It makes me wonder about military retirees who find their way from flying helicopters and walking the decks and commanding platoons to working for SAIC and Northrop Grumman and writing code in a cubicle. How do they do it? How long does it take? Is there any way to make it easier, or is it just something you go through without popping up on the cover of People magazine?
She writes well, but I think it's hard to assign a lot of credibility to a rhetorical retirement question asked by a working journalist-- who's probably on deadline.
I've been to far more than my share of military retirement ceremonies where steely-eyed killers of the deep were shamelessly bawling their eyes out in front of hundreds of their closest shipmates & family. It was hard to compare that behavior to the time you spent alongside them on your last mission... or on your last Olongapo run. Some of these people were pretty sure that their request to remain on active duty was hung up at SECNAV or Congress and they were waiting on that last-minute phone call giving them a full pardon from being executed retired.
Frequently their spouses had tears in their eyes, too, but that was sometimes because they realized they'd actually have to start living with these people now.
To answer her/your questions, it happens two ways. In the first method, they retire and wait for the offers to roll in. After a while they cherrypick one and become a consultant for a defense contractor. Personally it's a little hard to figure out exactly what they do, but they'd die before they'd consider retiring. If they retire from a company then they immediately end up running charities or other non-profits. These guys (and they're almost all guys except for
Marty Evans) are all over the world and they're mostly retired flag officers.
In the second method, they start method #1 but the phone just doesn't ring that way. After a couple months' restless indolence (we call it "terminal leave") they realize they'd better get a j*b and they go find their notes from the transition class. Soon afterward they jumpstart their contact network they're a defense contractor. Maybe someday they'll leverage up to defense consultant or even executive but many of them just work for a few years to feather the nest egg and launch the kids or wait for the spouse to retire.
But those two-method guys all too frequently have their egos wrapped up in who they were, not who they're going to be. They're also in the vast minority of the military retirees.
The average military retiree sees it coming a few years away. They start reading books and talking with shipmates who've made the transition. They actually plan their own transition, frequently turning down offers until they can finish their last tour, and their retirement ceremonies are celebrations with a spring in their step as they cross the brow. I may not agree with their destination but they've certainly planned the voyage at least as carefully as they took care of their troops and their careers. They're looking forward to the next stage of their lives and they don't have any problem finding people who want to work with or for them. In extremely rare cases they've deferred to their spouse's career plans. One or two of those successful military-retirement cases are posting on this discussion board because they're looking ahead to their own ERs.
Unfortunately the smallest minority of retired veterans is the group who went straight to ER. No collapsing on the brow for them, either, if they even bother with the "retirement" ceremony. In fact they're occasionally holding back the smirks as everyone concernedly inquires as to what they think they'll be doing all day because they're just too young to retire and be put out to pasture like that what a shame that you haven't found a job yet.
Or so I've heard...
