn't always so. I am doing research on the military culture, from the transition of inprocessing, through service and past outprocessing and reincorporation into civilian society. Does anyone else have observations or experiences with this? I will even take gender issues. Please help me...it's important. I hope that this research will help civilians to see our side a little more clearly. Thanks for reading.

(Hopefully with the permission of mods - and maybe they allow us to share the results here also as I expect them to be fairly interesting for anybody interested in such stuff -) and as this is something I also have lived to a certain extent (not in combat as a mil guy but later as a war photo journalist) I will be forwarding this to another forum where we are currently preparing an interview with vietnam USMC veteran(s) and will come back with the answers I get from them (sorry, as the interview(s) are in progress currently the respective thread over there is not open to general public yet until we are through).

We have, though, already set up a sound track site with vids that the veterans are searching and sharing, sith some comments that show the direction they are aiming and some exclusive footage and explanations they give (again, mods! this is not to draw ppl to there, just to inspire and willing to share here if somebody is interested...): http://www.warandtactics.com/smf/index.php?topic=981.0

Rattler

First let me say, Welcome to the forum! I hope you enjoy it here!

Second, it was amazing to find your topic here. We were discussing the same thing at my American Legion post yesterday. My daughter was discharged from the Air Force last week. She is currently going through some of what you described.

Welcome aboard.

Welcome aboard, rulingusmc.

Welcome. The adjustment back into the world is pretty bumpy. The only out of town funerals I attend, except for family, are Army buddies. We just lived and worked so close that we actually became a family of sorts. Civilians just didn't speak the same lingo as the military.

Originally Posted by Missileer

...-snip- we actually became a family of sorts. Civilians just didn't speak the same lingo as the military.

Indeed!

This goes over nations, many of my ex mil friends are from other countries, some from countries we at my active duty times were not really friendly with, but as they all had to follow/suffer (more or less) the same treads this makes them family, nothing equal, and a general bound (and obligation) often not understood by civilians.

Rattler

Welcome......

welcome........

yeah I'd say I know a thing or two about it.
Welcome to the forum.