When Reality Kicks In

I haven’t written in a long time because to be honest the military life has left a bit of a bad taste in my mouth. I have been wondering whether to write this or not but as I started this blog to potentially help others, I thought if this can give one person an insight into the leaving process then job done. My apologies if this becomes a bit of a soapbox moment!

In June, we were given the confirmation we have been waiting for - the hubby is definitely being medically discharged from the army. We were both thankful of this because at least our future was no longer up in the air and we could start to formulate a plan. Or so we thought…

Communication on the formalities and processes behind leaving, let alone because of an injury, has at best, been poor. I don’t know whether because he has been ‘out of office’ for so long and not living on camp he has just slipped under the radar and been forgotten about, or whether the system is just shit. Either way it needs to be improved.

Were you aware that

1. The day you are told you are being discharged, that’s all you are told. No end date, no processes, nothing.

2. You have to wait 6-8 weeks post being told, for your actual end date to be confirmed – this can be anything between 4 – 8 months I believe

3. And you don’t find out what your ‘package’ is until 4-6 weeks before you leave

I know that a lot of these processes have been put in place with good reason and there are tools and advice to help bring some clarity to parts. For example, not finding out what your package is until 4-6 weeks before you leave is so people who have chosen to leave, are leaving for the right reasons. There are tools to help you roughly work out what you might get. However, I believe these aren’t the right processes from a medical side.

For someone who has an injury, they need to have all the facts upfront to allow them to plan. For example, having their pension confirmed in black and white allows them to understand how much of pay cut they can afford to take. This is important because when dealing with an injury, they may need to consider a new career path and start from the bottom. By knowing this information, it allows them to rule out certain professions and focus on the ones they can afford to do.

Once they are able to focus on these areas they can ensure that their ‘learning credits’ – which is a brilliant opportunity I just want to add – are being invested in the right areas. Not in ones that they won’t be able to use, because let’s be honest, not everyone has the money to be able to plough back into their education when they have a family and other monetary commitments.

The timeline then comes in to play.

Your ‘credits’ are there to be used to aid resettlement and many people who have chosen to leave, use some if not all of these, in their final few months of service to ready them for a civie job. If the decision is made for you, you are only given 4 months notice, you don’t know how much of a pay cut you can take and you don’t know what jobs you can do because of your injury, this leaves you instantly on the back foot. You end up fighting a ticking clock until the security blanket of consistent pay runs out. (For which, I know we are incredibly lucky to have and are very thankful for)

To try and take back some control, we have taken matters into our own hands. We have tried to get work experience in place, doing manual jobs around the house to test capabilities and reached out to charities who conduct courses to assist on this type of thing. It’s not perfect and it is still an incredibly daunting prospect for us. However, throughout the process I haven’t been able to shake the thought about those who don’t have this kind of support network behind them. We are incredibly lucky that we have a fantastic group of family and friends behind us and, that we can just about get by on my income for a short period of time should we need to. This isn’t the case for everyone.

The military world has many positives some of which I have recognised in this post. However I do think that some of the policies they have in place do need to be relooked at to ensure everyone leaving this institution and way of life, has the best start to their new venture.

GL

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