The 4 Big Questions and Your Transition Plan

Getting out of the military is a huge deal.  You are changing your career, your community, your location, everything.  Not planning properly is a quick way to fuck up your life for years to come.

Here is the chain of failure that I see often repeated among too many veterans:

  • Get out without a financial plan
  • Move “back home”
  • Results in unemployment or underemployment
  • Financial troubles result in marriage problems
  • Marriage breaks results in divorce
  • Relationship with kids is strained resulting in isolation
  • Isolation and depression result in substance abuse
  • Substance abuse and depression lead to suicide

Obviously this isn’t always the case, no problem is that simple, but for many veterans this is indeed true, and we can break this chain if we prepare you for transition, or even after your transition.

Enter the 4 Big Questions

  1. Are you Financially ready to get out?
  2. Do you know WHY you are getting out?
  3. Do you know Where you want to live?
  4. Do you know What you want to do?

If you answer these four questions, you will invariably make a plan for your transition.  If you’ve already gotten out, you can use these questions to MAKE a plan and then work towards it.  If you can take care of the external stressors in your life:  marriage, finances, work, etc, then taking care of the internal stressors like PTSD becomes much easier.  If you get a job tomorrow, that problem is fixed overnight; you’re not going to have the same success wrestling the demons in your mind.

Question 1- There is a ton of information out there on making a budget. Personally, I think Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University was an outstanding tool.  If you don’t want to pay for it, there’s probably a class going on in a church near you.  I’ve never personally met the guy, but everything I learned about finances, I’ve learned from him.  Bottom line is this:  You need to know where every dollar you make is going, and have a plan for every dollar

I really like things presented simply, and Ramsey’s 7 Baby Steps are just that:

  1. Save $1,000
  2. Pay off Debt (except the house)
  3. 3-6 month fund
  4. Invest 15%
  5. Save for College
  6. Pay off Home
  7. Give

Question 2- At some point after you get out, you’re going to look back at your time in the military and miss it.  If you have a bad reason for getting out, that thought is going to nag at you.  Bad reasons include but are not limited to:

  • My 1SG is an asshole
  • I hate PT formations
  • The command climate is toxic
  • Fort Polk is a shithole
  • My wife hates the military

That last one sets a lot of people off, but if you love being in the military, and she hates it, you are going to resent her for “making” you get out and that is going to cause major problems in the relationship you are trying to save by getting out.  I don’t have the right answer for you here, sorry, but you two need to talk.

Here is a great write up from Chad on answering this question

Question 3- I know you want to go back home.  You have fond memories of your childhood, and you miss being around your family.  If you can’t find a job, however, going back home is the worst possible thing you can do to yourself and your family.  I have talked about decision gates as a way to find a middle ground here:

12 months out:  I want a job in Athens, GA

9 months out:  I want a job within 4 hours of Athens, GA

6 months out: I want a job in the southeast United States

3 months out: I want a job anywhere in the US

You move to the next gate if you have had no success at the previous one.  Also, get a fucking headhunter.

Question 4- You are starting a new career and a new life.  It’s your chance to do whatever you want.  Seriously, your MOS should NEVER be a limiting factor in looking for your next career.  If you don’t want to do your MOS for the rest of your life then don’t.  Being a veteran, you bring a lot of things to the table that are hard to find in the civilian world, your MOS is not one of them.

In Conclusion

Alright, so you made it through this article, you’re on the right track.  Take this seriously and now go back and click the links provided and read those.  Then go back and answer the questions, and make sure if you’re married that answering them is a joint effort.

Now you have a plan, go execute and congratulations on this next phase in your life!

-LJF
 

For more information on transition, get the highly rated book on Amazon:

CONUS Battle Drills Interview- Dysfunctional Veterans Radio

I had the distinct pleasure on Saturday night to sit down with the guys from Dysfunctional Veterans.  If you don’t already own their gear, I bet you’ve probably seen someone walking around with DV stuff:

The interview was a lot of fun and they gave me plenty of time to really discuss our project here at CBD.

My sweet mother says I cuss too much…she might be right.  Don’t worry, I don’t do it in front of my kids.  Anyway, enjoy the recording.  Warning:  Lots of language.

“Did you ever kill anyone?” -The question you should never ask

Does your mom like anal?

I’m sure there is a veteran out there that doesn’t mind this question, but the overwhelming majority of us never like to answer.

