Anticipating Army Exit

Introduction

Approximately 18,000 people leave the UK armed forces each year. ¹ Many leave early, but for some, the military becomes a way of life that precedes pensions and middle age. Ministry of Defense support exists to cushion transition out of the armed forces, and this begins roughly two years before exit. At this time, career leavers are often facing important practical challenges associated with what they will do next. Many will probably “do well” ² in new civilian lives, but still a distinct set of issues can be created by lengthy military lifestyles that are first really attended during the pre-exit period. For Wolpert, the career leaver frequently confronts a number of concerns, such as a loss of status, a need to work for financial reasons, a requirement to compete with younger people, difficulty finding equivalent levels of responsibility, civilian disinterest in their military past, and changing family dynamics. ³ Although many of these potential issues might be the result of relatively young retirement ages, military exit seems to involve more than this. It is perhaps “unique” or, at the very least, it is a transition to be singled out from other forms of early retirement. ⁴ The main argument for difference stems from special characteristics of a prior career that relate to a military imperative to risk or take life, and order others to do the same. ⁵ The need for “youth and vigour” ⁶ often dominates military policy, and relatively short careers build into service life a continual awareness of the need for a second career. ⁷ Perhaps, therefore, the pertinent question for the military person is “when to leave the military rather than whether or not to leave.” ⁸ This article is concerned with career soldiers and officers who are technically retiring as well as those who are leaving the UK Army without immediate pensions.

US and UK literature on military exit suggests that important processes are going on for those about to leave the armed forces, and that this preparatory period is implicated in early postexit experiences. ⁹ To date, no one has looked in the UK context at anticipation and identity for career soldiers leaving the Army, even though leaving the military is widely associated with matters of personal adjustment. Successfully finding a way forward must surely be linked, in some ways at least, to how civilian futures are personally imagined and constructed during this time. The article aims to move toward an explanation of how UK career soldiers understand the process of leaving the Army during the preexit period. In this endeavor, a constructive typology of soldierly identity has been built up and generalized from close analysis of each leaver’s anticipatory story. Before detailing the empirical types, the article reviews the military exit literature and describes the theoretical framework and methodology. A section on prominent ventures and the “civilian-other” follows, and the article ends with a discussion of the findings, including brief reference to recent literature applying Social Identity Theory to US Reservists. ¹⁰

Military Exit

The consequences of the unusual nature of a short service career have been a core theme in military retirement literature. Relatively young career leavers are routinely shed by most armed forces and this has been of much interest over the years. For example, “mass migration” into civilian life after twenty years of service by the men who joined the American Armed Forces around the time of World War II prompted a body of literature motivated by concern for the impact on wider society. ¹¹ More broadly, the literature has tackled leaving the military from a number of different perspectives, including military exit as a status passage; as an effect on the life course; as a problem; and as a role transition. By way of background information, these approaches are discussed below before locating the origins of the present research in anticipatory phases of a role transition perspective. But first, let us consider what is meant by Military (Army) Exit.

In the United States, noncommissioned soldiers routinely “retire” after twenty years of service. Aged around forty, these retirees are similar to their UK counterparts who may retire after twenty-two years. ¹² Commissioned UK retirees might be as young as thirty-seven or thirty-eight—though many will serve beyond this to the age of fifty-five. But, the relevance of the term retirement has been questioned ¹³ because—even when technically qualifying for a pension—service leavers are at an age and life stage that makes retirement, understood as “retirement to leisure,” a misleading term. ¹⁴ For most leavers, aged around forty, the pension is insufficient on which to live and commonly they will be married and have dependent children. ¹⁵ It is also the case that individuals in this age range are expected to work, ¹⁶ so perhaps, the language of a second career is more fitting. ¹⁷

The different ways that scholars have tackled military exit follows. Some have dubbed it a status passage, ¹⁸ whereas others have described it as an effect on the life course; for example, Teachman and Tedrow argue that “military service impacts key life course trajectories.” ¹⁹ While the military might give young people an attractive “place to be for a while (.)” “for sorting out self,” ²⁰ it, too, can have a detrimental effect on lifetime earnings compared to civilian counterparts. ²¹ Often, military exit is treated in the literature as a significant problem for those concerned. For example, Yanos conducted an in-depth study of three officers and found that even five years after leaving the US Air Force, they still identified themselves as military, unable to reconcile military and civilian selves. ²² Higate, too, finds problems among homeless veterans associated with persisting military identities and urges us to “retain a sense of the transformative effects of the armed forces experience.” ²³ Problems of exit are also frequently connected with mental health issues including military “retirement syndrome” ²⁴ or “old soldier syndrome” ²⁵ ; free-floating anxiety and psychosomatic difficulties. ²⁶ Similarly, there are reactions thought to be depression ²⁷ ; and Kilpatrick and Kilpatrick discuss exit in terms of a grief reaction. ²⁸ Druss ²⁹ applies psychoanalytic theory, and some discuss exit as a crisis. ³⁰ Much has also been said about the effects of combat on exservice personnel, ³¹ and it can be after discharge when associated difficulties arise. There is also a growing realization that too many leavers find themselves in prison. ³²

