By Rebecca Ruiz, NBC News contributor

After 21 years in the Navy, Ashley Gonzalez, 40, had to make a tough choice last year: uproot his family from San Diego for an assignment in Mississippi or retire and rejoin the civilian world.

Gonzalez, a chief petty officer, had previously deployed to counter-narcotic operations in South and Central America and participated in a routine war games exercise on the Korean peninsula. Civilian life, he knew, would be much different. But his daughter, 16, and son, 12, wanted to stay in San Diego, and so began Gonzalez’s transition back to a life he’d left long ago.

Gonzalez was confident at first; after all, he’d spent the past two decades earning a masters degree and learning skills like management, mentoring and public speaking. The shaky economy, however, tested his optimism.