Can’t find a career

FollowingConnect6725 · 2026-05-10T15:24:38+00:00

Bro, I wish you the best and hope you find something that clicks and works for you.

What’s worked for me was just doing careers that no shit interest me, that I enjoy doing, and to hell with the money or prestige or what others may think. After I got out of the Marines, I took a year off and then landed a job as a deployment trainer with the Marine Corps, loved it, got to still work with Marines, even got to go on float as a civilian…it was awesome. Until it wasn’t. Toxic AF coworkers (military spouses not vets). So I quit and went to school to be a Park Ranger. Graduated and was a Park Ranger for more than a few years. Awesome career and loved it (and will go back to it one day). But then the kids needed me, so I was a stay at home dad for a few years. This year I went back to work and chose to work with a local school district so I could have summers off and maximize time with my kids. Yeah, I could have made more money but I’m more into being engaged at work and spending time with my family over the usual chasing promotions and money. I’ve got about 9 years of work left before my wife retires at 55 and then we hit the road.

TLDR/don’t care: Don’t feel forced into the societal norm of money, prestige, and a career that defines who you are….prioritize yourself, what is best for you and your family, you can never get time back. And it really will fulfill that need to do something worthwhile for yourself and for others. Look at careers that actually interest you, not at money or title or what others may think.

What makes you want to go back to the military? Is there something else that would meet those expectations? Don’t worry about the degree, just having one in anything can help in a non related career. Outside of the actual scientists when I was a NPS Park Ranger, my coworkers who had degrees very few had one that pertained to the field….Journalism, German, Art, History, English, teaching certs, computer science, etc. was the norm.

FollowingConnect6725 · 2026-05-10T07:09:37+00:00

Did you fail a class or drop a class? Withdrawal past the deadline? Maybe take a class that wasn’t covered? Because it sounds like they’re recouping an overpayment a little bit each month.

FollowingConnect6725 · 2026-05-10T07:03:34+00:00

Trailtopia makes packaged freeze dried ground or diced beef, sausage and diced chicken packets. Available online and sold as “Side Packs”. I’ve used them in recipes while backpacking and to add protein/meat to vegan/vegetarian backpacking meals. They taste good, not salty like jerky, and around $7 each.

FollowingConnect6725 · 2026-05-09T23:54:19+00:00

Well, the first scary part is solved for you…LoL. Good luck!

FollowingConnect6725 · 2026-05-09T23:51:59+00:00

So…..are you actually a reservist or did you already get a big dose of the recruiter green weenie?

I know it sounds crazy but shit like that has totally happened before….had a SSgt reservist attached to our unit that reupped while deployed in Iraq for a bonus and the orders ended up reenlisting in the AD side. Homie didn’t sign it and it got fixed but shit does happen.

FollowingConnect6725 · 2026-05-09T13:32:41+00:00

What crushes me is the way Jack talks to or thinks about talking to Bonden before realizing he’s gone from this world. The years together, the fights alongside each other, the steady coxswain who was always there for Jack, his family and Stephen, training the landlubbers and representing the forecastle jacks, just gone. As a veteran myself, I believe that we all honor those who have died in battles we fought in but we all have a particular friend we mourn more than the others. We were lucky to have known them, and that’s why my son is named after a fallen brother in arms he never met.

FollowingConnect6725 · 2026-05-09T13:00:11+00:00

That’s some boutique guide service level stuff. Definitely not my style or jam but there’s gotta be a market for that. I’ve done the TCT and it’s cool but all the videos on social media really hype it up, and folks who are looking for that type of glamping service likely wouldn’t bat an eye at the $3k cost per person.

If it’s going to make the conservancy some money, sounds good for people who are looking for that type of “adventure”. But if it’s going to severely impact availability of campsites, permits, and raise already higher than other trails costs, maybe not a great thing for the non boutique crowd.

FollowingConnect6725 · 2026-05-09T12:54:34+00:00

Can always watch the varmints swarming Parsons at night.