Military-exit-as-a-role-transition is another perspective. It affords military roles dominance over civilian ones in the lives of those concerned. ³³ Ruth Jolly argues that exiting military roles requires insight and introspection and she found this lacking in the sixty-two triservice leavers, she interviewed. The perspective of role transition (and status passage) incorporates preexit phases where anticipation and planning are integral features of much longer processes. Jolly brands this a time of “confrontation”—the first stage before “disengagement” and then “resocialization.” Taking a more pathological stance—and based on therapeutic interventions with US service personnel—Giffen and McNeil use role theory to describe three phases of so called retirement syndrome. ³⁴ The first phase occurs before exit and is characterized by depression and anxiety, often felt alongside physical symptoms such as chest pain (suspected psychosomatic). This can lead to role confusion (phase 2); and then, if untreated, to complete maladjustment (phase 3). Leaving the military is “marked by feelings of anxiety and uncertainty (…). Removal of the uniform and its insignia carries with it a certain loss of identity.” ³⁵ Other early research finds a degree of scaling down of aspiration takes place as exit is approached ³⁶ and, for Jolly, many do not “expect to derive high levels of satisfaction from their occupation and activities as civilians.” ³⁷

Quite clearly, views of exit-as-a-role-transition emphasize anticipatory processes. Preparation is key and Wolpert urges an acknowledgment of the loss that the leavers—and probably their family—are experiencing. ³⁸ (Giffen and McNeil also highlight effects on families). ³⁹ After interviewing forty-six air force officers, McNeil ⁴⁰ notes differences between voluntary and involuntary exit, and Stanford correlates high levels of anticipation with improved postexit morale. ⁴¹ Similarly, Fuller and Redferring positively connect active preretirement planning to satisfaction. ⁴² And Wolpert argues that of the 360 air force retirees, those who attended preexit workshops on employment and housing (before they were routine) enjoyed greater postretirement satisfaction. ⁴³ In regard to specific ranks of Coast Guard Chief Petty Officer and Sergeant (Army or Air Force), Milowe claims that early service life manufactures a “moratorium” period that might delay adolescent identification problems until retirement. ⁴⁴ Milowe also finds in these ranks preexit anxiety, especially a sense of impending status loss. For him, exit anticipation can be troubling even for robust individuals who “uniformly faced a plunge “from being the whale to being a minnow.” ⁴⁵

Anticipatory processes as part of broader role transitions are pertinent to UK career soldiers about to leave the Army and this includes “anticipatory socialization” as applied by Ebaugh to those leaving significant roles such as nuns or doctors. ⁴⁶ But, anticipating oneself in future social relations—as exiting soldiers must do—is fraught with difficulty. Hughes warns that “… no matter how sensitive the individual’s anticipation of himself in a future role, there is some gap between anticipation and realization.” ⁴⁷ If serving soldiers are bolstered by social conditions (and roles) that encourage distinctiveness and stoic perseverance in the face of difficulty, how easy is it to continue this into civilian life? For Biderman, “the military man must stress the distinctiveness of his calling, (but) the second-career problem places emphasis on its nondistinctiveness.” ⁴⁸

Theoretical Framework—Identities-of-Becoming

The theoretical framework underpinning this research combines Mead’s intersubjective temporal self with Ricoeur’s hermeneutic theory of narrative identity. This is a blend advocated by Douglas Ezzy who claims that the combined “insights of Ricoeur’s philosophical analysis (and) Mead’s social–psychological orientation provides a subtle, sophisticated, and potent explanation of self-identity.” ⁴⁹ In contrast to recent applications of social identity theory in this journal, this treatment of identity focuses less on structuring processes and emphasizes interactions between individuals and different roles, types, and kinds over time—especially as relating to ongoing narrative constructions of continuous and coherent selves. By foregrounding time and process, this theoretical framework builds on role transition and status passage approaches (discussed above) to shape the exploration of a range of identity constructions/reconstructions noticeable among the leavers who are anticipating horizons of exit. Modern life requires continuous reflexive effort to work on our place in changing times. Identities are possibly more stable in military contexts but, still, the changeability of identity in relation to wider (institutional) need is well made by Griffith in regard to Reservists and US security. ⁵⁰ Identities are situated in local contexts and are constitutive of and constituted by social relations and interaction. Identity is a process and “never a final or settled matter.” ⁵¹ Social relations and interaction are prior to individuality, and the self is a social and intersubjective achievement. As well as continually passing into who we will be, Ricoeur shows that we must also pass into the other in order to know ourselves. Taylor too, claims that “(o)ne is a self only among other selves. A self can never be described without reference to those who surround it.” ⁵² Changes in self are therefore implicated in changes in relationships and vice versa.

