The Transition Out of the Military
The transition from the military to the civilian world represents a huge cultural shift. Let’s explore why it is such a big adjustment, the different kinds of transition, loss of identity, what the challenges are, and what helps during the process.
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Special Guests
Dr. Anne Irwin served in the Canadian Forces Reserve for 15 years, retiring as a Military Police officer with the rank of Major. Her PhD thesis (“The Social Organization of Soldiering”) was based on extensive field research with a Canadian Regular Force infantry unit. Anne has taught courses in military anthropology both at the University of Calgary and at the University of Victoria. She facilitated the Good to Go course at CFB Esquimalt back in 2015.
Pauline Sibbald has been a social worker with the MFRC since 2010. She facilitated the Good to Go course with Dr. Irwin at CFB Esquimalt in 2015. She currently works at the Transition Centre Esquimalt.
Highlights
- What is transition in a military setting
- Anticipated vs unanticipated transition
- 7:32 Why it is so particularly challenging
- Loss of identity
- 10:23 The military is a particular subculture of Canadian society.
- Finding sense of purpose, what a good transition looks like.
- Holding on, letting go.
- 14:30 Don’t recognize themselves as a veteran, they identify themselves as a retired military member.
- 20:45 Rites of passages in three phases, importance of knowing you are in liminal phase
- Solution is no “one size fits all program.” Different people respond to different programs.
Quotes
“I think that research shows that our brains are actually hardwired for that kind of lifestyle. But most of us don’t actually have that experience. We don’t live in that kind of lifestyle, but members of the military do. So I think that there’s probably something that’s very profoundly rewarding, or that feels like it’s like a fit for people in the military. And then having had that experience, and leaving it behind, can be very, very challenging.” – Dr. Anne Irwin
“The military is not like a job where you walk away at the end of the day, and you can leave it behind, it claims your whole identity.” – Dr. Anne Irwin
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Thank you
- This podcast is made possible by funding from True Patriot Love Foundation.
- Thank you to Organized Sound Productions for their help bringing this podcast to life.
Transcript by Otter.ai
Intro
This podcast is made possible by funding from True Patriot Love Foundation.
Pete
My name is Pete Fraser. I’m a Petty Officer in the Royal Canadian Navy and I’m a weapons engineering technician on board the HMCS Vancouver. Military is a very all inclusive kind of lifestyle. It gets us fingers into everything. I mean, our children, military daycare, or out of school care at this point, the military handles your health care, they handle your dental and, and even my family’s medical things were all paid for by the insurance that I get from the military. So the guys I know who have have left suffer almost a bit of abandonment, they now have to go get all this stuff on their own. They never had to fend for themselves before. The military community is a very tight knit community. It’s very, it’s very close. So when I walked through the dockyard, it’s a it’s a small, segregated community in a sense, where I’m very likely to encounter 15 people that I know. And if I go to Halifax and walk through there, I’m going to encounter people I know every military base in Canada will probably encounter someone I know. And then I leave, and I don’t have that anymore, or walking through Walmart, I might encounter somebody but because I spent 25 years building connections in this kind of segregated community, you don’t have the same connection with the outside community. And you almost start from scratch and everyone will build that in their retirement but it takes a few years. And it’s a it’s a I think that’s the toughest transition and picking out clothes. 25 years of not having decide what to wear, that’s a challenge.
Intro
The military lifestyle is all encompassing. It’s difficult, but rewarding. It’s dynamic, very, very dynamic. Unpredictable. You are in the Canadian Armed Forces, or a family member connected to the military. You know, the lifestyle can be a challenge. The military lifestyle is always changing. In the podcast, we explore the route of deployments, postings and transitions. This is the military lifestyle. Here’s your host, Jon Chabun.