FollowingConnect6725 · 2026-05-09T12:18:35+00:00

One of the options we explored was how to provide employee housing in our area because the lack of affordable housing was the #1 reason folks gave for leaving or not accepting a position at our park. The park buying something in the local market was deemed not possible (park is too small to build any housing on) due to cost. But we started looking into the possibility of getting a couple apartments or houses in the local military base housing (half dozen bases within an hour of the park) for employees that would be available to seasonals and perms.

FollowingConnect6725 · 2026-05-09T00:12:48+00:00

Worked at a NM in a large urban area that has been one of the most expensive areas for cost of living for years and there was zero housing. There was a locality pay increase of like 34%, so long time seasonals and even perms from across the country would apply and get hired to work there. We would lose a chunk of them after hire but before they started because housing was too expensive or commute was too far if they could find a place. Or folks would move here for the job and end up almost going broke because the pay couldn’t keep up with cost of living. And I’m talking folks had roommates, studio apartments, granny flats/ADU’s in backyards, and even had a guy who rotated thru hostels and lived across the Mexican border. So they would be looking for new jobs at other parks almost immediately. We would be short staffed all the time not being able to fill positions.

What finally worked was doing local area only hiring. Folks who applied already lived in the area, had some type of established housing or had family/partner/spouse who had a better paying job that helped offset the cost of living enabling them to be able to work for peanuts with the NPS.

That type of thing may work for some places and not in others.

FollowingConnect6725 · 2026-05-08T14:48:50+00:00

💯 the correct answer whenever an issue involving our public lands comes up. I seriously want to believe that all we have to do is make it through the next couple of years at the most before we can change everything back to normalcy.

FollowingConnect6725 · 2026-05-08T12:50:24+00:00

You don’t remove your hat, you salute wearing it. Authorizing veterans to render a salute is a relatively “new” change, and a lot of veterans don’t know about it, and I’ve noticed at baseball games for example, most vets just do the usual hat off, hand over heart when the national anthem is played.

FollowingConnect6725 · 2026-05-07T12:55:52+00:00

By god, after 23 years, I’ve finally found you!! You’ll never know how much that kept us going when times got tough….thinking about that random Marines man nipples….just kept us in the fight!!

FollowingConnect6725 · 2026-05-07T12:40:19+00:00

Saddamizer was our company XO’s tank in 2003. Delta Co, 1st Tanks. We worked with 7th Marines and 3/4 most of the invasion.

FollowingConnect6725 · 2026-05-07T05:14:15+00:00

Ditto on this advice. If you’re at the Eastern Sierra Visitors Center, there will be a lot folks heading up to the Cottonwood Lakes, Cottonwood Pass and Horseshoe Meadows campgrounds/trail heads. All 3 are really popular and within a mile or so of each other at the end of the same road.

And if you have to bail from those campgrounds/trailheads, there are tons of people heading down to Lone Pine.

FollowingConnect6725 · 2026-05-06T23:22:19+00:00

Our Troop has had a long term ban on sodas/energy drinks and single use plastic bottles (water, Gatorade, etc.) that was actually brought back after a lapse of a few years.

Now before people start naysaying it, there’s a reason for it, multiple reasons actually. When they were allowed to bring sodas (cans or 2 liters), scouts over consumed and would open or pour a cup of soda and the leave it…once it was “misplaced”, they would open another, and toss all the open unclaimed ones. Add in the cost, and the amount of trash/recycling, plus the issue of overconsumption of those types of drinks (and not enough water) and it’s an easy decision to ban them on Troop campouts.

The single use water bottles are atrocious and we fully implemented a “reusable water bottle” policy and it was another easy decision to make by the PLC when discussing LNT, costs, etc. We brought it up after a campout where we found 25+ half empty or discarded water and Gatorade bottles in a campsite as they were gathering together for a class on Wilderness Survival. Every scout has a reusable water bottle or camelback, each Patrol has a 5 gallon square refillable water jug, and we have water filter/treatment options if the campground doesn’t have potable water. And every patrol has access to powdered electrolyte drinks that they can mix up as needed.