According to Mead, temporality is key and is apprehended only in the (fleeting) present moment. This involves a continuous interaction between the “I” and the “me.” The “me” is “the organized set of attitudes of others which one himself assumes” and the “I” is the acting self—the agency—that confronts presenting experiences. ⁵³ The “I” cannot be known itself and achieves expression only in terms of the socially internalized gestures and symbols manifest in the socially informed “me.” Mead made this point quite clearly “I cannot turn around quick enough to catch myself.” ⁵⁴ It is only in the memory of the trail of our actions that we can learn about the “I” as the acting force. Different interactions call different selves into being and always include some level of novelty. When we enter social situations, we observe ourselves by taking the role of the “other” to anticipate how they may be receiving us; and as a consequence, we regularly adjust our performance. ⁵⁵ We come to know the “I” as it becomes “me” in the immediacy of the present interaction (which becomes the past by the time we are able to take notice). This is a continuous process of identity and “(o)ver time (we) come to develop a sense of generalized other, that is, a composite of others’ reactions to (us) across situations.” ⁵⁶ This reflexive process suggests that the stability of our identity lies not within us but in the consistency of the generalized other as a symbol of our experience in varied interactions.

Choices about how to proceed during interactions involves bringing into the present, meanings from the past and anticipated meanings that belong to the future and this can operate across roles. But, instinctual responses might be stimulated in routine moments such that we stop noticing ourselves across time. Ricoeur’s narrative theory of the self embellishes Mead’s work by showing how individuals achieve a sense of selfhood and continuity across time. For Ricoeur, narrative places actions and thoughts in the temporal context of a story—or a series of stories—in which an event becomes an episode told toward a perceived horizon. This incorporates processes of meaning that are at once collective and individual, since narrative identity “can be applied to a community as well as to an individual.” ⁵⁷ Emplotment manufactures a socially ordered whole and mediates between permanence and change. The stories that we tell about our lives construct our sense of self. Rogue events are brought into coherence and the “narrative (…) constructs the durable properties of a character.” ⁵⁸ Identity consists of two distinct but contradictory definitions. There is identity as sameness (Latin idem) and identity as selfhood (Latin ipse). It is to the sameness of identity that a continual threat is present in temporality (and Army exit) because of new and unexpected situations. Ricoeur’s dual version of identity achieves a permanence of self which avoids recourse to a Cartesian or essentialist type of self. Character is key in two ways: first, as a depiction of who does what within the story; and second as “the set of lasting dispositions by which a person is recognized.” ⁵⁹ This second aspect is developed either by habits or by “acquired identifications.” Habits are built up to become traits from which a person might be distinguishable from another and, as an aspect of sameness, seems to account for a tendency for individuals or whole communities to notice or recognize themselves in—and by—the common values and norms that surround them. And so, self-hood—ipse—as will, agency and orientation finds a stability expressed in idem that in the last year of service is for most only just beginning to slip from an overlapping as social conditions for known selves are altered by unknown horizons.

Those anticipating exit are experiencing immediate—and increasingly novel—interactive processes between the “I” and the “me” that in the short term, at least, might be prevented from effecting changes to identity. But, any trail of novel experiences needs to be revisited in retrospect as the “I” apprehends itself as an object of the recent past. The combined consequences for identity of a succession of changes cannot be fully known until afterward; and eventually, a person’s sense of self (ipse) will be implicated, especially when earlier views of oneself become untenable. This begins a process of change often “energized” at times of crisis and novelty. ⁶⁰

Military Exit is a liminal ⁶¹ or fateful moment. ⁶² Career leavers must carve—and have carved for them—a different future. By stressing anticipated horizons, this theoretical framework suggests at least a twofold process of identity construction/reconstruction for the leavers who, during the preexit period, need to answer the question: “who or what will I be after leaving the Army?” which implies a second and related process in the form of renewed attentiveness to questions of “who or what have I become?” Invariably, this involves a personal construction about the kinds of soldier they think themselves to be set against anticipated civilian lives. This expression of identity, during interview, has been reworked into a typology which has been constructed under specific conditions. Possibly, the typology applies beyond these soldiers, but this is yet to be tested.