If You Actually Killed Someone

Seeing someone die stays with you.  I might not remember what I had for breakfast yesterday, but I’ll never forget watching the pink mist appear behind a dude’s head after I told my men to shoot.  You may think that the only reason someone suffers mentally from combat is because of what they saw, or a matter of the things they experienced, but for many guys what bothers them most is what THEY DID.

Finding out what you are capable of can be scary.  Snuff out a few lives, smoke a cigarette, eat some chow, and then sleep with a smile on your face.  The knowledge that you can take a life so easily, and be happy about it, celebrate it even, can be difficult for some men to deal with.  It isn’t until you stand over the lifeless body of your friend where the only consolation is that you killed as many of those fuckers as possible, that you realize just how thin the line is between hero and monster.  To stand up and cheer when the A-10, Apache, or AC-130, do a gun run and and watch those giant rounds rip right through the enemy positions sending body parts flying and painting the terrain red is unsettling to many.

Yeah.  That’s what you are bringing up.

Every soldier has a beast inside, a ferocious murderous beast.  His capacity for violence is the only thing that kept us alive.  Admitting that we took a life, and we relished in making the grass grow can make many people uncomfortable and we know that.  We know that our honest answer is going to appall you, and our relationship will never be the same.

If you never killed anyone

If, on the other hand, you never killed anyone, well now there is a qualifier set to your service.  The question, by it’s very asking, implies that doling death is the only way to be soldierly. It’s as if the sacrifices you made, the time away from family, the stress of serving, and even the deployments you went on were for naught because you didn’t take a life.  You weren’t a “real” soldier because you didn’t have to make that fateful choice.

A medic that rushed into a burning vehicle to save his fellow soldiers may have never taken a life, but he knows the pain of working frantically to save his friend to hear, “I’m going to die Doc.”

What a slap in the face to that dude.

Just don’t ask

Just don’t, ok.  If someone wants to talk to you about it, they will, but you’re going to have to earn a certain level of trust that doesn’t come from a shallow relationship.  I have friends that are closer than family and we don’t talk about it, for the same reason we don’t talk about what kind of sexual fantasies our wives have: that shit is not my business, and I don’t want to go there.

-LJF

 

Click the image below to find out what we’re doing here at CONUS Battle Drills!

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A Day in Fidel Castro’s Cuba

There was a loud knocking and banging on the door.  She looked up at her children and could see terror come over their faces just by the nature of the sound.  She forced a smile, “I’ll get it.”  As she unlocked the door it flew open sending her stumbling backwards into the wall nearby.  “Mommy!” her daughter yelled running to her mother as the man walked in wearing a soldier’s uniform and a beretta on his hip.

“By order of the Communist Party and Fidel Castro, this house is now property of the Revolution.  Get out.”  She was now holding her daughter who was sobbing loudly, “Where is my husband,” she asked.  “He’s being reeducated,” the soldier stated staring at her lasciviously, pausing at her breasts before meeting her eyes, “you have five minutes to pack one suitcase.”

The woman sprung to action, heading towards her bedroom.  “Mommy, I don’t want to leave, I like this house.”  She comforted her daughter by squeezing tighter, but the words didn’t come.  She sat the little girl on the bed and began to pick out clothes.  “Go get your favorite toy ok sweetie,” she gave the instructions as tears welled up in her eyes, seeing the little girl made her want to break down and cry.

As they walked out of the house, she held onto the suitcase in one hand and the little girl in her arms.  It was her first glance at the madness in her neighborhood.  A caravan of soldiers had pulled up and were kicking people out of their homes.  A soldier walked up to them and stared at the little girl who clutched tightly to her favorite doll as she continued to cry.  He stood blocking their way, “I need to search you, to make sure you aren’t stealing anything of value from the revolution.”  She put down the girl and the soldier began to run his hands all over her body.  She was standing with her legs spread facing her house as they placed a sign on the door, “property of the communist party.”  She flinched and shut her eyes tightly as his hand slid into her pants and his fingers went inside her. “We gotta be thorough you know,” he whispered into her ear as tears began to roll down her cheek.

“Alright you’re good, need to search her now.” He pointed at the little girl, “No please, she’s just a child!”  The soldier raised his voice, “She’s a fucking worm!”  He reached out and ripped the doll out of the little girl’s hand, “You hiding diamonds in here?”  “No, please, that’s my favorite toy,” the little girl’s voice screeched as she reached helplessly for her doll.  “Please don’t,” the mother’s voice was low and defeated.  The soldier smiled as he ripped the toy apart, sending doll stuffing floating into the wind.  She grabbed her daughter tightly and could barely hear the soldier laughing over the screams of the little girl.

