COLA Transfer Questions

So a little bit about my situation; Back in 2014 while still in high school at 17 I enlisted into the military with the intent of making it my career for 20yrs. Due to sequestration at the time there was a year long gap between leaving for the military and my enlistment. In the interim I attended Texas State University taking 31 hours of classes. This was meant to be a fallback in case of further sequestration and to take advantage of the promotion incentive for college credit. I viewed it as a “check in the box”. I finished with a 3.0 my second semester but a 2.52 overall due to a bad first semester, although I didn’t fail any classes. Fast forward to now and due to a service related injury I am getting out and planning to return to school. I would like to go to a CC and raise my GPA but I have 90% of my GE credits done so I need to take courses in major. My intent is to attend the COLA and earn a degree in international relations to continue to serve in a different capacity. My questions are as follows:

How much weight will the admissions place on my 5yr old GPA? Obviously it holds weight but I have really good EC’s, Letters of rec, and essays which address my situation, so how much will that offset? I read the “white page” on best admissions practices but it does not reference transfer admissions. Also how competitive is the COLA to get into, especially for transfers? My biggest fear is that my application will be thrown out due to the GPA before anything else is even looked at. Any and all advice or input is greatly appreciated, thanks.