Methodology

Twenty-eight leavers of all different ages, stages, ranks, and employments were interviewed for this research. They were in their last year of Army service during 2007–08. Six were female. Some were leaving early for other ventures, some for medical difficulties; and others because the Army no longer accorded. But, most were realizing scheduled and pensionable endings at the end of between twenty-two and thirty-four years of service. A career leaver is defined as a soldier with more than ten years of service—a period sufficiently lengthy to have developed at least some identification with soldiering. A theoretical sample was achieved by accessing leavers via key Army middle managers and through the leavers themselves. Reservists, Territorial Army, and officers of brigadier rank and above have been excluded. The aim—by seeking different circumstances of exit—was to generate data representative of the experience of leaving the Army. In order to push the boundaries, “purposive” selection was used to gather both “bastard” and “angelic” ⁶³ cases; especially seeking those who found exit problematic, alongside those for whom exit seemed an effortless transition. Eighteen leavers were interviewed once, and the remainder were interviewed twice. Semistructured interviews took place between October 2007 and July 2008, close to a major garrison area. Processes of data generation and analysis followed stages loosely corresponding to Cressey’s ⁶⁴ procedures for analytical induction (and as such did not seek to test specific hypotheses). Data collection was managed to shape emerging ideas and themes and briefly comprises of five overlapping stages. In stage 1, rough ideas were developed from the literature and discussion. Themes, codes, and categories were developed. Nvivo was used in stage 2 to manage data which was systematically analyzed while gathering further data. More categories were created and connections tested. By stage 3, original orientations to the “experience of exit” began to alter. Movement between data, ideas, and literature occurred in stage 4 to generate explanation and meaning, from “examination of a strategically selected number of cases.” ⁶⁵ In stage 5, a reviewed (grounded) account of the experience of exit was developed.

Emphasis on meaning required a methodology to generate data about leavers’ interactions with past, present, and anticipated experiences. People tell and perform accounts of themselves according to context. ⁶⁶ Tellers are forever deciding which and how much of a story to tell in the interactions that they encounter. It follows that resultant narratives of exit are coauthored between the interview participants. A relativist ontology emphasizes local and specific coconstructed realities as part of a wider constructivist paradigm. ⁶⁷ This stresses interpretive processes and a view that “gaining access to a real world, ‘real’ selves or ‘real’ experiences independent of our fallible knowledge of it is considered a chimera.” ⁶⁸

Prominent Ventures and the “Civilian-Other”

The leavers did not talk much about identity. Instead, practical future-oriented matters such as housing, employment, being a nonabsent family member, or becoming a mother dominated their exit preparations. Such practical efforts—or prominent ventures—are nevertheless invested with matters of identity and assist the continuance of self across the civil–military divide. Don is a nongraduate public school officer entrant who in his final year occupies a senior major’s role. He does not want to compete with young graduates and wants high-status employment:

Well, to be brutally honest (…) I can’t afford to take a pay cut, I’ve got a family of 3 children (…) I’m 37 years old—I will be when I leave—and I’m not going in (to a civilian company) as a 28 year old captain on heat. (Don, Infantry Major)

Employment is his prominent venture and he musters all effort into this project. He talks of translating his experience into civilian language and considers his only shortcoming, limited commercial awareness. On one occasion, during interview, he slips into an imaginary dialogue with a civilian employer to construct a (desired) future self:

I am a quick learner and I will make this happen. I am a get things done man (…) and if you are prepared to gamble on me rather than on a bloke who has been doing it but is tired and (…) cruising along, then that’s fine (…). If you employ me, look him in the eye (.), then you will not regret it. I will add value to whatever you give me …. (Don)

Here—through an imagined civilian-other—Don considers himself from a novel perspective in relation to his prominent venture. He is used to being a leader—a decision maker who relies not on his rank but his charm and interpersonal skill and he attempts to project this into the future: “I am going to be the one who is doing the client interface (…), they need someone to reassure and effectively schmooze them” (Don). As an infantry officer, his sixteen years of experience lies in a world uneasily translated into the civilian labor market; his recognition of this is reflected in the question: “who and what have I become?” since beyond the confines of the Army capsule he finds different answers.

Don achieves comfort in a principle of commitment to people generally and transforms his dedication to his soldiers into a self-projection that involves becoming a civilian-boss-who-will-care; and he attempts to shoehorn his idem identity to fit his sense of a civilian-other. Later, he concedes “it’s terrifying—it’s a leap of faith—a leap into the complete unknown …. and the way you mitigate that sense of being terrified (laughs) is by (…) identifying what skills you bring, what experience you have that (…) will equally apply….” He recognizes from hearing his own talk during the immediacy of the interview a desire to “give-back” something to the civilian community, and to do this he says he needs a high-status role. Don is determined that he must succeed since so much of who he has become—and wants to remain—depends upon it.

