Is the Private Sector Where We Put Our Passion Out to Pasture?

by Thomas Booth

This question has haunted me as of late. Nine years after my first transition from Active Duty, my passion is what most often makes me the alien in the room. The person least like the others. My passion predates my military service, but it’s undoubtedly where it found the most fertile soil to grow. After 14 years of service, I don’t know if I can be any other way. At least not while working. Maybe it’s the same for a lot of veterans. Maybe not. 

I was always up for an adventure, and I loved going fast. My invincibility complex and ignorance were perfectly suited for the journey to the cockpit of an F-18 Hornet. Shortly after breaking the sound barrier for the first time, both started to leave me. Our jets were tired, most had issues, and some fell from the sky. Thankfully, most of my friends made it out. At 26 years old, I wasn’t mature enough to handle the nature of this professional situation, and I eventually self-sabotaged my way out of that cockpit.

With five years of contractual obligation remaining, I found myself on the other side of achieving the only life dream I bothered to dream. During one year in Vietnam, my father flew 300 combat missions in an F-4 Phantom. When I was forced to begin this next chapter of my life, I was one month shy of flying my first. The handful of flights in an F-18 that I thought were going to be my last…anything…combined with the shame of not living up to an expectation I’m sure my father didn’t have, left most of my life feeling empty. Fierce apathy. 

The only place I felt alive enough to feel any emotion was work. Where my passion was not only welcome but expected. This obviously isn’t true across the board, but the organizations I sought to work with from that point forward knew the benefits of a passionate fighting force far outweighed the potential negative consequences. Thankfully, I would have those opportunities. With these commands, even when I boarded a C-17 for a flight to Bagram with 100 strangers, I felt comfortable. The environment felt familiar. 

It was here that my ignorance and invincibility complex returned. Not out of actual ignorance this time, but out of necessity. I had to serve another five years, and if I was going to work, I wanted to work on something that mattered. With people who also gave a shit. Preferably talented people. Five years of mailing it in was a fate worse than death.

This brings me to my current conundrum. Is the half of my life that used to be the only place I could be passionate, now the last? When my “give a shit” registers at even a two out of 10, how do I handle a manager who’s never cared about anything enough to voluntarily put themselves in harm’s way for it? Get a hobby and care about that instead? 

If we are our experiences, and I can’t share these experiences with over 99% of the private sector workforce, these are the experiences that make me the most alien in current professional settings. My biggest struggle over the last three years has been figuring out when NOT to care. Maybe it’s the same for a lot of veterans. Maybe not. 

Recently however, I had another realization. One that inspired me to write this article. I realized something else those experiences taught me. I have a knack for turning whatever job I have into the job I want. A knack for figuring out how to thrive no matter how much the odds are stacked against me…and this might be what I’m the most passionate about. Maybe it’s the same for a lot of veterans. Full stop.

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Thomas Booth is fourth-generation military but certainly not out of blind patriotism. More like inertia and familiarity. A Marine Corps brat raised just outside the gates of Parris Island in Beaufort, SC, who joined the US Navy in May of 2001 to pursue TOP GUN dreams and get out of Beaufort, SC. Eventual F-18 Driver, followed by tours as forward deployed Operations Support to the Joint Special Operations community and multiple Clandestine Agencies. Currently working in sales strategy for an enterprise software company. 

As the Voice of the Veteran Community, The Havok Journal seeks to publish a variety of perspectives on a number of sensitive subjects. Unless specifically noted otherwise, nothing we publish is an official point of view of The Havok Journal or any part of the U.S. government.