When you think about the military you often think about the how the culture affects the military. You can see how the culture had an impact on Rachel and her experience in the military. Boot camp felt watered down because of the culture around military sexual assault. She wanted to be pushed hard and felt that the leaders held back. Then when she was in the military and used the chain of command for issues they were swept under the rug. That led her to decide to leave the military. Today she is working to share the stories of veterans in her podcast Your Story Doesn’t End Here.

How Culture Affects the Military

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Rachel decided to join the Navy and initially it didn’t work out. But the second time she did it for herself instead of life circumstances. She was ready for a challenge, but boot camp wasn’t what she expected and she found herself disappointed. Once she graduated it was off to A-School to learn her job of Avionics.

Her first assignment was at Whidbey Island Naval Air Station in Washington. Her first job was shore duty and was something she found rather boring. There wasn’t a lot of work to do and the work required was repetitive in nature. She then transferred to a sea duty and got to work on airplanes. It was a more exciting job and she got to work with a team. She also deployed overseas, but never on a ship.

Cracks in the culture

She considered serving for twenty years. But she didn’t really enjoy the work she was doing. She also felt betrayed by leaders. Different incidents happened and when she reported them up the chain of command nothing was done. The excuse was that is the person’s personality. It led her to not have trust not only in the leadership but the organization as a whole.

Transition

She decided to get out of the Navy and started going to school for nursing before she even got out of the Navy, but then found out she was pregnant. She knew that she wanted to be there for her daughter and with the demands of nursing school she wouldn’t be able to do it.

Transitioning out of the military was difficult not only because her plans changed. But also because she emotional she thought she could go back to life like it was before. But the military had changed her. The emotional challenge was something she didn’t expect and was part of why she started her podcast, Your Story Doesn’t End Here. To share the stories of veterans and highlight important issues within the military and veteran community.