Jon
The transition out of the military into the civilian world represents a huge cultural shift. Military anthropologist, Dr. Anne Irwin and MFRC social worker Pauline civil, crafted a course called Good to Go as CFB Esquimalt a few years ago to deal with that big transition. Anne Irwin spent 15 years in the Canadian Armed Forces before her more academic pursuits, including teaching courses at the University of Calgary and the University of Victoria. Pauline Sibbald has been with the Military Family Resource Centers since 2010, and currently works at the Transition Centre.
So welcome, Dr. Anne Irwin, Pauline Sibbald, thank you very much for coming here and chatting to us about transition. So go right into it. What is transition? And what is transition look like for a military member? Big Question.
Anne
Big question, indeed, what this transition look like, I think I would start off by saying there’s something very universal about transition, everybody understands people go through transitions all the time, all the time, we transition as we age, we move house, when we graduate from school, and so on. So there’s something that’s absolutely universal about transition. But at the same time, there’s something about transitioning out of the military that has some very unique and challenging aspects to it.
Jon
Yeah, I know, transition my, my three year old daughter when we when she moved from the infant toddler side to the three to five world and she was only two and a half. Wow, that transition. Small person, you think it’s a small issue, but man, that was a massive, massive move. So definitely,
Anne
Yeah. And transition is huge. And it’s like a wrenching away of who you were before, in order to be somebody new, you have to lose who you were before. So there’s always a loss involved. And in the military, post military or life transitioning out of the military. It’s a very profound loss.
Pauline
For transition change. I think with within the military, though, there’s a lot of members and families have a reference point, because we talked about there’s so many different types of transitions that our families are experiencing, whether it’s postings, relocation, deployment, all of those things sort of provide a reference point. But I think as Anne said, there’s some unique factors that come into play when you are moving from service to outside of the military to civilian. So and there are a number of changes that go along with that. And I think there are some losses that families will experience during that process.
Jon
A couple years ago, we had a conversation on transition, actual a physical day. But one of the the most memorable quotes that I had was actually sent to me via Twitter about transition it was transition makes it sound like there’s a magical set destination.
Anne
Hmm.
Jon
It’s a process, a tough one. And I thought that was kind of cool. And I know that some of the participants in that day they talked about transition could mean change, fear, failure. So a lot of different emotions. I guess there’s also it means opportunity. When it comes to military there’s anticipated and also unanticipated transitions. What do we speak about those?
Anne
Well, there’s anticipated transitions are the ones like retirement where people are knowing that it’s coming. And there’s some advantages to those, because in some ways you can prepare for them. If people actually go to the trouble of preparing for them, often they don’t often even with anticipated transitions, people try to deal with it by avoiding thinking about it until the moment comes. And there’s a lot of research to show that preparing for a transition can very much make the experience much more positive and make the transition, successful, unanticipated transitions, maybe Pauline may be better off speaking about that, because I don’t have as much experience about that as she does.
Pauline
Yeah, Anne said, the anticipated I mean, a posting can be anticipated, retirement can be anticipated. The one thing that can be really challenging when we’re looking at transition as a process is for members who there’s an unanticipated transition related to illness and injury. So it’s not by choice. And I think when their choices taken away, that can compound the stressors, not just for the member, but for the family as well. So it’s opening up some space and looking at kind of what are some of the supports that can come into play during that period of time too.
Jon
The move from being part of the military to the civilian world is really a huge cultural shift for people. What are the challenges people face? What are some of the adjustments that military members find?
Anne
Before going into what are the challenges, I might talk a little bit about something that’s been on my mind lately about why it’s so particularly challenging. And I’m coming to think more and more that people who have served in the military have experienced something that most people in the world have never experienced. And that is participation in a community that is very much what we as a species are hard wired for. So most of our evolutionary history as human beings, has involved living in small communities, at least recognize everybody’s by face. So everybody knows everybody very well, very intimately. And everybody is very much reliant on everyone else for their well being. Small scale, hunter gatherer communities were like that. And that was our evolutionary history, for most of humanity. There is some sense, I think that research shows that our brains are actually hardwired for that kind of lifestyle. But most of us don’t actually have that experience. We don’t live in that kind of lifestyle, but members of the military do. So I think that there’s probably something that’s very profoundly rewarding, or that feels like it’s like a fit for people in the military. And then having had that experience, and leaving it behind, can be very, very challenging. There’s a real sense of what people have spoken to us about in the course that we taught was this feeling of not abandonment, but just this loss of community, this loss of a deep, deep connection with people who they knew would give their lives for them.
