**This is a guest post from Ryan Sweeney, the host of the View From the Skies Podcast and friend of the show**
Operation Overlord, the invasion of Normandy, D-Day, whichever name you call it, as military personnel, we all know the history, the story, the planning that went into the mission. Not only operational planning, but fake armies led by famous generals, deception with fake airborne troopers at Pas-de-Calais, leaked fake documents passed by spies, using sunken ships to create harbors, making tanks floatable, the list goes on and on. This was all done with the mission to seize, control and establish a beachhead to allow follow on forces to flow into France, liberate Paris, and then push on to Germany for the eventual victory in Europe.
The options were limited and essentially the enemy knew it was coming and there were only a few options as to where. It really broke down to when and the will to use every means imaginable to either gain control or keep control of that beachhead by the opposing forces. An armada had to launch as undetected as possible, at least for a period of time to tip the balances in the favor of the allies, across a stretch of sea, land on a beachhead and hold and establish a depth enough to allow the might of follow on forces to relatively freely flow into France.
Now imagine this, the plan, rather than focused on how to land, establish, and a control a beachhead with the following on task of how to flow troops into the country to push on Paris and push German troops back, instead focused on how to get off the English Isles. All resources are put into protecting the force against U-boats and subsequently eliminating them. Defeat the Luftwaffe to ensure freedom of maneuver across the English Channel. Picking routes of how ships will return to and from. Running checklists and manifests of boats, sizes, speeds, maintenance requirements. All resources went to the Navy (time, money, manpower, etc), to just get across the channel. The goal remained the same, establish a beachhead, push towards Paris, then Germany.
You would call this crazy right? It isn’t the backwards planning we have been taught in the military. It goes against the principles of war. No massing on an objective and adhering to the economy of forces. You maintain security, but haven’t put the resources in surprise, when the enemy basically already knows where you are coming. Can we all agree that the mission could have still been successful because of the hearts and will of Allied forces, but likely the chances would have been drastically reduced?
So why do this with your military transition? Yes, that is right. You only have a finite amount of time and resources, so why spend so much time planning to leave the military? Think about it, you start with the required checklist the DoD gives you. You attend some job fairs, take your mandatory separation classes, maybe get hooked up with one of the CSP programs and do an internship, read some books, follow one of the this is how you transition checklists out there, start to network, build your social media profile and personal brand, get on with a headhunter, start a certification, start one of several resume versions, take a personality test, begin mock interviewing and start to learn where your interests lie. You are started some of this 2 years out, but a bulk has been within the 6 to 12 month mark. You got surprised by a CPX or fieldEx and lost some time there. You enjoyed some of your last days of leave on a nice vacation. Now you are pressed against getting out. You are certainly more knowledgeable about how to separate, but you still don’t really know what you want to do. What skills carry over, what don’t and in what industry, what are your real interest, what are your sacrifices, what are you willing to risk. So you settle for the comfortable, probably some shift supervisor, operations manager, or something like that, entry level position. Then you drum up the veterans need more support card and begin the process all over again.
Well my friend, you just invaded Normandy and put all your efforts and planning into how to cross the channel instead of spending most of your time on the objective. You just forward planned and the military, which taught you not to do this in combat, just indirectly taught you to do this.
Pause…take a breath…think about it…conjure up counterarguments…then let it soak in…
The resources for the transition are getting better, but the process is broken. They are planning the mission forward, the safest way, and not focusing on the objective. Yes, it is true you could hit an IED on the way to the objective, but that is what battle drills are for. You plan for actions on the objective. Here, your objective is not to leave the military, that is the battle drill. One way or the other, the paperwork is, you will leave by date X. The objective is what you want for your next career!
So here is my challenge. As dark as the path may seem ahead, don’t hold the torch and plan each step, rather plan for what you want, remember you are seeking the treasure at the end of the temple. Take the most time learning what you want, what your interests are. Keep them vague enough to adjust course along the way. Set yourself goals and milestones to keep you on course along the way.
Here is my example. Say you really love gaming. You have a degree in political science and you where a logistician NCO. Well chances are you are not going to start off in gaming, even though that is where you want to end up. So why accept the production supervisor on third shift in a chemical manufacturing company? Yes, company culture is great, they respect and hire a lot of veterans, all of whom have a track record of promotion and the icing on the cake is that it is in the city you want to live in. You take the job and get promoted to a quality leader position and get onto day shift in just over a year. You gain experience and have worked hard. Congratulations! Seems like a victory, right? Place yourself back in Normandy. You faced little resistance across the sea and even landed on the beach. So now what, what direction to you take? What intersection do you seize? Now back to the business world, you just dug your hole deeper into the chemical manufacturing career path. Maybe that is good for immediate income, but you just got further away from working in gaming, not closer!
I recommended that you instead take that objective (here it is gaming) and backward plan off that. Maybe you take an hourly position at a semiconductor facility that makes hardware for your favorite gaming organization. When not working “9-5,” you are using your GI Bill to gain software certifications. Additionally, you network with the sales team and help them with projects and get a few chances to interface with customers and build your network. Now you are working on that path to the objective through your backwards plan.
Pause…take a breath again…let reality sink in…
You will leave the military, there are checklist out there, there are tons of resources out there, however, there is only one you out there. So invest in yourself the most (pay yourself first). Spend as much time and resources learning yourself, your wants, desires, and begin your backward plan from there. This is essentially your shot at a rebirth and the world is your oyster, so don’t continue to fall in line behind the others and take each step as it comes, the “safe” approach. Instead, use all the tools the military gave you to plan what you want out of your military (or rather career) transition!