Are you dead set on moving back?
I’m from roughly the same area (Fletcher/Mills River), gone for a similar length of time before EAS.
When I got out, the recession of ‘08-‘09 was in full swing up there. It was a part of how I ended up as a DoD civilian at Lejeune. Didn’t want to slug it out for minimum wage jobs and there was a lot of change up there I didn’t care for. Bought back my military time, so it now applies to my Federal civilian retirement. That’s a big plus and I kinda enjoy working around a military installation.
If staying in the WNC area appeals to you, and you’d like to see about applying your military time to Fed civilian retirement, get on USAJobs.gov and see if there are some Fed Civilian jobs up that way. V.A., U.S. Park Service, and U.S. Forest Service are right off the top of my head.