Jon
Is that a little bit of a loss of identity?
Anne
Oh, very much so. A loss of a sort of personal identity, but also a loss of deep, deep connection. And in anticipating that shift, there’s a lot of fear about what is it going to be like, when I don’t have that network that support that close connection with other people? How do I build that in a whole new setting with an entirely new identity,
Pauline
And that loss of absolutely community and connectivity and that sense of belonging. So there are times as people are approaching sort of moving forward, away from sort of the military lifestyle, there’s an often a sense of yearning for what was, or especially for ill and injured, what could be. So it’s not just sort of moving away from the military community. But it’s also loss of that future that was anticipated.
Anne
If you want to talk about cultural aspects of it. The military is a particular subculture of Canadian society. So there are certain features of it that are very, that are unique, and very compelling. So the whole idea of service before self is a big, big one. And when people get out of the military, they have a very hard time, or understanding or have this perception, and they’re it’s well founded, that people in civilian, the civilian world are out for themselves. I don’t know how many times I’ve heard that how disillusioned people become because they don’t see that people share in that idea of service before self.
Jon
So is the finding a new sense of purpose outside the military? Is the number one thing would you say?
Anne
Yes, sense of purpose. My feeling is that what is a good a good transition is somebody who has recognized how they’ve been shaped by their military service, has decided for themselves, what they want to hold on to, and what they want to let go of, and then has found some way to take what they want to hold on to, and have found a new purpose in their life to reinforce that, or that is served by that, whatever it is that they want to hold on to whether it’s their commitment to others, or even something as mundane as their punctuality, which is another big thing in the military and not so much in civilian society. So some people, they choose to say, Oh, you know what, I’m going to be late for everything. Now, I don’t care about being punctual anymore. So some people, when they get out, that’s what they want to do, they want to leave certain aspects of their military socialization behind. And that’s fine, that’s all good. Some people want to hold on to certain aspects of it, and then finding a way to bring that into their new life is and to find purpose in their new life makes a good transition, I think.
Pauline
And when we ran the Good to Go course, you also framed it in terms of a rite of passage, as well. So when people are moving into the military, and going through that process, and moving in as a cohort, as a group, and really developing that sense of community, and belonging, once they start to leave within that transition phase or process, then it’s not about stripping away everything that they’ve learned as going through with their career in the military, really is about integrating and refining and honing in on sort of the skills that they have, and to be able to use the skills to move them forward to the transition, and sort of the rite of passage as in leaving. And I think that’s why sometimes they depart with dignity so important, because it’s like a marker, it marks time as well.
Jon
So once you start doing that transition, do you become an outsider? And is there a little fear of maybe.
Anne
I think there is a fear of becoming an outsider, there are some people who have not fear where they have this illusion that they’re always going to stay connected to people and that and then when they do get out, they feel very disillusioned when they go back to visit. And they’re not part of, you know, they’re not part of that cohort anymore. They’re not in on the stories, they don’t know who the new guy coming in is, and, and that’s, if they’re not prepared for that ahead of time, if they simply have this fantasy that they’re always going to be connected. But that just said, they’re not going to be at work all the time, then I think they get quite disillusioned.
Pauline
And I think sometimes, you know, from what I hear from members who are sort of within that the process, and people who are on the other side as well is for some people, because you know, they may have 20-30 years, and this has been sort of a part of who they are in that connectivity. They don’t actually identify themselves as veteran, they identify themselves as a retired military member. So it’s interesting how people are identifying that, and yet, they’re still able to move forward. And so we can’t say they haven’t made a successful transition. But it’s how they choose to identify.
Anne
One of the ways we started the Good to Go program, I think it’s one of the very first activities that we do is we call good news, bad news. And we had people share what they the good news, like the good stuff that they were looking for about getting out of the military, and you know, very run of the mill, non deep stuff, things like oh, I don’t have to wear a uniform anymore. And then we would kind of unpack that and say, okay, the good news is you don’t have to wear a uniform anymore. What does that mean? Well, when you were in the military, you wear a uniform, and you’d go on a course or you’d go meet somebody, and everybody could place you right away, they would know who you were, what rank you were, what kind of experience you were, what kind of courses you’ve had. And if they didn’t know you personally, they would be able to place you and know people in common. So again, this goes back to your question of identity. So your identity was kind of wrapped up your identity was there for the world to see in a population where everybody could read the markers and say, I know who you are because of the uniform you’re wearing. And I know pretty much your biography just by looking at you. No more uniform, what are you going to do now? How do you choose what to wear are? What are you? Who are you now when you present yourself in public? And so we start to unpack that and start to look at all you know, that it’s about this loss of identity and how identity and the representation of identity. And how do you represent yourself in the world now.
Jon
When people are going through the process. And so what influences someone’s ability to cope with transition?
Pauline
I think part of that is you know, it’s the individual. Transition is relative to the individual. So it’s how they’re making sense of it, and the meaning that they’re applying to it. So it really is about impact and context as well, for some people transitioning from military service to being back in the civilian sector, they see it as huge potential growth really looking forward to it, and have planned forward. For other people, it can be much more stressful. And as I said before, for ill and injured, that’s a different layer than someone who’s actively choosing to make that separation as well. So it will, I think it really is sort of context and impact.
Anne
In the same sense that I mentioned that transition is universal, but that there’s something very unique about military transition in the same way, as Pauline is saying, transitioning out of the military is universal. For everybody who leaves the military, there’s always going to be issues for everybody. But again, it’s very individual how people respond to it. Probably the people who have the most challenges are the ones who joined up very young, who didn’t have a lot of friends outside of the military. So people who, whose lives were entirely wrapped up in the military and who didn’t have a lot of connections outside the military think they have more challenges, potentially. But a lot of that can be addressed. But with preparation, with thinking ahead and imagination, you know, imagining ahead, what your life is going to be like, outside the military.
Pauline
Part of it, I think is you’re holding on and letting go. And when we talk about sort of living losses, this in the true sense is one of those, those living losses for people, because they are holding on to something very familiar. And then also letting go of that that has sort of defined them for X amount of years. So as you move forward, it’s almost like you have to invest in something else before you can release. That’s the marker. And that’s the work. And it is truly work that has to be done. And there’s goal setting, and there’s identifying kind of what is important. So it really is a time for that self reflection. In terms of what do you hold? What do you value? What’s core beliefs? Who are you as you move forward? And that’s work.
Anne
And one of the ways we do this is by looking at all the different transitions people have gone through. So we encourage people to look back at the start of their military career and try and remember back to how they felt when they first joined up. And when this military setting was completely novel and foreign to them. And if they can recapture that feeling and who they were not that we’re going to strip away their 30 years or 20 years or however many years of military service. We can’t do that. And we don’t want to. But can we look back and recover that sense of unfamiliarity and how everything is new? And then take that feeling to this new transition at the end of their military career? Can you take that same anticipation for change and growth, and recognize that you’re going to continue to grow and you’re going to continue to change? It’s not the end? Only. It’s also a new beginning.
Jon
So what helps people, what are a few tools for people going through a transition?
Anne
If they took a course like the one we taught the Good to Go program without for sure.
Jon
And you had great response from the people who did do that program.
Anne
Yes. So that was very well received.
Jon
So obviously, that met a few goals that they might have been looking for.
