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Military life is full of changes. You travel for training, move to new duty stations and deploy—often many times.
You may be getting ready for your first move or your third deployment. Wherever you are, each new stage in your military career brings new challenges. These challenges could be moving to a new town, finding housing, arranging childcare or organizing finances. Dealing with these can put stress on you, your family and friends.
Fortunately, proper preparation can ease you through transitions. Our available resources can help you with deployment support, reintegration, moving and more.
Stress can be a big part of military life, no matter which branch you’re in. While we might wish our jobs or lives were less stressful, research shows that some stress at work can actually boost our performance and productivity. However, too much stress can impair mission readiness.
The holidays are a great time to reconnect with family and friends and spend time with your loved ones, but the holidays can also be difficult. For service members who are coping with invisible wounds, the holidays may be stressful – especially for members of the National Guard and reserve who may not have the same deployment support networks as their active duty counterparts. Read the following tips for warriors and families going through the reintegration process this holiday season, which can help keep you and your family healthy and strong.
Members of the National Guard, Reserve and individual augmentees are in unique positions. These citizen-warriors often work full-time civilian jobs while still being a member of the armed forces. Individual augmentees may receive orders or volunteer to deploy individually with a command that is not their own.
National Guard and Reserve service members face unique challenges balancing their military and civilian lives and managing transitions between them. The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) provides members of the National Guard and Reserve a specific set of benefits and services.
You can receive VA benefits if you are a:
Facing a major change such as separating from military service and readjusting to civilian life can be challenging for many veterans. Writing down your thoughts, feelings and experiences in a journal is one way to support your well-being throughout the transition process. Learn how you can start writing to strengthen your psychological health with the tips and resources below.
Reaching out for care for your psychological health is an important, positive step in your military career. When seeking a role that requires a national security clearance, you will be instructed to fill out the Standard Form 86 (SF86), “Questionnaire for National Security Positions.” [PDF 7.6MB] The federal government uses information from this form to conduct background checks and evaluate individuals who are:
