‘You’re Just Chopped Off at the End’: Retired Servicemen’s Identity Work Struggles in the Military to Civilian Transition (original) (raw)
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Sociological Research Online, 2018
Promoting positive transition to retirement and cultural adaption for ex-service personnel has been identified as a priority for both social-science research and for public health policy in the UK. The Royal British Legion aims to provide support to service and retired service personnel, but to date the transition to retirement experiences of older (60-plus) ex-service personnel remain under-researched. In this article, we employ a symbolic interactionist theoretical framework to examine older servicemen’s experiences and identity challenges post-retirement from the British armed forces. Data were collected primarily through semi-structured, focus-group interviews with 20 former servicemen. Here, we focus specifically upon the challenges encountered by these ex-servicemen in the retirement transition from military to civilian life, a time of identity flux of sociological interest. To navigate this period of identity change and challenge, many participants constructed a ‘modified military self’ through involvement with the Royal British Legion as a key social support network. For many retired personnel the Royal British Legion offered a form of identification and group identity that resonated strongly with earlier experiences of comradeship in the military.
The Transition Experiences of British Military Veterans
Political Psychology
The aim of the current research was to investigate the transition experiences of British military veterans upon exiting the military and re-joining civilian society, asking the specific research question: what effect does the transition from military to civilian life have on the individual's identity? Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis was employed and seven semi-structured interviews were carried out with ex-military personnel. Analysis of the data revealed three superordinate themes: i) Several Selves: Identity; ii) Soldier and Society: Separation, iii) Transition Time: Personal Perspective. Current findings suggest that transition from the military back to civilian life is often problematic, with identity complications, feelings of loss, and disconnection both from the military and from society in general. Individuals with a more salient military identity had more difficult transition experiences. Findings are discussed with reference to theories of identity formation, maintenance, and salience, and recommendations for future research are made.
Frontiers in Sociology, 2024
This article takes its starting point in a longitudinal interview study that began in 2013 with the aim of investigating identity reconstruction during the transition from military to civilian life. Annual follow-up interviews were conducted for 3 years, after which there was a break for 7 years until 2023 when a new interview cycle was conducted. The article presents the findings from this interview round. The purpose of the study was to describe the ways in which military identity had impacted the selves and lives of the participants. An inductive approach was employed in the analysis and an abductive approach used in the interpretative phase. The results showed, among other things, that a military identity, containing a particularly strong work ethic, had grown salient over the years. This military identity salience amplified the perception of a contrasting civilian work ethic, which generated moral frustration and even conflict. It was seen as imperative to maintain consistency between a military work ethic and the identity standard as a civilian employee rather than to modify the behavior to another standard, i.e., a civilian standard. These results were counterintuitive given the earlier interview cycles. A military work ethic was generally a powerful asset but could have negative health outcomes, manifesting as burnout. The results reflect the challenges in operating multiple identities tailored to contrasting moral regimes. Future longitudinal qualitative and quantitative research approaches to selfidentity work among former service members are warranted.
Currently, there is scant research that investigates in-depth retired servicemen’s perceptions and experiences of ageing and being physically active, particularly in relation to retirement experiences. In this article, we employ a novel theoretical combination of figurational sociology and symbolic interactionism to explore a topical life-history of twenty retired servicemen’s experiences in relation to physical activity (PA), the ageing body and constructions of identity in later life. Participants were aged 60+ and members of the Royal British Legion (RBL) in a city in the English Midlands. Three semi-structured focus-group interviews and follow-up conversations were completed, together with informal observations. Key findings revealed that although participants recognised the need for regular PA, their perceptions routinely centered upon the ‘felt’ limitations of the ageing body, often in stark contrast to their former ‘disciplined’, active, military bodies. Corporeal challenges and limitations discouraged some from taking part in PA altogether. Despite their perceived bodily limitations, however, many ex-service personnel still endeavoured to stay physically active. Findings highlight the salience of the temporal aspects of older adults’ lived experiences of exercise and PA, for past experiences of PA and exercise were identified as strongly shaping current-day motivations, attitudes and behaviours.