Anne
Yeah, one of the things that helps, and this is one of the things we do in the course is that we did talk a bit about the whole theories of transition and rites of passage. One thing if nothing else, I think that helps if people can do nothing else is becoming aware that transition the way I as an anthropologist look at it, and rites of passage are in three phases. So the first phase is the stripping away phase where you are leaving, or you’re sort of torn out of your previous identity. And then there’s a liminal phase, which is the fancy word for being on the threshold where you’re neither one thing nor the next, you’re in between, you’re standing on the edge. So think of it as being on a threshold or on a precipice. And then the third phase is the reintegration phase when you come back into society in your new identity. So those are the three phases. The middle phase, that transitional liminal phase is extraordinarily discombobulating, I guess it’s where everything universally and rites of passage, that phase is one where everything’s turned upside down, people are confused. If it’s a rite of transition, or rite of passage that is being imposed on people. It intentionally confuses people, they want them people turned upside down, because you’re trying to dismantle their previous identity and reconstruct a new one like just as they did during their basic training courses. So that was one way. So it If nothing else, if people can recognize, oh, I’m in a liminal phase. That’s why I feel so out of sorts, and disconnected and confused, if they do nothing else, but recognize that this is a liminal phase, it’s not going to last, it doesn’t mean that they’re going to be in this weird space forever. It’s a phase and they are going to come out of it. If they do nothing else, if they just become aware of that, and learn to recognize when they’re in a liminal phase, I think it goes a long way to helping.
Pauline
The other things is support, as I find that a lot of the times when people are in that liminal phase out they are retracting and closing in and isolating, and it’s so important in any transition, that you have supports available as well. So it’s not just family, but it’s also looking at the organization, this is an organization that you belong to, and be part of. So what is it within the organization that you can access to whether it’s you’re going to the Transition Centre for support there, lots of people who can help navigate, provide information, I think information and knowledge really important in forms in terms of making informed decisions, you kind of need to know sort of what is some of the entitlements, what is some of the benefits, what are you know, attending SCAN seminars like second career transition networks, those types of things, I think, are really important. And also talking to people about your story. I think it’s so important that there are people there who can listen, who can hear the narrative, and sometimes help expand that narrative from one of loss to one of potential growth.
Anne
It’s important not to rush through that phase. So people, particularly in the military, where the military as a culture values, action, goal orientation, practicality, to live in that kind of muddy, uncomfortable, insecure place is really uncomfortable. So there is a tendency to rush through that and go straight to action, like, okay, I’m going to do this after the military, I’m going to get a new job, or whatever it is, it’s really important for people to, as Pauline said, access support through that phase, but also not rush through it, use it as a time, it’s a learning phase, it’s a time where you can explore different possibilities. And really think wildly being in fantastic ways like fantasy about what you might want to do and you know, recover maybe some interests that you might have had pre-military that you weren’t, didn’t have a chance to explore art, music, any kind of creativity, in this period, imagination, sketching up maps of your future, all of this is helpful,
Pauline
And rediscovering hobbies, things that used to be important, but you haven’t had the time to do. Yeah, looking at new adventures, what are the possibilities that can open that up? But the other piece is you’re going to feel those feelings, it’s really important to feel those feelings and take the time. And if you need the support, to kind of talk about some of the maybe lack of confidence that you’re feeling right now, or talk about some of the concerns around losses, you know, what might be or what this future could look like, or losing the future that you thought was going to be really important that you find someone that you’re comfortable and connected with, that you can sort of explore what’s happening.
Jon
Sometimes with when you’re going through something being proactive, owning whatever the transition is, as much as you can would definitely be helpful. But what could be done to improve the transition process? Is there anything in like the system wide that would be a good impact.
Anne
We need more programs, like the Good to Go program was, we need to recognize that there’s no one size fits all program, different people will respond to different types of programs or trainings or preparation for retirement, I think as Pauline says, having supports in place is really important. So whatever that looks like from the military perspective, people need to have some, they need to have access to support systems, they need some clarity, I think about what their entitlements are. So they’re not running around trying to find from all different sources, you know, and getting contradictory information and so on, I think I find that all contributes to this stress of, of leaving the military. And I’ve heard as well, some people have made comments about some symbolic stuff like turning in their ID card. How that was done in a very, sort of slapdash way that there was no respect given. No recognition that that final moment of handing over your ID card is actually a pretty emotionally fraught moment.
