The end of service does not have to be the end of close bonds with other veterans. Those who serve deserve praise and support for their decision to put the interests of the nation before personal safety, but that lip service does not help individual veterans when they leave the military and begin the challenging transition to civilian life. We vets miss the powerful, rewarding sense of belonging to a unit, and find little to replace that in the civilian world. TakingPoint offers the promise of consolidating the fractured veteran community and unlocking the sea of goodwill from the American people by bringing back the sense of unit camaraderie that made military service so fulfilling. The need for that strong bond is the foundation of TakingPoint’s vision for a nation that upholds its promise of support to those who defended her.
The Challenging Transition
As military personnel return to civilian life, many issues arise. New bills stack up that used to be paid by the military. Income is no longer steady, or even guaranteed to come in at all. Cultural differences can make socializing more difficult. There is a profound loss of a close-knit team and a valuable mission that everyone focused on together. These obstacles can be frustrating for veterans with strong support networks and good short-term prospects, but they can be much worse. For vets without a foundation of friends and family during their transition, small problems can add up and become disruptive, even life altering. TakingPoint, a new online veteran community, offers another path for veterans to rebuild a strong community like the one they enjoyed during service.
A New Type of Community
Veterans of the newer generations cannot rely on the local communities as others did before. The shrinking veteran population and increasing civil-military separation across the United States makes it difficult for veterans to find people to whom they can easily relate and ask advice. This isolation also makes it difficult to seek out a new group of people who can provide some of that lost sense of belonging. TakingPoint understands the powerful draw of a military unit because we are a veteran-led organization. Rediscovering the pride of associating with a group and a valuable mission is one of the reasons this company was built. We use units as a way for veterans to find long-lost friends, share personal stories, and to discover new connections in this scattered network. With social media, TakingPoint can grasp this opportunity to connect veterans in community that was impossible a few years ago.
Toward Veteran Success
There are times when the path ahead looks difficult to every veteran. Figuring out benefits, education, jobs, and other important parts of civilian life are often lonely activities. TakingPoint’s CEO David Johnson felt that isolation personally when he left 10th Special Forces Group to attend college. His solution was to connect veterans to each other using a platform that lets them share practical advice for addressing the problems of transition. This powerful online network offers unlimited opportunities to seek advice from other veterans and also support organization across the country. More features are being added that will help veterans use benefits, connect them to their surrounding community, and give feedback to organizations designed to support veterans. A veteran takes a valuable step on the path to success every day thanks to TakingPoint.
For more information visit: http://www.takingpoint.com
Taking Point
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