Veteran Transition from Military to Civilian Life: Towards a Sociocultural Framework for Social Support

Abstract

The transition period for reintegrating into the civilian environment can be challenging, posing unique challenges of socialisation and cultural adaptation for young Danish veterans. However, young Danish veterans have not yet been targeted by social support that handles them as a distinct category of veterans. Therefore, this article analyses a widely used Danish framework for social support, the Battlemind-Homemind framework. The article discusses how the framework supports the challenges of young Danish veterans, in order to identify support needs. The framework is found to hold limitations for providing social support in relation to young Danish veterans’ distinct challenges. A case is made for an alternative choice of sociocultural frameworks, specifically transformative learning theory, to understand and support socialisa-tion and cultural adaptation challenges. Transformative learning theory is used to explore social challenges in young Danish veterans’ narratives on transition. The analysis reveals how veterans attempt to deal with social challenges, and how their attempts are limited by three elements: (1) Norms that suggest that people in authority define the culture of environments. (2) A veteran perception that different norms constitute an unstructured environment. (3) Aggression control as a veteran behaviour that limits cultural adaptation. Based on these analyses, social support recommendations to the Danish Defence are provided within three themes: (1) Recog-nise young Danish veterans as a group facing distinctive challenges. (2) Consider sociocultural frameworks for the conceptual foundations of social support. (3) Increase awareness of challenges in education environments.