Six Differences Between Civilians and Veterans.
By Tom Demerly for tomdemerly.com
- Civilians Don’t Know How to Answer a Question.
It’s one of the most conspicuous differences between civilians and military; civilians cannot answer a simple question. Try it. Ask a question that requires a simple, expedient, one-word “yes” or “no” answer. Usually civilians answer a question with a question. One of the first things you learn in the military is how to effectively answer a question to communicate necessary information concisely and quickly. For every veteran and military person who has to wade through the mire of civilian semantics trying to get an answer to a simple question, this phenomenon is boggling.
- Veterans Will Never Let You Forget They’re Veterans.
Guilty as charged. The military experience changes you. It instills deep-seated fears, some reasonable, some not. It teaches skills and competencies that can’t be learned anywhere else. It also provides a sense of belonging and self-esteem that membership in any revered group does. It may be subtle, many people may not notice it, but whether it is how he stands, how tight her hair bun is, the way he looks around a room when he enters it, the hat, the belt or the boots, it is usually easy to spot a veteran. That’s not an accident.
- Civilians Cannot Make Decisions.
The military teaches how to make decisions, the importance of having a method of decision making and how to make decisions quickly and efficiently. It also teaches what to do when you make bad decisions, which you inevitably will. Civilians cannot make decisions efficiently. Too many variables, too much second guessing, too much time wasted. One of the most maddening things about being military or veteran in a civilian world is the bizarre theatre that is watching a civilian trying to make a decision as they are influenced by factors they themselves don’t even realize. For veterans, this is agonizing to see.
- Veterans Treasure Quiet Space, Hot Water and Good Food.
Hurry-up and wait, long days that start before sun-up and end way after dark. Cold, wet clothing and numb feet. Dirty hair and cramped spaces with smelly bodies. Welcome to the military. Once you are out of the military you usually just want to sit down for a moment and quietly stare at the horizon. Quiet, open spaces, warm meals and a hot shower are opulent luxuries to a veteran. These things are wealth. Never take them for granted.
- Veterans Know How to Work as a Team.
In the first two weeks of being in the military you begin to coalesce into a collective organism known as a team. The mental barrier between self and team disappears, and you discover the strength and synergy of teamwork. It’s a humbling and empowering experience at the same time, and once you’ve experienced it you never forget it. Civilians have a rough time with working as a team because they are forever trying to preserve some semblance of “self”. Self must evaporate in a team environment for the greater good, and that is frightening to many people until they learn how to be an effective part of a team and the remarkable benefits.
- Civilians Are Delightfully Naive.
Few things are more entertaining to a veteran than talking to civilians, especially most young civilians, about world politics, U.S. military involvement around the world and human nature. Civilians live in a beautiful bubble of tranquility and peace that makes their everyday foibles feel massive and their choices seem difficult. Frankly, it is at once cute and annoying. Americans, especially, live a frail bubble of security that facilitates a bizarrely privileged life usually free from difficult decisions involving life and death. Unfortunately, this has begun to change as increasing polarity between economic privilege inflict difficult choices on more and more poor people ill-equipped and untrained to make good decisions. That is tragic to watch in our country.
tomdemerly 