Trading in your boots for loafers.

• Author: Phillips, John W.
• Position: Business & Finance

FROM THE FIRST DAY you set foot into boot camp, no matter what service you have been in, until your final predeployment training exercises or redeployment, you are taught always to pay attention to every detail in every situation. Our military knows how to turn you on and get you fired up for a mission. Transitioning out of boots will require the same focus on details and the energy to get fired up for your next mission--finding a job.

Every service member will experience three phases as he or she moves from a military career to a life outside the gate: transition (passing from one state to another), transformation (evolving from one form to another), and integration (becoming a part of something else). These three stages will vary from individual to individual, and they will be shaped by one's attitude and inner strength as well as his ability to manage the hurdles of life. By extension, a process is a series of steps or actions taken to reach a goal and often is continuous until that goal is achieved. These three processes overlap each other. There is no clean break between them.

At some point you decide it is time to leave the military--the transition process. Leaving the service of your country requires you to reinvent or rebrand yourself in many ways--the transformation process. Lastly, you have to assimilate back into the civilian world, or private sector--the integration process. The journey does not magically begin on the day that a soldier leaves the military. It starts sometime prior to leaving the service as you prepare for life "outside the gate."

Ideally, there is at least a year of preparation--to consider all of the appropriate next steps. It has been my experience that the three processes of this journey never end. You will find yourself continuing to transition and transform as you grow your career in the private sector. Eveiy new opportunity, every change may require you to reboot these processes in order to reach a new goal. Speaking from experience, this especially holds true for veterans who have retired after a long military career. Do yourself a favor and accept the fact that you have to change as the world around you continues to change.

All the training, deployments, and difficult days when life was just plain brutal at God-knows-where you were deployed in the world will pay dividends once you are outside the military. Veterans have dealt with more complex and life-threatening crises, whether in training or under...