Pauline
Building on what Anne was saying, because absolutely, what I hear from members is as they go through this transition process, they know it’s building. But when they’re handing back their kit, when they’re handing in their ID card, when they walk through the gates the last time, it’s almost like having a cohort or someone who’s waiting on the other side, because it’s such a very lonely. You move in and through basic training. And with your group, you’re moving in with a cohort. When you leave, you’re by yourself. And that’s where people are really struggling. The emergence and the standing up of the transition centres, and the regional transition units across the country, I think it it’s an excellent first step in sort of acknowledging that we need to be looking at people first, right from the beginning, right through the career process, and to when they are actually leaving that service community as well. And looking at some of the components of the transition, and what would be helpful along the way. And also recognizing that for a lot of members. This process isn’t just about the member, it’s about the family, and what does the family need in terms of that support process, because for family members, they are also losing that community and that sense of belonging and also being you’re when you’re in the military, you can normally anticipate what’s going to happen, right? There’s a rhythm that goes with the lifestyle, when you lose that rhythm that can cause some anxiety, some stress, a lot of stress on a family. So it’s making sure that the family is supported not just the member through this process as well. And what does that look like? And as I say, I think it’s it’s emerging, I think there are some good programs that are starting to emerge, based on the experiences of people and people talking about it.
Anne
If you think about it, the military takes young people typically, and spends a tremendous amount of time and energy socializing them into this new institution, what we used to call a total institution, and now we typically call a greedy institution. So an institution that claims a lot of your time, a lot of personal time, a lot of personal identity, you know, it’s the military is not like a job where you walk away at the end of the day, and you can leave it behind, it claims your whole identity. When you think of how long it takes turn civilians into soldiers, they say soldiers, but I mean, military members, generally more generally. That’s a long process. And it’s a process that people are taken out of society and isolated in their cohort to turn them into soldiers. And then that’s reinforced through all the courses, every experience, every posting, all that reinforces it, then at the end of a career, there’s really not a whole lot, there’s some information stuff, you know, like the SCAN seminars and things like that, but there’s not the same kind of concerted program, six weeks or eight weeks to turn you back into a civilian or into a veteran, because you’re never going to be, you can never be turned back into a civilian never going to be what you were before this military experience, and you wouldn’t want to be, but it seems to me that we need some way of at least training people to be veterans, not military members.
Jon
Yeah, that’s true. Totally
Pauline
And I think when we did Good to Go, I think that really was highlighted in terms of we have people who ran through the courses, who identify that they will be willing to meet people on the other side of that gate on their last day, sort of I mean, there’s still the community, but they’re still like, they’re acknowledging that this is a different, there is a difference now, in terms of how you’re going to show up, or how you’re going to identify and how you can move forward. So it’s almost like the people who have gone, who have released and have found their pathway back into the civilian sector, are probably the people who would be really helpful in participating in programs or building programs to support other military members who are going through that release process as well.
Jon
So yeah, thank you very much for your time, all the best in the future.
Anne
Thank you.
Pauline
Thank you.
Jon
If you are wondering, Good to Go is not currently being offered anywhere but and is hopeful that it could be in the future. Information on the Transition Centre. Might dig deeper on that in a future episode.
Extro
Thank you for listening to this episode of The Military Lifestyle. To learn more about this episode and to check out our other resources like the Deployment App, go to EsquimaltMFRC.com. A special thanks to True Patriot Love Foundation for funding season one of this podcast, and to Organized Sound Productions for bringing our idea to life. Please share this podcast with your military family, or with someone living the lifestyle. Subscribe to The Military Lifestyle on your favorite podcast app. Your support is greatly appreciated. Thank you for listening.
