The Gundecker

Greetings Chief! Today’s the day! You’ve spent the past 24 years toiling on the seven seas, onboard several rusty tin cans and one PRECOM with surprisingly more problems than the Blackberry Storm. You have had your fair share of NJPs, as a witness and a participant (we all stopped asking why you have five stripes and they’re not gold). You know who you are chief. Who gives a fuck if you had to make E-6 twice when it was still allowed? Who cares if that new QMSN couldn’t keep her mouth shut about the goat locker permitted nude, capybara jousting match in Thailand (Reader, you know it wasn’t done with a lance…USE YOUR IMAGINATION!).

That was old news, like three weeks ago. The point is, you’ve done your part, and it’s time to get boatswain whistled off into the sunset, but what do we do now? Do we make a sustainable living doing what we were doing before but for Raytheon, OR do you want to follow your dream of being a freelance new age horror novelist with an absolutely lucrative career with a Creative Writing and Liberal Arts degree? College sounds inviting despite the lack of stable income? Well this guide is… (REWIND)

Alright, let’s try again; you’ve done four years. You didn’t exactly hate being a sailor but you didn’t love it either. You spent most of it on deployment even though you got San Diego orders and you manage to dodge repercussions after getting arrested for drunk driving (god knows how you managed that, you lucky idiot).

Perhaps, you want to leave, go back to the family business of hiring foreigners to build model homes and yelling at them for going so slow or complaining of one bathroom break per day, OR… maybe get a degree in Exercise Science so you can work as a Strength and Conditioning Coach at a university football team for indentured servitude like wages (not recommended)? COLLEGE? You brave silly, silly man…

Whichever of these two paths you took. Whether you’re a lifer, or a not-on-my-lifer, whether you spent half your life on the high seas or half a decade, this guide I have written is easy four rules to surviving (and thriving) in college and using your GI bill. I have been lucky to have taken the hard route in my post service education and there are somethings I wish people would have told me. I also have noticed things in college life that definitely change, if you are a veteran. Here is my short list on what to do to make your academia life a little less painful.

BUCK STATUS QUO, YOU DON’T NEED TO JOIN “GREEK LIFE”

Don’t join a frat or a sorority. For the love of fucking god, don’t do it. At best your are 22 or 23 and that is even too old to be joining one. You can hang with them and go to their parties, but there is ZERO reason for you to hop on that tradition. College kids often refer to participating in frat or sorority relations as “Greek Life”.

(Editor’s Fun Story) I am actually part Greek as in ethnicity. My parents never went to college. I am a first generation college graduate, and I had no idea what “Greek Life” meant at a university. I was dating a girl when I was attending school and she once asked me “Hey are you into Greek Life?”
I responded, “Uh, what?”
She asks “Greek?! Are you Greek?”
I said, “Yeah a quarter.”
She says “WHAT?!”
With the naivete of a Cone Head, I said,”Yeah, my grandpa is from Greece so that makes me a quarter Greek.”
Her jaw just drops. “Are you in a fraternity, you dumbass?!”
I recoil in disgust, “Oh god no. Why would I do that?”(End Story)

First: they make you feel like it is an absolute necessity, but trust me when I say this: it is just an academia-sanctioned, multi-level marketing scheme. You are no better than those single moms that get bamboozled into selling Herbalife, Amway, Pampered Chef, Scientology, Jehova’s Witnesses, etc. They try to convince you that it’s about networking, and building a community while they take $1000 from you every semester to keep your status…while your main objective every semester is to recruit new members. That type of scam should BARELY work for dumb 18 year-olds who just got to college, but I hope after getting railroaded by your recruiter about at least one thing (mine said I could ride in a helicopter for my job), that you are skeptical of soothsayers and missionaries.

Second, it’s made for the stupid, impressionable kids who are scared about getting into the world. It’s for youngsters and much like your dumb-ass joining to Never Again Volunteer Yourself, let them learn the hard lessons without feeding into it. Somethings you miss out on if you haven’t done them by a certain age. I didn’t drink until I was 21, I don’t get to drink underage. That ship has sailed (no pun intended), I ain’t going to a high school party at 21 to live an experience I never had when the train has left the station.

Lastly, if you’re 22 and rushing for frat/sorority, that’s sad and everyone around you knows it’s sad. You are admitting that you are a quarter way through your life and don’t know how to make jokes and/or friends. It really is an age limited option to start.

If you are 25 or older, someone should call the cops cause you are essentially a predator. We had a “veteran” fraternity at one of my universities that tried to recruit me. The members were all 26 or older. They didn’t call it a Veteran’s club, or a Student Veteran’s Society, or anything like that. They gave it some Greek phonetic name like Alpha Delta Ligma. I wanted to respond “how many of you are not allowed within 200 yards of an elementary school?” or “When was the first time that you realized you would like it better if the other person was comatose?” Their “president” was a 29 year-old Army vet and the fact he was running a fraternity of other 30 year adjacents should have barred him from getting a passport, or at least put him on some national registry.

You haven’t missed out on anything by not being in on the Greek Life nonsense. Truly, I enjoyed the festivities without giving them money every semester. When I gave my oath at MEPS, the Commander said “Welcome to the world’s largest drinking fraternity.” Just know that what you did in the service was probably way more wild than what the college kids are doing.

