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A fair question. One that you might ask. One that my mother might ask. One that perhaps she did ask. (well, not in those exact words, but it sort of came up in conversation once)

So here's the story of why, as of early March, I was expecting to be promoted to Colonel on July 1st, and instead, I became a civilian on July 1st.

I had been planning for some time to retire from the military in either 2009 or 2010. But back in '09 I got word that I was probably going to be promoted to the rank of Colonel (a totally unexpected promotion, and a very big deal, considering only about 1-2% of the people in the Air Force are at that rank). By the end of June '09 it was official, and I knew the actual promotion would occur on 1 July 2010, because they take the list of people being promoted and only promote a few each month.

So I'd made the decision to stay in, because this is a big deal and because, by being promoted, there would be more opportunities for me to do something worthwhile that would really make a difference. I made a promise to myself, though, that if my next assignment would simply be a waste of my time, then I would turn down the promotion and retire rather than wasting another few years of my life. I'm glad I considered that early on and made my decision, because that's exactly what happened.

By the fall of '09 I'd arranged an assignment at a large military university in Washington DC. This was perfect; I wanted to get back into the classroom, and they needed military faculty members with PhDs, because Congress was starting to ask why their military faculty didn't seem to have enough education to be teaching a master's degree program. I was the proverbial round peg going into the round hole, and they put in a request to the Air Force to have me assigned there.

Assignments for Colonels are done based on those requests; the only way I was supposed to go anywhere else was if someone more senior requested me, and there aren't many generals more senior than the one who commands that university (at least, none who know me). So I thought I was all set and started making plans to go there, always keeping in the back of my mind the possibility that it might not work out.

And indeed it didn't. Apparently, the Air Force has an exception to the "assignment by request" rule, and that exception includes assignments to Iraq and Afghanistan. Those positions are filled by bureaucrats in the Pentagon who need to stick someone in there, rather than by requests from commanding officers. So, some bureaucrat decided to ignore the request from the university and instead assigned me to a position in Baghdad...a position very similar to one I did as a Major in Baghdad 5 years ago...a position that called for a Middle East culture expert, which I am not...a position that would make no use of my PhD...a position for which I was not needed and for which I was not qualified.

I had 7 days to make a decision, and I made it: I'm outta here.

When they assigned me to that position I don't think they considered I would turn it down. I even told them, when I got the unofficial word, that I would be turning it down and getting out once they made it official, and rather than changing their minds, they went ahead with it. Their loss. My guess is, they figure no one would turn down promotion to Colonel, but I guess they didn't know me very well.

You see, for many people, achieving a high rank was the goal of their career. But for me, all I ever wanted was to do something that mattered. Frankly, I kept taking on assignments where people didn't think I'd get promoted, because I thought they were important and needed someone really good (like me) to do them. And, I'd argue with very senior officers when I thought they were wrong, because I didn't really care if I got promoted. So when I was selected for promotion to Colonel, I'll admit it was nice to have my hard work and my abilities recognized, but it wasn't like I was achieving a career goal by doing so, nor was being a Colonel so important to me that I'd do any job, even one that wasted my time and talents, just to pin that rank onto my uniform.

So in the end, when it came time to leave (coincidentally, I retired on the same day I was supposed to have been promoted), it was still a bit tough to turn down that promotion, and say goodbye to a 21-year career, but it wasn't as horribly depressing as it would be for some people. I walked into the Pentagon on June 30th in my dress uniform with my friend Linh, gave him the tour of the Pentagon I'd been promising him for months, he watched me sign some paperwork (which is the closest thing I had to a retirement ceremony...some people get parades, I got Linh watching me fill out forms, and I think that made for the best retirement day I could imagine), and then he took me to lunch.

Leaving opened up new opportunities for me. I know that for a lot of people coming out of the military after 20+ years, they'll have a hard time starting over...but not me.

Which, of course, is how I ended up becoming the university professor that I am today. But I'll save that story.