Some of you will lose your job in the next few months.
The Army announced this week that 40,000 active duty soldiers will be pink-slipped in an effort to wrangle the defense budget. Another 17,000 civilians will also be sent packing.
While the cuts have loomed for months, this week's announcement finally laid out the location for those cuts. Every base on the planet will lose personnel. The states of Alaska and Georgia will be hardest hit.
The first round of dismissals will come this October and roll through the next two years.
Which means, if you are in that group, you have just a few months to put together your resume and hit the ground running.
Losing a job, especially a job you love, is one of the hardest transitions. And these cuts have nothing to do with performance or an individual's ability. This is math. This is lack of money. Nothing more.
And it will be hardest on those who are removed from the ranks and sent home. It's hard to understand why, after doing your best and sacrificing everything, that you would be told, 'You are done.'
We know it is coming. Now, we need to prepare for it.
Unlike some layoffs that come without warning and happen in the course of a day, luckily, military members and their families have several months to prepare.
Trust me, this makes you very lucky.
Head into the transition office on base and have the staff their help you prepare your resume. They can also prep you for civilian job interviews and develop successful talking points.
Begin scouring job ads. Consider where you want to live, because now, you get to choose. Consider what kind of career you want to grow, because again, now, you get to choose.
Leaving the military is hard. But this transition is a chance for you to appreciate what you've gained in the military and to move forward and thrive.
It's a chance to pick a job that will allow you to be home, with no deployments. To make more money. To wear any clothes you want, every day.
Begin looking at college options. You could use your GI-Bill benefits and go back to school. Full-time students often qualify for living expenses while they attend.
There is no question the next few months are going to be awful for a lot of military households. Take a night. Mourn the end of this career. Complain and moan about the leadership and those darn senators and their budgets. Get it out.
Then, the next morning, get moving.
The end of this era is the beginning of amazing opportunity.
