When Will We Get Serious?
This article has been revised and expanded since the original’s publication on December 10th, 2020.
In his 2011 Atlantic article, Tim Kane asks: “Why are so many of the most talented officers now abandoning military life for the private sector?” It was a good question. And still applies today to thousands of servicemembers, both officer and enlisted, who left before reaching retirement eligibility (normally after 20 years). Why would someone leave early? Do you know someone who asked to leave early? Why leave a “secure job” with “insurance, benefits, and a guaranteed pension” and the perceived camaraderie of a small team?
I wrote the first draft of this article after listening to Ben Killoy on the Lessons Learned for Vets Podcast hosted by military transition specialist Lori Norris. Ben left the Marine Corps for corporate America; he bought a $400 suit “like TAP told [him] to” and spent several years working ‘like everyone else.’ He also went to school full-time while supporting his wife and children, trying like hell to do it all and come out the other side a better man. Yet with two years remaining on his electrical engineering degree, he couldn’t balance the class load with his family and professional obligations. Then a leadership seminar turned the tide for him and his future leading others like him.
Ben’s message resonated with me deeply as he described dads who think themselves failures — burdens to their families and friends. That was (and is) me. I never deployed overseas; I spent my time on active duty deploying within the lower 48. A unique experience among military members to be sure, but an environment equally capable of swallowing up a whole person only to spit them out on the other end with little to show for it that’s translatable to someone ‘on the street.’ Mothers and fathers return from multiple combat deployments overseas only to suffer at home for years, for all sorts of reasons, not least of which the inability to find a lasting role for themselves in their own families and communities. The mission we signed up for provided meaning, personified in the brother or sister standing next to us. Life after that mission was over for us wasn’t something we talked about much.
On the phone with a friend and fellow airman last month, I openly questioned the value of staying in uniform for a “career” (20 years or more). He’d questioned his military future five years ago when we were stationed together. I’d advised him to stay in and “give it at least one more assignment.” He was a great officer, great person, and had plenty more to give. I understood where he was coming from, I’d questioned my own future in the military at every assignment. But I did what I was supposed to do … convince him to stay. And he wasn’t the only one. Now five years later, I’m five months from my own voluntary separation and was honest about why I’m leaving after 13 years. I’m used to tweaking the answer depending on the audience. I never lie, though I hover somewhere below perfect honesty. Why I never answer in full is, I think, why many of my peers never do. It’s related to why we continue to fail servicemembers every year who return from war, leave the service, then can’t integrate with their families and communities.
My friend asked me later whether I’d share my reasons with anyone else. In my experience, these conversations stay behind ‘closed doors’ while the public version avoids pinning any responsibility on the institution. It’s easier to explain being ‘pulled’ versus ‘pushed’ away. Unlike the subjects of Tim Kane’s piece, I am not one of the military’s “best officers.” But I know some — officers I’d follow anywhere. Literally. Most of them have either left early or stayed in while writing off the institution as unfixable. And so the tragedy continues.
In May 2018, a senior Air Force officer published the first of several articles on War on the Rocks. A disclaimer acknowledges the platform’s rare decision to identify the author only by pseudonym given the “serious risk” to his career. This officer, since revealed as (now retired) Colonel Jason Lamb, gained something of a cult following for his views on the service’s talent management system. Not that his views were unique; on the contrary, Lamb’s work became popular precisely because he expressed what most of us knew to be true. There is, and has been, a chasm between the values the Air Force advertises and teaches new arrivals and the values it reinforces through action and unpublished protocol. Fundamentally, what we know to be true is the widespread failure of leadership. This is why I decided to leave the Air Force. At 13 years. With “only seven left ’til retirement.” Because I could no longer stick around an organization not serious about fixing its own problems. Not serious about preparing for future conflicts. Not serious about retaining and developing leaders who’ll care for airmen and their families and pursue real solutions to real problems on behalf of the American people.
As a veteran learning the hard way how difficult transition is, I intended this article as part of my own exploration into that failure. Then I came across the 136-page report published by the Fort Hood Independent Review Committee. The report highlighted multiple failures committed by senior Army officers at Fort Hood in caring for their soldiers. Despite throwing millions of dollars and a slew of new job titles and programs at the problem, the Department of Defense continues to suffer incidents of harassment (sexual and otherwise), assault (sexual and otherwise), and more broadly a climate that fluctuates from brilliant and leading-edge to ominous and Darwinian. Now I’m infuriated.
When will we get serious? When will we stop “talking” and put our proverbial money where our mouths are? When will we choose to lead those who rely on us to care for them? Not to mention their families? I write often on leadership and receive comments of support like “great post, we need to keep having the conversation.” That’s fine. You can keep talking about the problem. I’m looking to do more. To help solve the problem and fulfill a long-standing promise to servicemembers and their families who trusted us. Fort Hood is but one example of our failure. The fathers Ben Killoy aims to help are another. Countless more men and women of integrity, arriving at basic training or an officer candidate program motivated to serve their country and “give back,” stand to become thousands more.
I struggled for a long time to figure out where I can be the most useful, and often came up empty. As I connect with those who came before me, I’ve come to realize part of my purpose as a long-time teacher and writer is to bridge the gap.
Nearly 19 million Americans spent time in the military; this accounts for just under eight percent of the U.S. total. How many are currently on active duty? That number is only 0.5 percent of the U.S. population, 1.3 million. As the military professionalized after World War I then transformed into an all-volunteer force after Vietnam, an exceedingly small number of Americans experienced daily life in uniform. This is a good thing in many ways. There is merit in maintaining an all-volunteer military led by a small corps of professionals with the capacity to react quickly in defense of the public. But the outcome has also resulted in a wide(-ning) gap between Americans and their military, leading to both citizen disengagement with policy and feelings of isolation among servicemembers. Thinking about life after the military is usually expressed in a common refrain, “What do I want to be when I grow up?” Growing up means returning to civilian life. Normal life, as defined by 99.5 percent of us.
We are more the same than we are different. But we’ve spent decades diverging from the citizenry, making it tough to empathize (in both directions) and engage. So we leaned on the institution that took us in when we were young. We gave up many ‘normal’ decisions (e.g. what insurance to buy, where to live, when to take family vacations) to its leadership in exchange for our time, our plans, our lives. Then when those trade-offs were no longer acceptable, we asked to get out. We attended a week-long “training” session that proved too little too late, then hoped a combination of our skills and network softened an otherwise hard-to-predict landing. It doesn’t have to be this way.
We must do what we say we’ll do — care for those who trusted us from start to finish, and articulate what leadership is supposed to look like. You may think our issues with violence and harassment have little to do with how well we enable members to transition out of uniform. Alas, both are the inevitable conclusion of failed leadership and its myopic view of what matters. Instead of creating a sustainable culture for the long-term, we address the shortest-term problems and stay afloat just long enough to garner the next award or promotion. Meanwhile we push known problems indefinitely into the future and onto an ever-growing pile of challenges. Enough is enough.
