George found military life to be more "real" than civilian life, and wasn't prepared for his reentry to the civilian world. Upon transitioning from service, he hadn't yet completed his education, didn't have a job waiting, and had a family to support.
View Video TranscriptGeorge:
Some of the things that happened while I was in the service that I hold on to; some of them are obviously going to be the relationships that I've built, but at the same time, some of the negative impacts that it had on my life as far as feeling that I wasn't prepared for re-entry back into what we call, “The real world.” I mean, almost everybody you'll talk to in the military, they refer to civilian life as the real world when in all reality, being in the military is a lot more real than what you do on the outside. So, for me was just not being prepared to come back out. That's what I've held onto the most. And it still affects me to this day. For me, it was, well I feel unique, but obviously I know there's plenty of people that go through the same situation as myself. Um, I was in an area where we were locked in. We didn't go anywhere. We couldn't deploy, TDY, couldn't PCS. This all happened prior to 9/11 and of course, it rolled into 9/11, Afghanistan and Iraq.
When I got out, I actually got out on a medical separation and at the time that I was getting out, I was going through a separation with my wife, ex-wife then I found out she was pregnant with our first child. So, for me, it was a feeling of getting kicked when actually I was getting out honorably. But I was scared because I didn’t know what I was going to do with myself. I wasn’t finished with my college. I didn’t have a job lined up. I’m going through a divorce and I’m also expecting my first child. How am I going to be a father? How am I going to support this child? I was scared and I was battling with other issues at the same time, alcoholism, something huge in the military that, you know, I wasn’t able to get help with because of the fear of getting in trouble for the problems that I was getting myself into. So, the transition over wasn’t very smooth at all because nobody really asked me what was going on in my life. It was more, fill out this paperwork and this is what you’re going to do.
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