IF YOU NEED MORE THAN A BACHELOR’S, PAY THE FIRST TWO YEARS OUT OF POCKET

Wait until at least year two in your education to start the GI Bill if you require more education to be considered for your career field. Bachelor programs are way less expensive than Master’s. Master’s programs can be covered by the GI bill but are much more expensive than bachelor’s. For example, I work as a strength and conditioning coach at my day job. In order, to get a meaningful salary (and I use that term loosely) you need at the very least a Master’s degree in my capacity. I spent pretty much all of my GI bill up getting the Bachelor’s and had to pull out loans for the rest of the Master’s. Swear to god, if it wasn’t for the pandemic, I’d have been looking to fake my death or I would need some type of Mario star power so the man couldn’t touch me.

This worked against me cause the Master’s courses were a helluva lot more expensive than my Bachelor’s. Also none of the loans can be subsidized when you are in a Master’s, so my loans collected interest while I was still in school. My only saving grace WAS the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, cause that stopped Sally May from abusing me, like the slutty loan shark she is, when I couldn’t find work. Turns out not a lot of hands-on-person jobs like coaching were in need during the pandemic. Who would have thought?

All I’m saying is do more research than I did. You have 36 months of Post 9-11 or 48 months of VRE if you have a disability. Figure out what career you really want and what the education path is to logically get there. Don’t be like me and go into it with all the preparation of Italy invading Greece during WWII (Hint: Greece embarrassed them horrifically). Don’t just think “Oh I just got to get my degree, that should be enough.” A lot of the time, it isn’t. My particular profession requires almost 10 years of volunteering and interning 60 hours a week to be taken seriously for a salaried job. Even then, it still helps to know someone. I love my job now, but if you would have told me the nonsense I would have to put up to get there, I might give pause. Bottom line: understand what it takes and what you need to get there. At least my job is hard to replace with a computer.

Don’t be THAT veteran

Seriously, you know what I’m talking about. That veteran who constantly reminds everyone around at any point that s/he has served. Don’t get me wrong, you can and should tell funny stories about being in service, but let it come up organically.

I worked with one Army vet at my last university who would not shut up about “Ah, these kids don’t know what service is like, I struggled…” and “Waaaah, back when I served…” and “I don’t understand why the girls here don’t want me taking pictures of them or smelling the seats while they’re working out. Don’t they know I deployed?” Blah, blah, blah, you get the idea. He was the one who tried to get me to join the on-campus veteran fraternity (he was 35 at the time, and I’m sure he has to alert the neighborhood of his presence when he moves homes). This genius also thought he was getting a good deal paying someone $2,500 to help him file for a veteran home loan for a house he was looking into. Read that again. He PAID $2,500 to have someone file for a service that can be filed for him for free at literally any Veteran’s service organization. A friend of mine who was real estate agent told him “it’s amazing how you get more mentally disabled as you get older.”

Not all my Army cohorts acted like that (I honestly got a long with the Army and Marine vets more than other Navy vets in school) but it was one of the most egregious displays of “please look at me”. First of all, if that was such a mainstay in your personality, why would you leave? I get that some people get separated involuntarily and really wanted to stay in, but c’mon. Hopefully, you have an identity outside of that. Two, it’s honestly like the guy who says he used to bench 315lb in high school any chance he gets. Thanks for the history lesson, champ, but how’s the coronary bypass and receding hairline coming along? It’s a work of art in trying-too-hard.

It’s cool to reminisce and banter and tell awesome sea stories (I realize I do this exact thing for fun on this blog). Just understand the line of when it’s becoming annoying to your peers, and you’ll probably be surprised it’s other veterans that are getting annoyed with you. I reiterate, service stories are a lot of fun to tell, just make sure they’re relevant.

Utilize your benefits and take advantage of career opportunities you couldn’t otherwise.

I went to school to become a strength and conditioning coach. This particular career field THRIVES on unpaid internships and nepotism. If you aren’t willing to grind for everyday of the week for no overtime and for a quickly fleeting love-of-the-game, this is the career for you. You’ll be doing that for better part of a decade; I know from experience. My profession is definitely a destination job and they can put souls through the ringer and take who ever really wants it.

However, there is definitely a huge benefit to having, well, education benefits. I got to participate in a lot of professional work development opportunities because I didn’t have to really rely on a second job. I mean I worked at a Div I university football team and could essentially be there all the time. I also worked at super prestigious performance company that coaches and trains significant chunk of the NFL Combine athletes. Because I didn’t have to rely on secondary income. This is a substantial benefit, especially in career fields that require a laughable amount of experience to be even considered for a position.

I don’t necessarily agree with the concept of “paid with experience”. Try doing that at a restaurant and see how quickly your the kitchen brings you back to “serve” you with experience…which I can only assume is a broom handle, 13 Reasons Why style. I would have never made all the personal contacts I made, or mentors I have, if I didn’t have access to the GI bill. I would have been one of those other suckers that had to figure out how to juggle work and be successful in school. If know how to leverage your resources, you can get ahead pretty quick.

I hope this helps, both for your social life, and your success in your career outside of 4-hour long UNREPs and doing fresh water wash down in the rain. Transitioning can seem daunting, but hey, if you don’t like it you roughly four years that you can reenlist before you have to do boot camp again.