Another leaver, Des, is a Staff Sergeant at the close of a twenty-two-year career in the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers. He projects control over his impending exit and talks about “setting out my stall” and aiming for the “right” job. Now, a few months before exit, his stall is “set out”—an objectified entity and stable narrative of leaving. His sense of self is carried partly forward by his expertise as an instrument technician and personally acquired civilian qualifications. Des asserts: “I’ve set my stall out and I’m ready to go….” This offers him a “resting point” in the hermeneutic dialectic between living and narrating. Des clusters together his many exit-related-efforts into a coherent whole; a “concordant discordance” with which he can hold (temporally) at bay unfolding uncertainty. ⁶⁹ His interview presentation is, however, the result of a much more fragmented creation that has been played out over the past four years, against an anticipated horizon of exit.

Impending exit is a perpetual intrusion on minds, and prominent ventures are charged with emotion and effort—they may even ward off crisis and mitigate anxiety. Even Des admits the strain: “I check job sites everyday … In some form or other I would say (I think about it) nearly daily.” “Everyday” is Katy’s (Corporal, Royal Artillery) emphatic and typical answer to a question about how often exit is pondered.

Five Types of Leaver—A Constructive Typology

Against this backdrop of prominent ventures and “civilian-other,” a variety of personal reflections have been recounted in terms of being a career soldier/officer prior to exit. This incorporates a range of personal properties that leavers have applied to themselves. This always involves a moral dimension that appears at times to take a good deal of effort. For example, when Don (above) cannot foresee a compatible status in a civilian future he constructs during interview a new sense of moral continuity by appealing to personal characteristics of leadership, giving, and service. Overall, five types of soldierly orientation have been constructed from the interviews and these are “transformed,” “soldier-scam,” “no-difference,” “disavowed,” and “blighted,” ⁷⁰ These are summarized in Table 1.

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Table 1.

Five Types of Pre-Exit Soldierly Orientation—A Constructive Typology.

Transformed	Soldier-scam	No-difference	Disavowed	Blighted
Personal qualities relating to service, believed better or superior	Consistently claim they are not “real soldiers”	Consistently claim service has had little effect on self-conceptions	Routine events render prior soldierly-self untenable	Disruptive events challenge prior—mostly extreme soldierly identification
A sense that change is permanent Self-described properties of being “a cut above” (civilians); that they will “wade-in,” “sort-it-out,” and “get-it-done” Often includes a belief that they will make their mark in civilian lives	Find distance from more extreme characteristics that they connect with soldiering Prone to contradiction—might also describe themselves as thoroughly “green” Self-perception draws on peripheral features of soldiering	Supported by qualitative differences: resistance (discipline problems, even prison) and limited career progression. But, still, compliance and conformity prevails across lengthy service	Includes getting married; becoming a mother; or just becoming weary of soldiering	Includes physical problems, battle trauma, and mental illness Forces changed identity narrative prior to  and often reason for leaving Sometimes more concerned with past

“Transformed” is a term that collects together nearly half of the respondents who communicate the possession of “superior” qualities. Among this group, Army change has been for the better and is permanent. Being “a cut above” (civilians) or possessing a “soldierly superiority” dominate and incorporate a belief that they will “wade-in,” “sort-it-out,” and “get-it-done,” qualities that are declared as persisting features (idem), ascribed to themselves as the action orientated soldier:

that’s what soldiers do, they jump in sort the problem out, whereas civilians (…) find a problem, analyse it, discuss it, then do it. (Mark, Staff Sergeant, Royal Logistic Corps)

we are quite used to sort of immediate feedback and so forth and getting on and doing things (…) and taking charge of yourself. (Bryan, Colonel, Army Medical Corps)

they consider themselves (…) a cut above and better than your average Joe civvy and they always will do even when they are civilians themselves (…) I think I will be the same.” (Glen, Sergeant Army Air Corps)

Habitual orientations toward “getting-it-done” are described in the future projected characters of exiting career soldiers: “you’ve got to get that done no matter what and you’re allowed to push the boundaries of risk in order to achieve that—(…) civilian street (…) isn’t results orientated…” (Andy, Sergeant, Royal Engineers).

“Wade-in,” “sort-it-out,” and “get-it-done” also feature in some of the most bizarre contexts:

… it will be like kids playing on the front doing all sorts - some of the neighbours are sitting (…) quite happily in the house and they are writing e-mails to their local constituent. I will walk out the house and I will say grip the kid. (Andy)

last night, there was an incident (noisy youths) which I took firm control of (…) I caught some young lad kicking the wing mirror on my car. (…)I flew out the door (…), got hold of him and dragged him back to the house. Everybody else (civilians) had just come to the front gate and looked. (Des)

“Immediacy” is integral to “a-cut-above” narrative: “a soldier will go, get on, get the job done and come back, whereas civvies will maybe take their time doing it” (Ian, Warrant Officer II, Royal Logistic Corps). Characteristics of “open, free, and blunt” also saturate the avowal and ascription of personal identity among all leavers, but especially among those associated with “transformed.” “Open and free” often involves a feeling that anything can be talked about “there’s very much a closeness to military life that you rely on the people around you for that support” (Roger, Warrant Officer II, Royal Army Medical Corps).

