ARMY O-4, 2002-2018 — The salary cut and the dignity cut

Sixteen years, retired as a major. I commanded a company in Afghanistan. I staffed a brigade. I had eighty soldiers report to me at one point and a battalion commander on speed dial who would answer my call at 0200. First civilian job, age 41, was a middle-manager spot at a logistics firm outside Charlotte. Salary was about sixty percent of my retirement-plus-VA combined, so the actual cash hit was softer than I had feared. The dignity hit was harder. I reported to a 32-year-old director who had never managed more than four people and who began our first one-on-one by explaining to me what a Gantt chart was. I do not say this to be condescending about him. He was a good manager in his own context. The point is that the chain of command was inverted and the credibility was inverted and the speed of decision-making was inverted, and I had to choose every single day whether to be offended by that or to learn from it. An American Corporate Partners mentor — a Vietnam veteran who had spent thirty years at Procter and Gamble — told me something I still repeat to younger officers transitioning: the civilian world does not owe you a rank. It owes you a paycheck for work you actually do. Show up as if you were a brand new lieutenant and the rank you used to have will come back to you in a different currency. Three years in I was running the logistics division. The director who explained the Gantt chart now reports to me. We have a good relationship. He still doesn't know what an OPORD is and I have decided he doesn't need to.