As she made her way down the street, she was stopped by a commotion as a neighbor’s door flew open and a man was thrown down the stairs.  She pressed her daughter’s head into her shoulder so the little girl wouldn’t see.  The man got up to his hands and knees attempting to stand, when a soldier reared back and kicked him hard in the mouth.  The sound of the boot cracking the man’s face made the little girl flinch in her mother’s arms, but the sight was much worse.  The force of the boot sent the man’s head flying backwards shooting a stream of blood onto the soldier’s uniform.  It flipped him completely onto his back, and he struggled to get air as shots of blood flew into the air with each exasperated breath.

“Now you got blood on me,” the soldier exclaimed as he kicked the man again in the side.  “What’s the problem faggot?  You like to take it in the ass, but you don’t like it when Fidel fucks you?”  He looked over to the crowd that was forming and stepped quickly towards a man who was visibly angry at the scene, “You got a problem with what you see, Nigger?”  The man stayed silent as the soldier drew his sidearm and leaned in closer.  Just then, the man on the ground let out an intelligible sentence.

The soldier spun around, “What’s that faggot?”  He bent down next to the naked man’s head.  The man sat up, leaning on his arm, “I said, Viva Cuba Libre!”  He defiantly yelled it loud enough for everyone to hear as he stared at the soldier, their faces were not more than an inch apart.  The soldier stood up, pressing the barrel of the pistol right into the man’s head, “Viva Fidel, Maricon.”  The shot rang out loudly in the street.

– – –

Although this story is fictional, every event did indeed transpire, just not in the same moment.  In Fidel Castro’s Cuba political dissidents were routinely murdered, homosexuals were persecuted, and blacks were treated as an inferior race.

My grandmother was evicted from her own home with only one suitcase for her and her children.  My mother had her only toy ripped apart in front of her.  Without any legal source of income, my uncle sold croquettes on the street at age 7 because his mother, a teacher, wasn’t allowed to work, and his father was placed in a concentration camp.  My grandfather entered the concentration camp at 6 foot and over 180 lbs.   He was forced to work as a slave in the fields and when he got sick, he was given no medical attention and left to die.  He survived and when he was finally released, he had dropped to a sickly 120 lbs.

This is the legacy of Fidel Castro: slavery and torture.unnamed-10

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My father’s father was a doctor and a Major in the revolutionary army, but when he refused to join the communist party, he was stripped of his rank and degree and also forced into a labor camp.  He eventually escaped via a raft, but left behind my grandmother and my father, a 14 year old boy at the time.  When my father was jailed for arguing with a teacher about the perils of communism, he too escaped and was alone in Mexico for a year as a teenage boy before he was able to earn enough money to fly to the US.

This is the legacy of Fidel Castro: fear and oppression.

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My uncle Tony was a star athlete, but was ousted from the Cuban National Baseball team because his views were “too American”. He was forced to escape and leave his family behind.  He would routinely send back items so his family could survive like fishing hooks.

His brother was jailed for stealing a government cow (the irony isn’t lost on me), and died in prison.  His father’s fishing boat was confiscated, and when he died, my uncle wasn’t able to visit him.  It would be 25 years before my uncle saw his sister again.

This is the legacy of Fidel Castro: broken families.

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These are just some of the stories of pain and suffering Fidel Castro left in his wake.  His legacy is a Cuba in ruins while he lived in palaces. A people in fear of their government, while he operated with complete impunity.  A place where ideas and thoughts can get you tortured, imprisoned, or killed.  A place where blacks and gays are considered inferior.

 

 

 

This is why when people like Jesse Jackson, Jill Stein, Barack Obama, Justin Trudeau, and Jesse Ventura praise or whitewash the sadistic, evil, son of a bitch that Fidel Castro was it pisses me off so much.  It is an affront to all those who suffered under his brutal reign of terror that still continues today even after his death.  It shows a great ignorance and moral bankruptcy to praise or even diminish the evil that was Fidel Castro.

It is a sort of beautiful irony that I have this medium, as a child of Cuban immigrants, with which to reach thousands of people and say…

 Fidel Castro was a coward and a piece of shit.

 

 

It’s also why I proudly wore a uniform and placed myself in harm’s way for the USA.  Folks, the United States is the last stand for freedom in the world.   Although my parents and grandparents had a place to run to, me and my children don’t.  This is it, and I will ferociously fight to protect it.

God Bless the United States of America!

Airborne all the Way!

Viva Cuba Libre!

-LJF

 

Click the image below to find out what we’re doing here at CONUS Battle Drills!

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