Veteran getting back in to driving
Hello everyone,
Just seeking some advice on what you guys think would be the better route to get the jump start in my career and possibly a company.
First, I have both my father and my step father in trucking and have been for many years. I have been around it all my life. Saying that, I started driving at 18 in 2002 doing straight trucks in NYC and N Jersey for a janitorial supply company out of PA. I than moved to intrastate (since I was 18) doing deliveries with my class A for the same company later that year. I stayed with them for about 3 years and than had the "great" idea to join the service. 7 years later I have experience in a career that has NO civilian equivalence (although I had a AWESOME time blowing **** up legally! it was a great stress reliever!). Since I have been out (March 2013) I have been going to college FT and just trying to think of what I want to do and I figured I would get back in to driving.
The issue I have is not only did I let my CDL go because I figured i was going to the "patriotic dream" of 20 yrs in the military and retire, but all of my experience is over 7 yrs ago. So I have a couple options to get it back.
1) I can easily get my permit again and get a truck to do the skills test, but than I am at square 1 with no driving school and trying to find a company to hire a "fresh" driver with outdated experience
2) Go to a driving school by either paying out of pocket or use my GI Bill after this semester ending in December
3) Go contract and drive for minimum pay for a company that wants the 9-12 months
My ultimate goal is to go O/O and stay somewhat local to the house for a fleet owner doing containers out of the ports here in Savannah. The pay is not too much of an issue as the wife is working F/T and I get a check from uncle Sam for the rest of my life (Thanks to a couple road side bombs that rattled me a bit, but nothings missing!!!!). So I can handle cut rate pay for training but, I will not sell myself short because I do know how to drive SAFELY and get stuff where it needs to go on time! I just don't know what company to start with either I guess!?!
I know that I have called some recruiters (both schools and companies) and they talk a good game. A couple of them have tried to pull the curtains over my eyes, but I have this great thing called common sense and the "end" button on my phone.
Example: C.R. England ... The recruiter would NOT directly discuss the pay during training and kept throwing around the whole "well our top drivers make ......." or the "once you come on after your training you will make ...." but danced around the topic of training pay. So because of the shadiness, cutting me off multiple times, and just bad vibe I decided to steer away from them even though I did like that they only contracted non CDL students for only 6 months for veterans.
Anyone have some advice?
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