How to Meet Other Veterans

Veterans know one truth about serving in the military: only other veterans can fully understand what it’s like to be in the military or to be engaged in combat.  As much as you might try to explain the military experience to your family and loved ones, the people who understand the experience best are other veterans.  Because of this, veterans seek out other veterans both professionally and personally.  Making Personal Contact With Veterans Whether you want to meet fellow veterans for dating or to talk shop, there are veteran meetups across the country.  Either contact your veterans administration or use third-party sources such as Meetup.com.  If there isn’t a group in your area, you can choose to make a meetup group of your own.  Chances are that there’s a meetup in your area, as veterans groups are enormously popular and veterans are spread out across the world.  Networking With Veterans Sharing your military experience can be enormously fulfilling, but you should also look to meet other veterans if you’re just entering the job market.  For a person leaving the military and entering civilian life, the job hunt can be daunting.  Not only is it hard to translate your skills into civilian terms, but it can be difficult to begin a job after serving in the military, which is a very unique experience, with unique protocols, no matter what your ranking or duty.   Networking with other veterans can help with the transition process.  You get advice from other veterans about the transition process, and potentially be able to make networking contacts with veterans who already important contacts within the civilian work world.  Ideally, a veteran meetup will include people from several generations, so you can meet potential employers in addition to people seeking out work.  Connecting With Old Friends It happens all the time.  Once someone leaves the military and enters civilian life, his military experience might fall to the past.  Some keep in close contact with other veterans right from the start, but for many others this is not the case, even if military experience was the most intense and fulfilling of one’s life.  Perhaps if military experience was difficult, a serviceman or woman may want to avoid talking about the subject.  It’s recommended that you get together with people you served with, or even new people, to share your experiences.  It will be a reminder of everything you accomplished, everything you went through, and can be a significant boost to personal self-worth.   Comments (0) Show/Hide comments Write comment Show/Hide comment form Name Email Website Title Comment Add Comment