You hear about the perks of joining the military quite a bit. Not only does it offer the veteran a myriad of benefits, but it gives the individual certain life skills and experiences that are very difficult to attain elsewhere. Discipline, a solid work ethic, and the willingness to do the dirty-work that no one else wants to — these are all useful qualities in any profession.

However, for whatever reason, sometimes there is a disconnect from those positive, military-centric qualities and applying it to civilian life upon ETS. Many separate from the military and are disappointed that they don’t get to use those qualities, or at least not right away or in the ways they’d like. Sometimes they come to the hard realization that their military experience alone doesn’t qualify them for much — they need to learn a new skill, and even then a job or opportunity might not come easy. Only once that employment is secured, can they go on to let those more abstract skills flourish.

And still, sometimes people have trouble taking the abstract skills from military life and applying it to a civilian job. That takes some thinking outside the box, since (with the exception of a handful of jobs) the work the veteran will be doing in the civilian sector will be wildly different from their military careers.

But when you do take those skills and apply them, it will benefit the veteran (and the group for which they work) immensely.