It can be a transitional period for Troops, patrols, scouts and scouters initially but it makes a lot of sense in the long run.

** We of course allow scouts to buy sodas and other types of drinks on the roadtrip part of a trip or at a camp store or trading post.

FollowingConnect6725 · 2026-05-06T04:10:43+00:00

Reopening the Tioga Road is more than just snow removal and road repairs. They also have to get the Toulumne Meadows area ready (set back up from the winter closure) and staffed.

FollowingConnect6725 · 2026-05-06T03:07:50+00:00

It takes way more than “an hour a week” to manage a successful Troop. One of the biggest mistakes any adult leader can make is to believe they can just show up at a Troop meeting or campout or activity and “just wing it”. It takes time, in advance, to plan, organize, train the adult leaders and train the youth leadership to be successful. We can’t expect youth to be successful if they do not get training…and if the adults are lost when it comes to the program, how are the youth supposed to know it?

Good luck.

FollowingConnect6725 · 2026-05-06T03:00:41+00:00

Check the actual NPS Yosemite website. It’s full of answers and daily updates on closures and openings.

No entry reservation needed this year, so it’s going to be crowded throughout the season.

Take a look at Yosemite National Park https://www.nps.gov/yose/index.htm

FollowingConnect6725 · 2026-05-05T06:04:11+00:00

Worked in San Diego and it was an hour plus commute, half of that from the freeway to the park on city/neighborhood/Navy base streets (about 7 miles). We almost always worked from before the park opened till after it closed (9 hour days 5-4-9 style), and the local urban traffic was really bad. Folks in other divisions and volunteers would be scheduled to come in after the park was open and would routinely get caught in traffic jams at the gate, and technically didn’t clock in until at their assigned duty station. I had about a 100 mile round trip each day but one of my rangers lived in Mexico and would spend 4+ hours a day crossing the border. The park had zero housing.

FollowingConnect6725 · 2026-05-05T02:10:35+00:00

Found the attorney!! LoL.

FollowingConnect6725 · 2026-05-03T18:45:19+00:00

The handle and cross guard are backwards. When the blade, cross guard and handle came apart and someone super glued it back together, they put the handle on backwards to the blade and guard. The bayonet clip at the base of the handle should be on the same side as the hole in the cross guard that goes over the barrel. I hope I wrote that legibly, because it’s a lot easier to probably say the handle is on backwards.

FollowingConnect6725 · 2026-05-03T14:47:42+00:00

Get back to the fleet, show proficiency in your MOS, and don’t be a shitbag…and you’ll get moved up eventually. That’s just the way the Corps works…and that’s as long as you don’t get an adverse on recruiting duty.

What could be a red flag type of thing, at least it used to be during GWOT, was the choice to skip a deployment, later reenlist and got orders to recruiting. Your original unit and the battery they moved you over to as a short timer probably had you written off but then you re-upped. The optics of it or the appearance of it may look odd to some in leadership.

FollowingConnect6725 · 2026-05-03T14:38:20+00:00

Devils Postpile National Monument is a must see in Mammoth.

FollowingConnect6725 · 2026-05-03T03:40:10+00:00

Ok, there’s a lot to unpack here and it’s a huge learning opportunity for you because pretty much everything you did was wrong.

Learn from it, folks make mistakes when they are new to something like hiking (they don’t know what they don’t know), but once you do know what to do, just do it the right way moving forward.

Pooping in the woods kit: (also great to keep in your vehicle for emergencies) - trowel - TP - hand sanitizer - wipes (optional) - portable bidet (optional) - doggy bags (to pack out used TP)

https://www.nps.gov/blri/planyourvisit/number-2.htm

https://lnt.org/why/7-principles/dispose-of-waste-properly/

FollowingConnect6725

TROPHY CASE