Archive photo of the day
From “commanding” to “managing”, 2013
Stars and Stripes
July 17, 2025
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(Leo Shane III/Stars and Stripes)
Bethesda, Maryland, Apr. 11, 2013: Army veteran Ray Watkins discusses flooring options with a customer at the Home Depot store in Bethesda, Md. Watkins was unemployed for eight months after leaving the military, despite an aggressive approach to finding a new job.
Despite Watkin’s years of expertise working in Army personnel, writing thousands of promotion recommendations and protocol documents, even he admitted that translating a military resume to civilian language was constant stress.
“And I was used to writing these kinds of things. I can’t imagine how an infantry guy even gets started.”
Read the first part of Stars and Stripes’ 2013 series The Great Divide on how veterans are bridging the gap between their old military lives and their new civilian reality — and get links to subsequent articles — here.