Posted on Jul 24, 2016
Your Time In Service Shouldn’t Be Your Glory Years
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You made a difference in uniform. Just don’t let that be the only difference you make.
So, you’ve finally left the military. You’ve completed your service honorably, be that four years or 20. You’ve sacrificed plenty, and watched others do the same or more. You’ve been there, done that, and gotten more t-shirts than can fit in your closet.
That doesn’t mean you have to wear those t-shirts every day.
The memories those t-shirts recall aren’t the best days of your life. Or at least they don’t have to be.
Too many vets are trapped in a military version of the old Bruce Springsteen song “Glory Days.” Like the song’s pitcher and pretty girl, too many veterans are stuck reminiscing over beers, talking about the old times, and exchanging boring stories.
The point isn’t that those memories aren’t important, aren’t precious, but that life going forward is far more important than life looking back.
Related: Why service members are true professionals »
Too many veterans, in person and in social media, state that the best years of their lives were the ones they spent in the service. While a touching sentiment, veterans who say this are selling themselves short.
Too many vets embrace what might be called the “Professional Veteran” identity. Having beers with old buddies doesn’t make one a professional veteran. Going to the VFW or a Veterans Day parade doesn’t make one a professional veteran. Living the rest of one’s life looking back at the portion spent in the service does.
Those days spent in the service aren’t, or at shouldn’t be, the high point of your life. The rest of your life is. Current life expectancy in the United States is 78.8 years. Spending 50 of them looking backward is wasting those years. Even if those years in the service do end up being the best years of your life, lingering on them excessively is just taking the luster off one’s golden years.
I recently spent a very long couple of hours near an older man on an airplane. Not World War II, Korean War, or Vietnam War old, just an older man, yet he wore a Marine Corps satin jacket, USMC baseball cap, and a cane carved with Marine Corps symbols from handle to tip. All due to four years in the Corps in the early 1980s.
Luckily for me, there was a young devil dog straight out of boot camp next to him to absorb his stories about the old days. This man had 30 years of life since the Marine Corps to talk about. He could’ve bent that young Marine’s ear about how the Marine Corps taught him to make the most of the rest of his life, likely with a second career, a wife, kids, and probably grandkids. Yet he couldn’t get past tales of the “Old Corps.”
Don’t be an Uncle Rico from Napoleon Dynamite, living in a van and bragging about the glory days of yesteryear. Even if the military was the formative experience of your life, it was only forming you and preparing you for bigger things.
What those things are doesn’t really matter. For some, it may mean climbing the corporate ladder. For others, it may mean building a family. For others, it may mean public service or growing in faith or charitable works. Whatever it is, the military prepared you for it, be it by giving you the leadership skills you needed or by giving you the self-discipline that raising children and so many other things in life require.
The military wasn’t the culminating point of your life. If it was, then you need to take a long, hard look at what you’re doing. If those four years, or 20 years, were the best of your life, then fix the rest of your life. You have far more to give to the world than your time in uniform.
Raise your kids. Do your new job well. Go help the homeless. Do whatever. Save your reminiscing about your time in uniform for when you see your old crew.
Ronald Reagan famously said, “Some people spend an entire lifetime wondering if they made a difference in the world. But, the Marines don’t have that problem.” That’s definitely true, not just for Marines, but for all veterans who served honorably.
You made a difference in uniform. Just don’t let that be the only difference you make.
So, you’ve finally left the military. You’ve completed your service honorably, be that four years or 20. You’ve sacrificed plenty, and watched others do the same or more. You’ve been there, done that, and gotten more t-shirts than can fit in your closet.
That doesn’t mean you have to wear those t-shirts every day.
The memories those t-shirts recall aren’t the best days of your life. Or at least they don’t have to be.
Too many vets are trapped in a military version of the old Bruce Springsteen song “Glory Days.” Like the song’s pitcher and pretty girl, too many veterans are stuck reminiscing over beers, talking about the old times, and exchanging boring stories.
The point isn’t that those memories aren’t important, aren’t precious, but that life going forward is far more important than life looking back.
Related: Why service members are true professionals »
Too many veterans, in person and in social media, state that the best years of their lives were the ones they spent in the service. While a touching sentiment, veterans who say this are selling themselves short.
Too many vets embrace what might be called the “Professional Veteran” identity. Having beers with old buddies doesn’t make one a professional veteran. Going to the VFW or a Veterans Day parade doesn’t make one a professional veteran. Living the rest of one’s life looking back at the portion spent in the service does.
Those days spent in the service aren’t, or at shouldn’t be, the high point of your life. The rest of your life is. Current life expectancy in the United States is 78.8 years. Spending 50 of them looking backward is wasting those years. Even if those years in the service do end up being the best years of your life, lingering on them excessively is just taking the luster off one’s golden years.
I recently spent a very long couple of hours near an older man on an airplane. Not World War II, Korean War, or Vietnam War old, just an older man, yet he wore a Marine Corps satin jacket, USMC baseball cap, and a cane carved with Marine Corps symbols from handle to tip. All due to four years in the Corps in the early 1980s.
Luckily for me, there was a young devil dog straight out of boot camp next to him to absorb his stories about the old days. This man had 30 years of life since the Marine Corps to talk about. He could’ve bent that young Marine’s ear about how the Marine Corps taught him to make the most of the rest of his life, likely with a second career, a wife, kids, and probably grandkids. Yet he couldn’t get past tales of the “Old Corps.”
