During the first time of getting med boarded out, you’re going through the process initially and it’s really long. It’s not a quick process.
Then I got my rating back and then I filed for the one time appeal. Once I got my 100%, it was like fast track. And so from that point on everything was nervous, like scared, excited at the same time because I’m now going to be stepping into a new world and I was still on track for my 20 year career and this one had, took me from the side.
I didn’t want to stay close to the base, so I moved out to the Dallas Fort Worth area and established myself with the VA and I started out there. Everything with transitioning out has a roadblock. Transitioning. My pay started two months after I had separated. So I had to prepare for those two months that my separation happened before I would receive my first check.
Most of the time when you already have a plan, you file for retirement a year out, you’re preparing for your next life while you’re still in the military. But I didn’t have that luxury of having the six months. I went immediately into the civilian world because once they gave me my rating, they said, okay, thank you. And within a month I was gone.
When I transitioned, my service connected stuff, I still actually deal with that today. I still find myself doing hospital visits for some of my medical conditions and things like that that are beyond my control. There’s two different issues I have with, with my Asthma and my EoE and I couldn’t receive medication that I was getting while I was seeing my professional doctor. I couldn’t receive that from the VA. So that really kind of put a hindrance on my next steps. It’s still difficult. The transition is never easy, especially when you work a career field that’s not really transitional in the outside as far as like the specific job that I did. But we have a lot of relatable skills.
The hardest problem is, is finding people that are willing to take a chance on those relatable skills and apply you into a job. If I can go back to my younger self during transition, I would probably utilize the VR&E benefits that they have at the VA or actually process into the civilian workforce and have that aid and assistance to better prepare me for what was to come.
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