Program helps ease transition from military life

By Mary Garrigan, Journal Staff Writer | Thursday, December 21, 2006

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When Staff Sgt. James Bialota went through basic training in 2002, the U.S. Air Force spent six and a half weeks transforming him from a college-age civilian into a member of the U.S. military.

Four and a half years later, after a tour of duty in Iraq and a back injury, Bialota, 28, will leave the Air Force in October with a medical discharge and a three-day crash course on how to become a civilian again.

The Transition Assistance Program is a little like a mini-boot camp in reverse. It is designed to make the transition from military life to civilian employment as successful as possible. For the 25 to 30 servicemen and women who participate in TAP each month at Ellsworth Air Force Base, the workshops provide valuable information on surviving in the civilian culture and making the most of the military benefits they’ve earned by serving their country.

“I learned quite a bit,” said Bialota, who called the TAP program he attended in June “extremely” helpful.

A back injury he sustained doing military construction work in Iraq forced a medical discharge for Bialota, and at first, he worried about leaving the security of the military behind.

But after attending TAP, his attitude toward resuming life as a civilian improved.

“It changed my outlook completely,” he said. “I went from, ‘Oh my, what am I going to do?’ to ‘Oh, wow, look at what I can do.’”

During the three-day workshop, TAP participants get a variety of job-search assistance designed to improve their ability to compete in the civilian job market. They learn how to conduct job searches, explore current occupational and labor market conditions and prepare resumes and cover letters.

The military culture, which has its own language and titles for work-related tasks, often must be translated for civilian employers. “I learned to translate military terms and skills into civilian language for a resume,” Bialota said.

And for people who have been wearing military uniforms to work for years, even the idea of dressing for success in the business world can be confusing. TAP teaches workplace concepts such as what “business casual” attire looks like and the importance of first impressions during job interviews.

Ken Moon, a veterans’ employment representative for the Department of Labor in Rapid City, teaches TAP at Ellsworth AFB.

“The military is very good at turning civilians into soldiers, but historically, it has not been so good at making soldiers into civilians,” Moon said.

In the past, leaving the military, especially during the Vietnam era, was often an abrupt change of lifestyle that left veterans to struggle, financially and emotionally, with the transition on their own.

TAP was created in 1990 to help ease that transition and to help avoid some of the worst-case scenarios that arose out of the Vietnam era. It is a joint program of the Department of Defense, the Department of Labor and the Department of Veterans Affairs.

“Any change is hard,” said Moon, “and this is a fairly major life change for most people.”

Moon knows of what he speaks, having retired from the Air Force after 23 years.

About half of TAP seminars are spent informing the soon-to-be veterans about numerous Veterans Administration services and benefits. Veterans’ affairs and service groups inform people about the educational, employment and disability benefits that follow veterans into civilian life and how and where to access them..

“I run into veterans who aren’t aware of the benefits they’ve earned, and they’ve been out of the service for years. That’s sad,” said John Pfitzer of the Family Support Center at EAFB, which also facilitates TAP.

Bialota was well aware of the Montgomery GI educational benefits he has earned, having taken advantage of college tuition payment benefits during his four-year enlistment, but there were other benefits he knew nothing about.

“I wasn’t aware of some Department of Labor programs that target veterans and help them take advantage of their veteran status,” Bialota said, such as tax benefits that accrue to employers who hire veterans and other employment preferences for veterans.

TAP also informs veterans with service-related disabilities of their VA benefits, benefits of which their own branch of service might not be aware.

Because of his back injury, Bialota’s disability claim with the Veterans Administration is still pending. “I’m most worried about the extent of my physical disability and how much that will limit what I can do.”

Bialota is exploring civilian employment with the government, but he really hopes to open his own construction business — Bialota’s Carpentry and Home — and capitalize on the construction and carpentry training and experience he got in the Air Force as a structure journeyman for a civil engineering battalion.

Making the transition from serviceman to self-employment is scary and exciting for Bialota and his wife, Emily. The couple has a 9-year-old son, Trey, to support, and leaving behind the security of the military means they will soon be dealing with things such as health-insurance premiums and other expenses that weren’t part of life in the Air Force.

“I’m looking forward to it, actually,” Emily, who works at Borders bookstore in Rapid City, said. She was raised in a military family before she married a military spouse. They plan to stay in the Rapid City area for now but hope to return to James’ native New England at some point. The Family Support Center at Ellsworth AFB estimates that about 200 of the 500 people who leave the military at Ellsworth each year stay in the Rapid City area.