Of course, there are different behavioral expectations across the ranks. For career officers, “get-it-done” and “immediacy” is often achieved through their soldiers and their sense of self-efficacy rests on this:

we are a wilco organisation—we can do. And that you can say to a private soldier I need you to do this and (…) 8, 9, times out of 10 it will be done (…), but I think much more in civvy street you are not going to get that. (Don)

I had been in command for two and a half years (…), when I went to Northern Ireland I (…) found that the 550 people that were making me look good (had gone) …. (Bryan)

As leaders and managers, officers must appear calm and measured in front of their soldiers, even under intense pressure, but this does not detract from their identification with the characteristics here being outlined only that the character emplotted into the action of getting things done is often a person who is directing and working through others.

Pride is also taken in “getting-to-the-point” and qualities of “openness, free, and blunt” may be clustered in the narratives of particular individuals. As Glen is interviewed in the Army Air Corps crew room, he displays a ready mix of such qualities. Sat on easy chairs in an empty bar-like room he and I talk about his life. The walls of the room are cluttered with photographs bearing testament to a close-knit community. Glen blends with the room. He has presence and authority. Every now and again, a different crew member walks through the door, throws Glen a few words of acknowledgment, and then moves to the kitchen area to make a cup of tea. Glen is telling his life story and his voice fills the room with personal reflection. The interruptions are of no consequence to Glen who continues to tell the room his story, expressing a sense of military difference, together with some worries about adjusting:

… the attitude that (…) civilians have isn’t the same (…). Everyone around me has always been very professional (…), and if there is someone who has got a very lacksidasical attitude (then) generally that’s dealt with quite quickly (…), whereas in civilian life I think that’s going to be one of those things … because I don’t suffer fools gladly. (Glen)

At the other extreme from “transformed” are those who describe themselves as having never been “real soldiers,” and who construct distance from perceived soldierly qualities. Those in this “soldier-scam” type are, however, prone to contradiction and may at times also describe themselves as thoroughly “green.” (Rather inevitably, this type comprises tail rather than teeth arm soldiers, though not exclusively). Samantha claims she has not been the confident and “real” soldier she has observed during her career. Images of what is a “real” soldier have haunted her, and prompted a low profile:

Blend in the crowd (…) you only get recognised if you are a real outspoken and confident person (…) you would fly through the ranks if you could (.) give a fantastic presentation. (Samantha, Staff Sergeant, Adjutant General’s Corps)

Ambiguity patterns Joanne’s “soldier-scam” narratives too. Despite eight operational tours of six months duration she is self-deprecating: “well these boys that go out and fight and stuff—that’s a proper soldier. I don’t see clerks as being proper soldiers” (Joanne, Corporal, Adjutant General’s Corps). Paradoxically, she also constructs contradistinction from civilians: “there’s no urgency about them it’s just put that there, do that tomorrow whereas we’re … I think it’s just drummed into you isn’t—get it done, get it done straight away.” A common paradox is noted in Lisa (Major, Adjutant General Corps) whose force of identification with the Army is clear despite her dominant expression that she is not a “real” soldier. Lisa is an uneasy blend. On one hand she cannot let the Army go, and on the other, she does not entirely identify herself as a soldier. Perhaps, such ambiguity occurs because individuals in this type fail to recognize how much who and what they have become is connected with the relations of the Army as a consequence of consistently feeling less than a real soldier. Such individuals may find leaving the Army especially challenging:

no, I don’t think I ever was a “real-soldier” and if somebody said right now (…) you (…) need to put on all your green kit do all the (military skills tests), (…) I don’t know—(…) I might sort of go … actually, I don’t want to do that anymore…. (Lisa)

Four soldiers fit the “no-difference” type. One of them—Ed—tells a story of early resistance, so marked that he thinks himself lucky to have stayed in the Army. This includes fights and time at the Military Corrective Training Centre. Ed’s “no-difference” tale is difficult to accept. Having finally eliminated his own resistance, he asserts: “I’ve never been one for (…) throwing a Bergen (Army rucksack) on my back and going off for a hike…(…) I’ve never been a squaddie” (Ed, Corporal, Royal Logistic Corps). The “no-difference” argument presented by four such leavers is luring, and is to some extent supported by their presentation and career progression/nonprogression. It would be heartening to accept the “I’m just me” argument if only there could be such a thing. Ed, despite his resistance, perhaps because of it, is similar to Willis’s ⁷¹ lads in that his early resistance secured his identity in unforeseen ways. His large physical size aided a hard-fighting, heavy drinking, and aggressive demeanor that carved for him an informal Army niche. In the cracks of Army life, he was a likable but troublesome soldier, and he recounts this at exit with a mixture of pride and regret. But, still, he denies identification with the Army, emphasizing instead his formative years as a teenager. Nigel and Ted also belong to this type. Both are “laid-back”—characteristics generally unhelpful to career progression. Ted (Corporal, Royal Logistics Corps) is pleasant and unassuming, and despite an unwillingness to project himself, has found a comfortable and quiet niche for a full career. Similarly, Nigel (Lance Corporal, Infantry) expects to “slot straight back in” to civilian life and claims: “I don’t think I will have to change.” It is difficult to argue with Nigel’s assessment based upon his interview, although as a single soldier he has lived his life entirely within the camp gates until recent times. Sean (Sergeant, Royal Artillery) is a peripheral member of the “no-difference” type, combining such master assertions with some contradictory superior ascriptions.