IDENTITY Military Retirement: Reflections from Former Members of Special Operations Forces
This article explores the impact of military identity and culture on the retirement and reintegration of members of Special Operations Forces (SF) into civilian life. The experience of retirement is explored through interviews with five former members of the SF. These interviews were analysed to identify the shared experience of retirement including the causes, context and consequences. The data indicated that personal attachment to the unit was heightened by key aspects of SF culture (camaraderie, intensity, elitism and distinctiveness from the mainstream community). After leaving the regiment, participants described the experience of grief and subsequently employed a variety of psychological approaches to managing this emotional response and adapting to civilian life. In general, these approaches sought to replicate the military culture in the civilian environment and avoid triggers that would excite or remind former SF soldiers of their past military identity. This study seeks to enhance understanding of military retirement from an SF perspective and recommends further research into the role of replication and avoidance in the retirement experience.
A Symbolic Interactionist Perspective on the Divide within the Veteran Self
Journal of Veteran Studies , 2023
This article focuses a theoretical lens on the veteran self and discusses what this can mean for veterans, their loved ones, and society. Mead's (1934) generalized other, Cooley's (1902) looking-glass self, and James's (1890) and Mead's division of the self into the I and the Me are central concepts in this discussion. The article embraces a symbolic interactionist understanding, which leads to the suggestion that there is no deeper symbolic consensus between the civilian and military lifeworlds. Military symbols are not shared with and are not meaningful to civilians and therefore are not symbols at all in the civilian lifeworld. The rupture of the veteran self is due to the lack of shared symbolism with the self and civilian society at large. This creates a divide within the veteran self, which is hard to bridge. The article is written with a special address to the deployed veteran.
2007
This thesis has identified a number of factors which explain why those leaving the armed forces after 22 years or more of army service make successful transitions to civilian life. The work adds to knowledge since whilst considerable literature exists relating to those who have not made successful transitions from the armed forces to civilian life and work, there is little on those who have been successful. Existing literature is primarily concerned with those who, having served for relatively short periods of time, leave and suffer a range of social and health problems including mental illness, homelessness, unemployment and alcoholism. Evidence was gained from 51 veterans both men and women through written mini biographies, face to face interviews and interviews through the medium of the internet. Research data was drawn from the remembered lived experiences of the veterans recalling both their army and civilian careers. :
Зборник радова филозофског факултета у Приштини, 2015
The paper discusses how war veterans perceive themselves and how they answer the question "Who am I?". War veterans face many challenges in the process of re-socialization from a state of war and war traumatization to a peacetime society. There are several reasons why their re-socialization is a slow process: the first one is that a war engagement is in itself a highly stressful situation which carries traumas of different degrees, the other reason is the changed system of values in relation to war engagement. Namely, at the time they went to war, they had a strong social support, but at the time of their return and today this support is lost to the point of judgment. And the third reason which limits their re-socialization is the situation of social transition they found on their return from war, which specifically means that a large percentage of the population in general, and thus the war veterans after returning from the war, lost their jobs, creating a large social group of "transition losers". Such a condition often generates an identity crisis. This set of socio-cultural circumstances together with the ontological insecurity carried by war trauma generate an identity crisis, which is manifested among the respondents in nihilistic answers when responding to questions about their own personality. Studying the identity of war veterans, it was found that a strong attachment to the veteran identity is dominant. In fact, this paper discusses the different ways in which this attachment is re-fracted in the personality and identity of subjects, from negative attitudes to the pride in belonging to a group of war veterans and personal fulfillment in the activism in associations of war participants.
Identification/Non-Identification Among U.K. Veterans in Scotland
2020
The study of ex-U.K. Armed forces personnel remains a vibrant and ongoing area of research. As our discussion illustrates, a major focus of such is in the areas of subsequent health and mental wellbeing (e.g., Mark et al., 2020) or life after service (Gordon et al., 2020). Such studies remain important as the impact of military service and subsequent discharge upon individuals has been clearly delineated (Fulton et al., 2019; Williamson, 2019). However, a key issue that has often been absent from previous studies has been a focus on self-identification of ex-military personnel as veterans, although many more recent articles have emphasised the need for just such action (Finnigan et al., 2018). RESEARCH