Don’t be an Uncle Rico from Napoleon Dynamite, living in a van and bragging about the glory days of yesteryear. Even if the military was the formative experience of your life, it was only forming you and preparing you for bigger things.
What those things are doesn’t really matter. For some, it may mean climbing the corporate ladder. For others, it may mean building a family. For others, it may mean public service or growing in faith or charitable works. Whatever it is, the military prepared you for it, be it by giving you the leadership skills you needed or by giving you the self-discipline that raising children and so many other things in life require.
The military wasn’t the culminating point of your life. If it was, then you need to take a long, hard look at what you’re doing. If those four years, or 20 years, were the best of your life, then fix the rest of your life. You have far more to give to the world than your time in uniform.
Raise your kids. Do your new job well. Go help the homeless. Do whatever. Save your reminiscing about your time in uniform for when you see your old crew.
Ronald Reagan famously said, “Some people spend an entire lifetime wondering if they made a difference in the world. But, the Marines don’t have that problem.” That’s definitely true, not just for Marines, but for all veterans who served honorably.
You made a difference in uniform. Just don’t let that be the only difference you make.
Your Time In Service Shouldn’t Be Your Glory Years
Posted from taskandpurpose.comPosted in these groups: 
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Transition
Edited >1 y ago
Posted >1 y ago
Responses: 14
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That is challenging SFC Joe S. Davis Jr., MSM, DSL since my time in service from age 18 to age 52 was most of my life on this planet.
As a father of sons and adopted sons I have watched them go through trials and tribulations. Now as young men they share their thoughts, dreams and problems with me and trust me to keep their secrets. My relationship my sons was forged in the fires of adversity as it should be.
I know my true glory years will be in eternity when my body is perfected and I am in the presence of my Lord for all time.
COL Mikel J. Burroughs LTC Stephen C. xx Capt Seid Waddell CW5 Charlie Poulton CW5 (Join to see) SGM David W. Carr LOM, DMSM MP SGT SFC William Farrell SSG James J. Palmer IV aka "JP4" SSgt (Join to see) SSgt Robert Marx SGT (Join to see) SGT Robert Hawks SGT Robert George SGT John " Mac " McConnell SGT Forrest Stewart SP5 Mark Kuzinski SrA Christopher Wright SPC (Join to see)
As a father of sons and adopted sons I have watched them go through trials and tribulations. Now as young men they share their thoughts, dreams and problems with me and trust me to keep their secrets. My relationship my sons was forged in the fires of adversity as it should be.
I know my true glory years will be in eternity when my body is perfected and I am in the presence of my Lord for all time.
COL Mikel J. Burroughs LTC Stephen C. xx Capt Seid Waddell CW5 Charlie Poulton CW5 (Join to see) SGM David W. Carr LOM, DMSM MP SGT SFC William Farrell SSG James J. Palmer IV aka "JP4" SSgt (Join to see) SSgt Robert Marx SGT (Join to see) SGT Robert Hawks SGT Robert George SGT John " Mac " McConnell SGT Forrest Stewart SP5 Mark Kuzinski SrA Christopher Wright SPC (Join to see)
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Another great post, Joe!
I have an Aunt that used to give me grief about not starting a second career after retiring. After years of her nagging she finally got off my back. Between the pension and the VA check, my income is sufficient to survive and thrive. I've taken a dilapidated old farm site and continue to transform it into the dream home we have always wanted. I work on outdoor stuff in the Summer and indoor stuff in the Winter. We don't eat steak every night but I wouldn't want to. I've learned how to raise and butcher my own chickens and hogs. I've built a HUGE greenhouse and my garden is the size of an average city lot. I work at MY pace and limitations. As my quote sez ~ "I'm self employed and work for an asshole slave-driver."
I have an Aunt that used to give me grief about not starting a second career after retiring. After years of her nagging she finally got off my back. Between the pension and the VA check, my income is sufficient to survive and thrive. I've taken a dilapidated old farm site and continue to transform it into the dream home we have always wanted. I work on outdoor stuff in the Summer and indoor stuff in the Winter. We don't eat steak every night but I wouldn't want to. I've learned how to raise and butcher my own chickens and hogs. I've built a HUGE greenhouse and my garden is the size of an average city lot. I work at MY pace and limitations. As my quote sez ~ "I'm self employed and work for an asshole slave-driver."
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SFC Joe S. Davis Jr., MSM, DSL
MSG Pat Colby thank you for your well articulate response. Well said and profoundly conveyed.
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I disagree with the author. My 18 years of service were the most fun, most hell-raising, test in futility and stupidity I will ever see. I hold no ill will toward the service of those I served with. Now the glory days thing, the author should ask each and every single vet what does glory days mean to you? No your life isn't over once you leave, but we all know folks still in. For them, we continue to put up with the o'dark 30 phone calls when one of our troops get into trouble. I will never replicate those days, but if they came, I wouldn't hang up the phone. I'd dare the author to come on here and explain how on earth can I talk to O's and SNCO's who can see there is a problem, and rather look and run and say fuck it not mine, they say fuck it it IS mine. Being military is family. I don't care about MOS or Branch. We are all cousins and will protect our families. We yell and argue with each other.....let some assclown outside try their hand at it. We're retired....we have plenty of time to whoop ass.
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