by Derek Farwell
Columnist

I’ve had a number of people ask me since I was honorably discharged from the military whether or not I would recommend it to other people. This again isn’t really a simple yes or no question to answer. While I don’t think I’d recommend it to the majority of my friends or family for the obvious reasons of possible physical or mental harm that could be done to them, but there is a lot more to it than that. There are a lot of pros and cons and it depends on each individual person, but of course, it’s not for everyone.

The biggest piece of advice that I could give somebody who is considering joining the military in the future is to use it as an opportunity to acquire a marketable skill. I say this now, but I kind of went the opposite direction when I enlisted in the Army. I enlisted in the infantry which unfortunately doesn’t leave you with many marketable skills in civilian life, which is probably for the best considering most of the training we did. I also made the mistake of making it known that I had no intentions of reenlisting in the Army when my initial term of service was completed, which really hampered my ability to get spots in military educational programs. One of the few opportunities available to me was to become an Emergency Medical Technician; however, because I wasn’t going to reenlist the Army wasn’t going to spend money to send me to any schools. But if you’re smart about it, you can use your time in the military to acquire new skills that translate to a civilian career. When you enlist in the military you have several options as to what you choose as your military occupational specialty (MOS). There are a lot of very useful MOS’s that are available to new recruits that could serve them well later on in life. In my opinion a couple of those are the medical field, military police, communications or any number of jobs in the mechanical field.

As soldiers go through their military career, whether it be for 4 years or 20 years, there are a number of benefits that become available to them simply because of their service. I think the military does a better job of informing veterans of this now than in the past, but there are still far too many soldiers and veterans that don’t know about the benefits that they may be entitled to. I know many of the benefits that are available because I work in the veteran’s benefits and I’ll do my best to inform you of them in coming articles but I will mention a few. The most important thing a soldier should do upon being discharged from the military is get themselves enrolled in the VA health care system at their nearest VA Medical Center. The common misconception is that you have to have been permanently wounded or injured in the military to be eligible for VA health care, but this is not true. There are a couple of keys to establishing eligibility; they are length of active duty service and character of discharge. The common standard for length of service is 2 continuous years of active duty service, with a few exceptions. If a National Guard or Reserve soldier is called to active duty and completes the term of active duty with an other than dishonorable discharge, or they are called to active duty but are unable to complete the term because they incur an injury or disability while on active duty. It’s far easier to enroll in and be accepted in VA health care if you were honorably discharged, however, if you have an other than honorable discharge you are not automatically ineligible but anything other than an honorable discharge is handled on a case to case basis and requires an administrative approval. Your best bet is to fill out the application to have your character of discharge upgraded to a general or honorable discharge. The other and often easier way to get enrolled into VA health care is to file a VA disability compensation claim to get any injury, disease, or disability that was incurred or aggravated by your military service rated as a service connected condition. Then you are automatically enrolled in VA health care. As I stated before, I will go much more in depth with this process in a later article.

As I am a member of the Military Order of the Purple Heart, I know that a new chapter of the MOPH was recently started in Moorhead. One of the benefits of all Purple Heart recipients at any VA Medical Center is that you are automatically entitled to FREE hearing and vision care for the rest of your life. There are a number of great benefits available to soldiers and veterans, and I’ll do my best to share them all with you, but the best way to learn them is to go on the www.va.gov or talk to a veterans service officer.