The Bialotas have always lived off-base and own several real-estate properties, so the adjustment to the civilian housing market will be less of a shock for them, Emily said “We’ve always had to budget for monthly bills, we know what to expect as far as utilities and other expenses go, and we’ve been careful with our investments, so we’re in pretty good shape,” she said.

That is not always the case for separating service members, many of whom might not be financially prepared for any period of unemployment, much less an extended one, Pfitzer said. “Often, there’s a lack of financial planning to cover that period of unemployment between paychecks,” he said.

Attendance at TAP is encouraged at Ellsworth AFB, but it is a voluntary program, and nationwide, about 60 percent of people leaving military service go through it, according to Todd Kolden, who runs the state veterans service programs for the Department of Labor. Kolden wants to see that percentage rise to 80 percent next year and, ideally, the military would make the program mandatory, he said.

National Guard personnel are also eligible to attend TAP.

As he prepares for his separation date, Bialota knows you can take the man out of the military, but you can never take the military completely out of the man.

“Will I be totally a civilian ever again? No, probably not,” he said. “Once you’ve been in, you’re always going to have it in you.”

Because of that connection, he worries a bit about missing the military culture and the respect and admiration belonging to it brings in a post-9-11 world.

“I see a lot more respect for the military now than I did even four years ago,” he said. “It’s very heartwarming to have people come up to you downtown and thank you for your service. I’ll miss that.”

Civilian life could just wait

After 28 years in the military, Clyde Aune is not afraid of hard work, long hours, low pay or demanding bosses.

Aune is, however, a little afraid of resumes. And job interviews. And finding employment in a civilian labor force where making a profit is more important than maintaining a national defense.

“I’ve never written a resume in my life. I don’t have any idea how to write one. Why would I? I’ve never had to,” Aune said. “I don’t even know how to spell resume.”

In September, Chief Master Sgt. Clyde Aune, 46, will retire from Ellsworth Air Force Base, having attained the highest rank possible among enlisted personnel.

When he does, Aune will be among the estimated 180,000 American service members thrust back into the civilian work force each year after they separate or retire from the military. At Ellsworth AFB, about 500 people separate each year, about half of those after 20 or more years of service.

The enormity of the transition he is about to undertake is not lost on Aune.

“I don’t mean to make too much of this, but it’s hard to overstate it,” he said. “The longer you have spent in the military, and the less time you had in the civilian world before that, the harder it is.”

Aune joined the Air Force only five days after he graduated from high school. Except for one after-school job he had as a teenager, he has never worked for profit.

As the 28th Bomb Wing command chief master sergeant, Aune serves as liaison between the enlisted corps and the wing commander. It is his job to oversee the morale, welfare and career progression of all of the base’s enlisted members and their families.

Aune took his own advice when he was preparing to retire and attended the Transition Assistance Program, (see related story). In TAP, he learned to write a resume, and he highly recommends the program for everyone leaving the military.

But unlike Aune, the majority of people who separate from military service do so after a one-time enlistment of only four, five or six years, eager to collect their rightful share of the Montgomery GI Bill that will provide most airmen with about $15,000 in educational benefits. Summer is the most common time of the year for people to leave the military.

“The Air Force is an ‘up or out’ profession,” Aune said. People who do not get promoted tend to leave. “It’s a false impression that people who join the military stay for life,” he said. In reality, 55 percent of the people who join the Air Force stay past their initial enlistment.

But even airmen who make the Air Force their career are relatively young when they retire, because the average age of enlistment is 20.2 years, and the maximum length of service is 30 years.

With a military pension that pays him 70 percent of his salary after 28 years of service, Aune has the freedom to do nothing but his hobbies of taxidermy and wood carving. He and his wife, Joanne, have already bought a house in Omaha, where they will move to be closer to their two college-age sons.

Given his personality, Aune and his wife agree, he’ll likely find full-time retirement tedious and look for work after a week or two of it. Given his age, he could easily look forward to another 20 years in the work force.

Exactly how his Air Force experience will translate to the civilian labor force remains to be seen, he said, but he’s working on that resume.

Contact Mary Garrigan at 394-8410 or mary.garrigan@rapidcityjournal.com