Post-Military Life Quotes

From the time I left the Marine Corps after serving as an infantry platoon and company commander in Vietnam, I decided that I would focus on immediate goals that inspired me to devote all of my energy to them, rather than putting together the more cautious and traditional building blocks of a predictable career.

The next thing I knew, I was out of the service and making movies again. My first picture was called, GI Blues. I thought I was still in the army.

When I left the army, I left for good.

When I left the military, I thought I would not have any problems with the transition - I'm very adaptable and very versatile - but I was wrong.

When you get out of the military, all you are doing is a work-up for the longest deployment of your life.

After 14 months of military service, I had a wife, a child, half an apartment, no car, and no job.

I have said many times I don't want to be considered one who once flew fighters. That's not who I am. I devoted the subsequent 50 years - more - to writing.

My very identity as a soldier came to an abrupt end. I'd been soldiering as long as I'd been shaving. Suddenly I'd been told I could no longer soldier, and it felt as though no one really cared if I ever shaved again.

How do you expect people to actually join the military if, when they leave the military, they can't integrate back into the free market they're supposed to be protecting?

When I got out of the Army, I started writing the usual 'Catcher in the Rye' imitations, and then I wrote something that was done Off-Off Broadway in a theater. It was called 'What Else Is There?' and it was four or five people playing missiles in a silo waiting to take off.

My dad was career Army.

I was an infantry Marine, and there are only so many things you can do when you get out of the military that you can apply your job to. Either a janitor or a cop. I tried to do both of those things because what else are you going to do?

After the military, I floundered around between jobs for a while, and there was an opportunity for me to go live in Japan. I was living on the Okinawa Airport Base, off the grid, no real address.

I got out of the Navy in 1990.

There's no better citizen than a veteran. There's so much waiting for you outside, and it's not something to be intimidated by or scared by; it is something to be embraced.

The military community in particular, I think, could always be more supported, especially people who are being processed out of the military and trying to readjust to being civilians.

So when I got out of the military, I went back to school in biology, and earned a biology degree at the University of Texas, and then did some graduate work in it.

The simple truth is that every veteran has his or her own unique story, and there's no single narrative about the issue of veterans finding civilian employment. And no single solution.

I was young, out of the military service in Israel. I was looking for a big adventure, and I was searching for it.

One of the key issues all veterans face is making the transition to a civilian career, and for veterans who need extra medical attention, this can be even more difficult.

Towards the end of the military service, I had to make what I assume has been the most important decision in my career: to start a residency in clinical medicine, in surgery, which was my favorite choice, or to enroll into graduate school and start a career in scientific research. It was clear to me that I was heading for graduate school.

We have a responsibility as ex-soldiers to realise we're no longer in the military. All this 'once a soldier, always a soldier', that's all well and good, but that attitude doesn't work in society.

On Veterans Day, the country honors those in uniform and the sacrifices they have made across the globe. But as a military spouse who reports on the issues facing military families, I've learned that one of the biggest challenges is when a service member transitions out of the armed forces and into the civilian workforce.

It's almost worth having been in the army for the joy your freedom gives you.

I was in the army, and I had given up the thought of being a composer.