I know that the military, to an extent such as those that leave with Honorable or General and nothing like Bad Conduct or Dishonorable, should be eligible for unemployment benefits because they left after completing a contractual agreement. However, for a lot that don't like the suck, this quote may hit home:
I once left a position because they falsely represented what would be expected of me.
Technically, you never "let" the military, you just didn't reenlist. As such, you should get 6 to 9 months in order to find work and/or adapt to a "new" life.
Speaking of military life, when mine ended, this is exactly it:
In Arkansas, at that time, the unemployment office was also the employment office. I went there to look for another job. This “few extra things” were actually enough to have kept another person busy for about 20 hours a week.
It took about 20 hours a week, minimum, to apply for jobs. Then another 20-30 hours preparing for interviews. I'm sure under another presidency, I would've had better luck. Nonetheless, I exhausted all my benefits because there was nothing out there, even a McDonald's cook after having served in the Marines as a cook.
Regardless, I made the decision to quit and certainly had no right to unemployment even though I’d definitely been taken advantage of by the company.
As much as this sucks, I do honestly believe that you forfeited your right to unemployment benefits. That said, there were other programs and even churches that you could've relied on to get through.
In the information age that we have now, I don't think that "black corporations" (as elegantly put by
@BBZ) could exist as a person has free will to both choose to apply, knowing what they're getting themselves into, as well as free will to leave, with the latter giving those unemployment benefits... just like the military.