“Blighted” and “disavowed” are peripheral but important types. The former term describes those for whom difficult events have forced a changed identity narrative and is applied to four leavers. Two leavers—William and John—are discussed here. John stopped work with depression which triggered formal procedures to return him to soldiering. He felt this betrayed the care and compassion constantly repeated in regimental rhetoric, promising that a “family unit” looks after its own. This undermined John’s commitment: “… supposedly being a family unit—I feel I’ve been let down by the regiment” (John, Staff Sergeant, Armoured Regiment). He had fully embraced the Army for most of his career and his sense of self (ipse) had been completely invested in soldiering, but at exit he was developing a different story:

… you are (…) making yourself a different person to try and advance (…). You’d work yourself to the bone to make things 100% (…). (But) throughout my military career I think I always kept a lot of myself locked away inside, and I’ve not been me. I have been who they want me to be. (John)

William’s schism to self was abrupt and catastrophic. At the close of his career, he sought a narrative that would manufacture from events-not-supposed-to-happen a plausible and desirable story, and a character with which he could identify. Unfortunately, available meaning constructed for him only themes of shame, and a character of condemned properties. Williams’ gaze was backward on rogue events as tangible barriers to the future. His prominent venture was to regain competence as an infantry officer—to clear his name. Delayed emotional collapse after prolonged combat had smeared his character and obliterated a promising career. He is devastated, and argues that his Commanding Officer “not only didn’t understand but (…) accused me of almost lack of moral courage and malingering which is a pretty tough thing to deal with.” William appeals to modern and therapeutic explanations. But as William himself admits, these are narratives he previously rejected as an infantry officer:

… the system is a war fighting machine and if you are part of that and you’re looking at somebody who is not part of that (…) you view it with suspicion—I would have done.

The interesting thing about William is that at the point of exit, he has lost any connection with his prior military self and struggles to recognize himself. He creates an impression of a shell-like person physically present among peers, but incapable of intersubjective identification:

… it’s very interesting to see how that as that moulding fell away from me—you saw it more when dealing with everybody.

how do I process the fact that I am a gung ho infantry officer who seems to have gone into meltdown when y’know that doesn’t happen. (William)

“Disavowed” describes those for whom a previously strong sense of Army identification has been halted by routine events. Katy came to find motherhood and her wish to be “like other women” incompatible with soldiering. To be an available mother was her prominent venture, and she formed this narrative long before exit: “you’ve got to juggle family life (sighs), child care (…)—(it is like) planning a military operation just to come to work…” (Katy). At interview, Katy is wearing camouflage uniform and issue boots. She is a Corporal and her hair is tied into a compulsory hair net. As a teenager, she went to the Army Careers Office seeking work with animals (Army Veterinary Corps) but was diverted to available vacancies with a promise of subsequent transfer. After twelve years in the Royal Artillery she says “I am proud—it’s just not for me anymore.” Clothed in a uniform she hates, unable to choose her hair style, and with big boots and dirty fingernails, Katy tells of how much she now hates the Army. She reflects on a prior self: “yeah you are sort of moulded in a way” and she communicates the Army’s reach into her sense of self with reference to the wearing of a tracksuit:

When I went home (…)—I was always in track suit (…). It sort of becomes a way of life (…) it sort of evolves into your civvy life as well …. I’d like to look after myself a bit more (…). I had this picture in my mind last week (…) of handing my ID card in (…) and like a vision of taking the chains off (…). I know it’s not like that, but that’s how I feel….

