{"id":16669,"date":"2011-12-16T00:00:01","date_gmt":"2011-12-16T05:00:01","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2024-04-13T23:41:49","modified_gmt":"2024-04-14T04:41:49","slug":"the-difficult-transition-from-military-to-civilian-life","status":"publish","type":"short-read","link":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/short-reads\/2011\/12\/16\/the-difficult-transition-from-military-to-civilian-life\/","title":{"rendered":"The Difficult Transition from Military to Civilian Life"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Military service is difficult, demanding and dangerous. But returning to civilian life also poses challenges for the men and women who have served in the armed forces, according to a recent Pew Research Center survey of 1,853 veterans. While more than seven-in-ten veterans (72%) report they had an easy time readjusting to civilian life, 27% say re-entry was difficult for them \u2014 a proportion that swells to 44% among veterans who served in the ten years since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Veterans who say they had an emotionally traumatic experience while serving or had suffered a serious service-related injury were significantly more likely to report problems with re-entry.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The lingering consequences of a suffering a psychological trauma are particularly striking: The likelihood of an easy re-entry drop from 82% \u2014 for those who did not experience a traumatic event \u2014 to 56% for those who did. This 26 percentage point decline is the largest change \u2014 positive or negative \u2014 recorded in the study.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In addition, those who served in a combat zone and or knew someone who was killed or injured face steeper odds of an easy re-entry. It is worth nothing that veterans who served in the post-9\/11 period report more difficulties returning to civilian life than those who served in Vietnam or the Korean War\/World War II era. <a href=\"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/social-trends\/2011\/12\/08\/the-difficult-transition-from-military-to-civilian-life\/#fn-10341-2?src=prc-number\">Read More<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As the last U.S. combat troops head home from Iraq this month, some will face a difficult re-entry to civilian life.  A Pew Research Center survey of 1,853 veterans found that 27% said readjusting to civilian life was \u201cvery\u201d or \u201csomewhat difficult.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"sub_headline":"","sub_title":"","_prc_public_revisions":[],"_ppp_expiration_hours":0,"_ppp_enabled":false,"ai_generated_summary":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_api_pending":"1713064022","apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_hidden":false,"relatedPosts":[],"datacite_doi":"","datacite_doi_citation":"","_prc_seo_qr_attachment_id":0,"spoken_article_player_enabled":true,"displayBylines":true,"footnotes":"","prc_watchers":[],"_prc_fork_parent":0,"_prc_fork_status":"","_prc_active_fork":0},"categories":[],"bylines":[],"datasets":[],"_post_visibility":[],"formats":[467],"_fund_pool":[],"languages":[],"regions-countries":[515],"research-teams":[],"workflow-status":[],"collection":[],"class_list":["post-16669","short-read","type-short-read","status-publish","hentry","formats-short-read","regions-countries-united-states"],"label":"Short Read","post_parent":0,"word_count":212,"canonical_url":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/short-reads\/2011\/12\/16\/the-difficult-transition-from-military-to-civilian-life\/","art_direction":false,"_embeds":[],"prc_checklist":{},"watchChildPosts":false,"watchers":[],"table_of_contents":[],"datacite_doi":"","prc_seo_data":{"title":"The Difficult Transition from Military to Civilian Life","description":"As the last U.S. combat troops head home from Iraq this month, some will face a difficult re-entry to civilian life.  A Pew Research Center survey of 1,853 veterans found that 27% said readjusting to civilian life was \u201cvery\u201d or \u201csomewhat difficult.\u201d","og_title":"The Difficult Transition from Military to Civilian Life","og_description":"As the last U.S. combat troops head home from Iraq this month, some will face a difficult re-entry to civilian life.  A Pew Research Center survey of 1,853 veterans found that 27% said readjusting to civilian life was \u201cvery\u201d or \u201csomewhat difficult.\u201d","schema_type":"Article","noindex":false,"canonical_url":"","primary_terms":[],"custom_schema":[],"og_image":0,"indexnow_submitted_at":null,"gsc_index_status":null},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"relatedPostsOrdered":[],"bylinesOrdered":[],"acknowledgementsOrdered":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/short-read\/16669","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/short-read"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/short-read"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16669"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/short-read\/16669\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":71387,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/short-read\/16669\/revisions\/71387"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16669"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16669"},{"taxonomy":"bylines","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bylines?post=16669"},{"taxonomy":"datasets","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/datasets?post=16669"},{"taxonomy":"_post_visibility","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/_post_visibility?post=16669"},{"taxonomy":"formats","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/formats?post=16669"},{"taxonomy":"_fund_pool","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/_fund_pool?post=16669"},{"taxonomy":"languages","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/languages?post=16669"},{"taxonomy":"regions-countries","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/regions-countries?post=16669"},{"taxonomy":"research-teams","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/research-teams?post=16669"},{"taxonomy":"workflow-status","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/workflow-status?post=16669"},{"taxonomy":"collection","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/collection?post=16669"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}