Finding Your way Back Home

Tyler Ingram
Sep 6, 2018 · 10 min read

For a young man or woman, leaving your home and family to be a part of a selfless cause can be a very exciting and scary experience. Coming from a small town that thrives on high school football and athletics I knew the value of belonging. What I did not know, but would soon learn, was how hard it would be to reintegrate myself into the small town life I had been away from for four years. Finding a path of life and career where I could be held to a high level of accountability and remain humble through adversity would be my hardest hurdle to overcome. Not everyone has experienced what I have in life. I have found that most employers do not take into account what a veteran has faced or the diverse level of life experience we have. While it is not fair to say we are better, it is also not fair to disregard a veteran as a future employee based on the fact we were in such a niche that is the military. To a veteran our experiences make us feel amazing to be honest. Every day life in the military is overcoming challenges and seeing yourself and others succeed at a higher level than most would experience in life. Military life is comprised of support from your brothers and sisters in arms. Going to war is a bond that we share for life. Keeping the people closest to you alive and seeing them return home to their family will instill a love and compassion for others that many will never feel. We come home to a civilian life a changed person. We are not changed into killers or savages. We are transformed into lovers and fighters. We love those close to us, and fight for what we believe in. Many day to day struggles for a veteran is largely summed into being looked at as a monster or seen as crazy. While some veterans have post traumatic stress disorder or physical impairments due to war, we are not different, we are just adept in a more chaotic lifestyle. Much like bottling up emotions until you burst into tears in a relationship, we have bottled up a response that shows fear. We have bottled up what we feel would scare those we were in charge of in battle and could get them killed due to their leaders being distracted. We in essence have had all the emotions you could share with a sister or a father hidden until we come home and it is alright to let them out. Most veterans are too prideful to let these emotions out and feel that it may show weakness. Our mind and body is so used to being strong in the eyes of others, it becomes almost too much to handle when the emotions do decide to flow forth. These are the facts many are scared to talk about or downright don’t know how to talk about. It is also crucial that civilians can read an article like this and look at a veteran in another light. A veteran was once the person you laughed with in high school at lunch or stood up for you when you got bullied or teased at recess. I have found and continue to find my way in life where I can work on being humble when in essence I was once a super human. I had to be for my men and they had to be for me. Our mission required it and to see our families again we must be super in the face of adversity.

Leaving my small town after joining the Marine Corps in May of 2011 was quite a scary and exciting time in my life. I knew what being a Marine meant in my head. I would be a tough warrior, held at the highest level of expectation, which I believed would be very easy for me after playing football for a championship winning team for four years. Boy was I in for a surprise.

I left the airport late in the afternoon out of Sacramento California headed for San Diego California. I had nothing with me besides my clothes on my back along with a brown manila folder containing my life on paper and the dotted lines I had potentially signed my life away upon.

My plane touched down just as the sun was setting and I remember being deathly afraid of what was to come. I was eighteen years old and had just graduated high school a month earlier. I had left the closest group of friends and family back home to start my life the way less than one tenth of a percent of the country will ever experience, becoming a Marine. The plane was unbelievably cold from being in flight. I am not sure how many people notice this detail about flying, but I always notice the temperature change and smell that comes from the crack of space between the terminal ramp and the plane door. I will never forget the smell of heat accompanied by jet exhaust mixed in with the pungent smell of the city mixed with ocean. This smell will meet my nose every time I fly into San Diego and remind me of the first time I was truly scared of a choice I had made.

I walked up that long terminal ramp and remember my legs feeling non-existent. I stepped out of the terminal to see every walk of life you could imagine. A man tired from a long week of travel sipping on the coffee that was supposed to give him another hour of life to survive one last flight home. I saw a group of college kids undoubtedly headed for a vacation of a lifetime. Families were herding kids and pushing strollers, while elderly folks looked on in disapproval of an age of parenting long separated from their own parents style and era. I caught myself taking this all in and my heart dropped. I had a decision to make. I could turn right and head to the arrival curb where I would be picked up by the iconic bus to transport me to Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego, or I could choose to hurry to the ticketing counter to my left and head right back home.

I was shocked that this thought would enter my mind after all the months of training and preparation it took to get to this point. I was not prepared for the feeling that I would for the first time in my life be questioning my life choices. Instantly I felt disgusted that the thought of quitting and failure crossed my mind. Instinctively my feet turned right and my legs, however numb they were, supported me on my choice that my mind had made up. Before I could contemplate the decision, I was walking to that curb and fell in line. In front of me was an old Blue Bird bus. The door was open and awaiting twenty more men who just like me who had to make the toughest choice they will ever know. They say fortune favors the bold and I have to agree. What matters is what fortune means to you. Is fortune money and wealth? Possibly it could be good luck and safe travels in life. Personally I believe it is making sound choices and following your heart. If you wake up each day and can look back on the key choices of yesterday and feel accomplished and happy you are fortunate. If you are prepared and motivated for the choices you will make, fortune comes easy.