Discussion

The magnitude of Army exit for career soldiers seems mostly deemphasized by routine exit procedures, personal expectation, and progressive stories where discordant events are narrated into concordance. Individuals approach exit as an opportunity—a much awaited release from pressures wearing thin or as a quest for perceived freedom from the constraints of service, often as flippant as hair style or as significant as wanting to be with family, have a baby, or to circumvent military risk (a notable feature among early leavers). Commonly, this involves a conviction that they will make their mark in civilian life and exit is tackled in mostly practical ways. All of this connects with Ricoeur’s view that “we are essentially practical beings, (…) necessarily oriented to our lives in terms of what we are to become.” ⁷² But, the leavers cannot yet, if ever, know the effects of lengthy Army belonging. Some Army lives have been closer to civilian experiences than others, but this is far from straight forward. For example, Joanne, a military clerk, has totaled eight lengthy operational tours whereas Don, an infantry major, has barely been deployed. The discussed preexit identity constructions are, for these soldiers, a partial consequence of complete and lengthy Army absorption from youth. The apparent difficulty of usefully projecting oneself forward to future environments from the context of distinctive Army positions is an underpinning feature of this work, and this is a dynamic that connects also with many of Wolperts’ concerns (listed in the introduction) for military retirees, whose age, life-stage and biography make for difficult adjustments. Overall, the leavers seem ill-prepared for civilian life and are often interacting with identity constructions of negligible civilian value.

A good deal of reflexive identity work has been found among the exiting UK career soldiers during their final year of service as they attempt to understand what is happening to them and make plans for the future. A number of general characteristics are noticeable and are listed here: employment is their key concern; prominent ventures are used to develop and project a desired and coherent sense of self (for the most troubled these may be cast into the past); views of the civilian-other are often naive and unhelpful; institutional routines of exit can deny processes of anticipatory loss; there is a disturbing recognition of “evaporating status” as prior selves cannot be located in anticipated civilian contexts; entire lives are reconstructed from the temporal point of exit and always involves a return to enlistment; nervous energy and anxiety pervades (often unacknowledged); few expect ambitious futures (concurs with Ruth Jolly’s view that many leavers do not expect much from civilian lives); many younger leavers—aged about thirty—cite multiple operational tours and risky combat experiences as reasons for exit.

Overall, few of the leavers anticipated easy occupational transitions and Army exit, as a one-time-social-rupture, has been a significant challenge for all. Crossing the civil–military divide is rarely easy, and future research will do well to inquire how transitions are personally and institutionally managed under different conditions, especially comparing Regular with Reservist experiences. In the longer term, might Reservist status provide for individuals a better balancing of civilian and military lives, permitting smoother integration/modulation into civilian life than is currently possible for those who join early and stay longer? Reservist service brings multiple transitions in place of the one-time-social-rupture, and from the perspective of this research might seem preferable. It creates “simultaneously ‘special soldiers’ and ‘special civilians’” ⁷³ but, still, this is no easy option when civilian and (intense and lengthy) military roles have to be intermittently swapped and negotiated. It will be interesting to see how Reservists narrate a personal sense of coherence and continuity across civil–military contexts.

Conclusion

A positive, practical orientation is vital for negotiating Army exit. But, for the preexit Regular soldier, the validity of the past is just as unstable as the future ⁷⁴ since the past is beyond the individual not only in terms of “reseeing” but also because future interactions bring different meanings to a soldierly past that create hitherto unimaginable subject positions. ⁷⁵ The trouble with a narrated and coherent identity—on which the soldiers’ developing sense of self rests—is its inherent vulnerability. It would be difficult to find a more concrete belief in a stable self than among career soldiers whose self-dependency and commitment to a cause above their own correlates organizational need for accountable, decisive action. Meaning and moral worth are granted or denied in social relations and the reconciliation of a pre- and postexit identity, being attempted by these individuals, is a somewhat unattainable endeavor during this anticipatory phase of exit. Perhaps, much preparatory narrative effort is wasted energy? When the leavers talk about civilian life, they do so by projecting forward the person they know themselves to be—a self-objectified in “ideational processes.” ⁷⁶ Projected identities of the kinds described in the typology seem fraught with potential trouble. They may be associated with a sense of shock and alienation experienced by some in civilian life. This might also support the idea that Reservist service can offer advantages over long-term military absorption, perhaps with civilian and military roles feeding usefully into each other avoiding unrealistic expectations and providing down-time from challenging operations. This relies on maintaining civilian compatible identities alongside useful military ones, and how this can be personally achieved is not yet clear. As a practical and policy related side-bet, more preexit civilian work placements might ease transition difficulties for regular soldiers, an argument made also by Tim (Major, Royal Artillery). This would help individuals find distance from the unique properties of Army dynamics that have slipped from notice into habitual aspects of character. By way of a civilian placement, Tim seemed more realistic about matters of difference. Contrary to many who describe civilian life as a place for slowing down, Tim notes that colleagues in his placement employment appeared harsher than his Army ones and he finds altered dynamics where money replaces people as paramount. Even so, Tim is proud to survive this new world and cites encouraging words from the staff as a measure of his success. In typical, Army style points to his mouth and says “you’ve only one of these but two of these (ears)” and urges that other leavers ought to listen more than they speak.