I remember sitting in the waiting room for some medical appointment I had and having this epiphany. It was like a sense of dread that I rarely ever feel just washed over me like a wave. It was a sucker punch that sent me to the mat instantly.
I realized “I really messed up here. My whole adult life has largely revolved around warfighting. That’s all gone. I’m really struggling with what to do with myself. So….NOW WHAT?”
I joined the Army a short time after the 9/11 attack on our country. I was a Senior in High School. Prior to my enlistment I’d worked at a fast-food establishment, worked on a farm, worked as a telemarketer and that was the extent of my work experience in “The Real World”. I didn’t have fully developed opinions on anything. I didn’t really know much of anything about anything. By the time my prefrontal cortex was fully developed (age 25) I had eight years’ time in service in the Army and had completed multiple combat deployments. Not to insult anyone’s intelligence here but, to get us all on the same page the prefrontal cortex part of your brain is the last part of the brain to develop. It normally is fully developed around the age of 25 and this part of the brain is thought of as the personality center. The prefrontal cortex governs a variety of functions to include executive functions like problem solving and critical thinking, working memory used to regulate emotions thoughts and actions, cognitive control, social behavior, inhibits inappropriate actions, and monitoring of errors. This is a reason why many veterans that joined right after high school derive much of their identity from their military service.
Then one day after 22 years of service boom! I’m retired. My entire adult life 18-40 years old I was a Soldier. I was a war fighter. I was the good guy who fought the bad guys. I was a leader, an instructor of countless things, I was a mentor, I was valuable, I was vital, I was needed. My presence was valued and when I wasn’t there, I was missed. Then one day all that goes away. You aren’t in the military anymore and you aren’t the kid you were getting off that bus to be greeted by the Drill Sergeants either. You’re someone else. You don’t recognize you anymore. You may not like you anymore. You’re the person that selflessly put so much into this “role” that it defines a lot of who you are. Can you blame it? Look at the sheer amount of time you invest. A recent study concluded that a 20-year career in the military was the equivalent to an 84-year career in the corporate world as far as hours spent working.
The whole redefining of your identity all gets lost in the military retirement planning process. I’m pretty sure that even if you were given better instruction on how to manage this loss of identity, it’s just something you must experience and sort out. No amount of preplanning will fully prepare you for this mind fuck. The transition out of the military is overwhelming so philosophical questions like “Who am I now?” get easily lost in the shuffle. In my final six months leading up to my retirement I was working multiple no fail priorities daily, the highest of which was the job hunt. That same job hunt that largely gave me a massive middle finger, showed me that I needed time to figure out who I am. Man, as I write this that sounds so fucking stupid. Like how in the actual fuck can a 40 something not know who the hell they are? The feedback I got from job interviews made me resentful, angry at the same people I swore to defend to the death. I felt betrayed that I couldn’t have a shot at an opportunity, yet I put it all on the line to be told I can’t hang in a cube farm churning out excel spread sheets with Tina and Tom. It was infuriating. This made me question why I am the way I am. It made me feel like an outcast. Why would a country I love so much and fought so hard for chew me up and spit me out after all I’ve been through? This societal rejection made me just want to leave a 22-year gap in my resume or better yet not play the game. In my experience, the troubles I had in transitioning careers poured right into the identity crisis I was having. My former identity had become next to worthless in the new game I found myself in. After enough rejection, at some point you do need to look inward and ask, “What’s wrong with me?”. The truth was “It’s nothing personal, you’re just not the guy we are looking for”. I had to be okay with this and try to make sense out of what little feedback I did get.
The obvious mistake I made was overinvesting myself in military service and our wartime mission. However, I would argue that you must do this to excel in the military, accomplish the unit mission, and bring home as many of your people as you can from war. You are told countless times that this is what you will do. This is part of the Army value we call “Selfless Service”. This was the personal sacrifice and cost that I didn’t see until after I took the uniform off for the last time. No one ever talks about this cost, so my goal is to share it with those that struggle to understand and for those that are currently serving.
What You Can Do
Let time do its job: I wanted to GO NOW. I’ve found that the thing I really needed to do was take the TIME to take stock of what I’ve done and been through and be very deliberate with transitioning MYSELF not just the functional areas of my life. This takes time. No, it is not so simple to just drop your former life at the door. This may take a year or more. It’s going to be different for everyone. If you don’t take the time to deliberately transition and work on you, the risk of a break down/mid-life crisis is very real. The damage has the potential to be life altering.
Don’t look for a replacement for your former life: For me, there is no replacement for hunting the bad guys and killing them. That only exists in that world. I’ve instead reframed that part of my life as a very large chapter. I also get to live the chapter that a lot of men never see. To grow old and watch my family grow because I lived through the previous chapter. Consider this.
Go all in on the new chapter and project those that come after: Embrace the now and what lies ahead. It’s not that your former life was worthless, it’s just over. It’s not as relevant as it was.
Find Value: Find value in things that you really do love and enjoy and that make life worth living. Be a little bit SELFISH since you were so awesome at being SELFLESS for so long. What hobbies, interests, and other worthwhile things can you grown and invest in?
None of this is going to make you instantly feel better. It will take many years to feel good about this. But it will come if you continue to work at it.