I was fortunate to have made that choice. I could write for years in detail of the events that followed in San Diego. I met some of the most amazing as well as brave men I will ever know. I made friendships that to this day thrive from thousands of miles away. I survived a very dangerous deployment to Afghanistan and experienced many wonders of the world. These experiences are immeasurable against all others and I would not take them away for anything.

The hardest thing for a veteran returning home is being looked at like any other person. While we may look the same as the next door neighbor or the pizza guy, but we have known a level of accountability and performance under stress that many will never experience. Most of us are twenty two to twenty six years old when we return to a civilian life. For many of us we apply for a job right away and almost always end up under the supervision or management of someone younger than us who has either a college degree or a bit more experience in that job. I think a majority of employers as well as management do not take into account the vast level of life experience and problem solving skills a veteran may have. While a veteran may not have sold televisions or worked in customer service for a year, we may have been in charge of nearly one hundred million dollars of equipment. One veteran may have been the chief of a multi-million dollar aircraft or even the pilot of one. A corporal in the Marine Corps is in charge of training and leading young Marines in combat. The management of the professional life as well as personal life of the Marines in their stead is the responsibility of a corporal. A civilian job often does not have the same level of consequences if performance requirements are not met. If put into a job position with a lower level of employee responsibility, a veteran may feel under valued or feel less critical to the companies mission. Most veterans leave the military at or around the rank of corporal but do not know how to convey on a resume the true and overwhelming reality of what they were once apart of. It is very hard to go to an employer as a veteran and try to express how great an asset you can be. To an employer, what matters most is either prior experience in that field or skills that can relate. The skills we have are directly related to management and even upper management, but employers almost always overlook this fact. A veteran can learn the requirements and duties of a job quicker than most civilians, because not to long ago lives depended on it. This is the largest problem I faced when job hunting. I found it was easier to find a trade you could perform at the best of your ability in or return to a structured job such as law enforcement or a first responder position.

I believe from experience that a veteran made an above average, or above expectation choice when joining the military. For a veteran to be successful as a civilian I believe they must continue to go above and beyond in life and strive for excellence to be comfortable. A common thought civilians express is that veterans must conform to a non-military life upon discharge. This is true. Veterans must be able to re-acclimate to civilian life, however, you can’t expect us to perform at a lesser level or be treated with less respect and still be fulfilled. Civilians should be held equally accountable in understanding that a veteran is different and may have suffered a traumatic experience or just wants the respect they once knew. We are programmed to perform, albeit in a highly structured environment. From my experience I tried to put myself into a career where I could continue to excel and be a positive influence on others all while trying to re-integrate myself with my prior military life.

I chose to become a professional bow and waterfowl hunter. Many question why I chose that, so I will summarize. As far as giving back to the environment, the individual hunter is solely responsible for the management and conservation of wildlife and the habitats of those animals. The tags we buy and the fees we pay directly fund conservation and upkeep of habitats. California alone is one of the largest wetland species habitats in America and is directly maintained and thriving under the support of the individual hunters and organizations such as California Waterfowl and Ducks Unlimited. A few years ago the wild geese species was almost three hundred thousand birds over populated to where the habitats were under threat of destruction and the level of birds that carried disease between species could have greatly damaged the bird species. As hunters we are needed to protect the well being of a species and their habitats. A hunter was allowed up to twenty five geese harvested per day to try and curb the over population and benefit the migrating birds in the long run. Being a person who is a part of that effort is enough to feel like you are doing great things.

For me to go above and beyond I felt that I could inspire others through making films for YouTube. I share my hunts and motivate the youth as well as current generations to take part in conservation and achieving their goals as a hunter or conservationist. Many children do not have the opportunity to become hunters due to negative stigmas that hunters kill for fun or to collect a trophy. In all reality, without hunting and conservation, populations of animals as well as their balance of predator to prey will become greatly imbalanced. Humans continue to impose and build on the habitats of wildlife causing predators and prey to change habitats and upset the balance of life. Without the hunters and conservationists, the habitats would not exist and would be developed into housing for humans.

For me my efforts as a hunter and film maker are very important and I feel very crucial to the conservation of the place I call home and the places others call home. To be able to influence the prosperity of wildlife and inspire others to do the same is following my dreams while directly benefiting wildlife. I continue to give others the motivation and support to be a part of something bigger while enjoying and sharing my passion for hunting and the outdoors.

Every day is a new challenge. The work is hard and the hours long. I do find myself lost at times standing upon weak legs but my feet always seem to point in the right direction and I am standing before my next big hurdle. That is how I found my way back home.

Tyler Ingram

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