Vets Adjust to New Culture as They Join Civilian Workforce

By Malini Wilkes

Staff Sergeant Anthony Mannino is a 30-year-old Marine Corps reservist who spent much of the past eight years on active duty, traveling the world on deployments that took him to Iraq, Japan, Virginia, California and Hawaii.

But last year he found himself looking for a civilian job as he prepared to move home to Long Island, New York, and transition back to reserve status with a unit at Fort Dix, New Jersey.

He began his search in January. By November, he had started his new job as an office automation assistant with the Defense Contract Audit Agency.

When Mannino started job hunting last year, he considered himself attuned to the civilian workforce. After all, he’d worked as a civilian for five years before enlisting in the Reserves. But even after several months in his new position, he found he was still adapting to a whole different culture.

“When you get off active duty and head back to the civilian workforce, you really have to take a step back and observe how business is conducted, because it definitely isn’t the same as military life,” he said, adding that the culture is different in the civilian workplace because chain of command isn’t as prevalent.

As a Marine, Mannino’s job title was “administrative specialist” and he was tasked with handling pay and personnel issues. He was a machine gunner in Iraq, before ending up in Hawaii, where he helped wounded, ill and injured troops transition to the civilian workforce.

That’s where he learned about Hire Heroes USA, a nonprofit program dedicated to helping veterans and military spouses find employment.

Hire Heroes USA offers workshops in resume-building and interview techniques, career coaching by phone or Internet, a job board and small job fairs near military bases. Over the past four years, the program has helped more than 1,050 veterans and their spouses find employment.

In January 2013, Mannino attended his first workshop where he learned how to translate his military experience into a tight, two-page civilian resume.

“Instead of putting ‘section leader in charge of Marines’—simply just switching over to ‘personnel management,’ you can relate to the civilian workforce,” said Mannino.

He also benefited from mock interviews and advice from local employers. Mannino attended a second workshop in July to develop a separate resume to apply for federal jobs.

He called it a “daunting task” to tackle the federal application process.

“With the federal resume, you need to include as much information from your career as possible, so that you can be pulled out by an automated system. You have to have supervisors from each time you change jobs, and a point of contact, and then you have to put the dates in, and then what your job responsibilities were.”

His two-page resume expanded to eight pages, and he landed his current federal job less than two months after sending in his application. That’s a lightning fast turnaround for a government position, especially in a tough economy with a tight federal budget.

But the life of a reservist can be unpredictable. Just three months into his new career, the Marines called Mannino back to active duty for a two-year stint as a recruiter in nearby Smithtown, New York.

“It was definitely a surprise,” said Mannino, “But it’s part of being in the Reserves.”

Luckily, his civilian boss was understanding and wished him well. By law, his employer must hold a position open for him. It doesn’t have to be the same job, but Mannino is grateful for the security of knowing he won’t be unemployed.

“I don’t have any intention of letting the job go,” he said. In fact, he hopes to take some accounting classes while on active duty, so he can return to the agency as an auditor—a higher level, higher-paying position.

Mannino was a motivated, savvy job seeker from the start. He talked to friends, learned about programs and websites that worked for them and used every possible tool available as he took the plunge into a highly competitive civilian job market.

But some veterans need more guidance and encouragement to find their niche.

“I think one of the hardest things is figuring out what they want to do,” said Kelly Fogler, a veteran transition specialist with Hire Heroes USA. “Because for so many of them they’ve been in the military for many years, and it’s been a lot of their identity.”

Juan Valdez is a retired Marine sergeant who admits that he’s having trouble “letting go of being a Marine.”

“Being in the Marine Corps, we … expect the same standards out of everybody which is unrealistic and unfair to us and everyone else,” he said.

Valdez, 29, recently moved home to Boston, Massachusetts, after nearly 10 years on active duty, including four deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan that took their toll on his body and his mind.

He received a Purple Heart in 2006 after he was shot by a sniper near Fallujah, Iraq.

“[The bullet] went through my arm and side of my chest and broke the [expletive] out of my rib and came out my back,” he said.

Despite chronic pain in his back and arm, Valdez deployed for two more combat tours. He suffered a couple of concussions from roadside bombings in Iraq and smashed his head on the rail of a 7-ton vehicle when it rolled over near Sangin, Afghanistan.

“I have PTSD. I am getting a test for TBI right now and I have fibromyalgia,” he said. “I have a back condition and I have a neck condition which makes everyday life a little difficult. If people shake my hand too hard—like if you were to shake my hand—you would be able to put me on my knees.”

On top of all that, he struggles with severe memory loss that interferes with his ability to keep up with his college classes.

“It takes me several times to read a page so that I can understand it,” said Valdez. “Usually what I end up doing is, I will read it and then my girlfriend will read it. Then I will read it again and highlight and then we have a conversation about it. So that way I can retain the information.”

Valdez is enrolled in four classes this semester and is working toward a degree in political science. He ultimately wants to attend law school so he can help veterans get the benefits they’ve earned. He would like to find an internship or part-time job, but realizes his options are limited because of his physical and mental disabilities.

Some days he is so wracked with pain that he can barely move, so his girlfriend has to dress him and get him ready for school.

His therapy dog, a boxer named Midas, helps him control the flashbacks, anger and distraction resulting from his PTSD.

“I can’t focus on anything longer than maybe two or three minutes,” Valdez said. “But then there are a lot of distractions—other students coming in late, students texting while the professor is talking, students having side conversations. … All these things are very distracting to me, and are very irritating to me.”

Petting Midas is the active stimulation the former Marine needs to calm down and refocus, sometimes multiple times during a 90-minute class. But Valdez has no intention of giving up or slowing down. He even made the dean’s list last semester.

“I am very competitive, and I am a very determined individual, and so I went back [to combat] twice after I got shot. It was very painful to go back … but I push past the pain,” he said. “I love leading Marines and nothing made me happier than when I was leading Marines in combat.”

Now that he’s pursuing a college education, he’s tapping into that same discipline and determination to achieve his new goals.

“With enough practice reading and with challenging myself I can make my brain better, and I can work on the memory issues and the focus. It is going to take time but I just can’t give up.”

Valdez attended a Hire Heroes USA workshop last year to begin building his civilian resume. Like Mannino, he was a section leader during his last deployment and he appreciated the practical tips for translating military jargon into civilian language.

“They told me to quantify what being a section leader means,” recalled Valdez. “They had me say that I was in charge of ‘X’ number of Marines, responsible for 2.3 million dollars’ worth of military equipment which included vehicles, weapons, optics, communication equipment.”

In the mock interviews, he learned the value of the most basic human interaction.

“They tell you to smile and have a sense of humor,” he laughed.

Valdez was paired with a mentor who attended law school and lives in the same area. They are regularly in touch, discussing what college classes Valdez should take and how to find work-study jobs.

Fogler said the program keeps checking back with veterans and troops for as long as necessary.

“We don’t go away. We give them our card. We are following up with them. And once they are employed—gainfully employed—we still follow up with them every three months and we want to make sure that they are happy and doing well, enjoying their position.”

As Valdez starts out on his long journey toward a full-time professional career, he has this advice for other warriors traveling the same road:

“The military in general has taught us how to be successful. Never forget what they taught you and apply it in the future. And never give up.”

–Malini Wilkes is a former director of story development for the USO.