Every year, thousands of service members leave active duty with a security clearance and a skill set the defense industry wants. At ClearanceJobs, we see them every day. But I recently talked with Army veteran Brian McGovern, author of Who Am I Now: An NCO’s Guide to Life, Work, and Identity After Military Service, and he raised a question I keep thinking about: what happens when the uniform comes off and nobody tells you who you are anymore?
Brian spent nearly 12 years as a paralegal and public affairs specialist, deploying to Iraq and Afghanistan before leaving as a staff sergeant. He put it bluntly: if his self-worth vanished the second he left the military, he never had an identity to begin with. He was borrowing one from the government.
I especially liked how he framed cleared work. Moving straight from the military into a defense contracting job can feel seamless, since everyone in the SCIF speaks the same acronyms. Brian called it a “shock absorber.” It’s a valuable bridge, but it can postpone the identity shift instead of completing it.
He also hit on something we talk about constantly: money. Young troops often confuse a monthly payment with affordability, and BAH, free healthcare and tax breaks hide the true cost of civilian life. In the cleared world, financial trouble is more than stressful. Guideline F is the leading cause of clearance revocations.
His advice for anyone six months out? Start with chapter four, the one on identity. Resumes and job searches matter, but what catches people off guard is landing the job and still feeling empty.
Figure out who you are first. The rest of your path will follow.
