There are, it seems, two paths to getting hired as a top-flight management consultant. One is to get degrees from Dartmouth and Cornell, two of the most desirable business schools in the United States. The other is to spend nine years in operations management with the Army Special Forces.
Herb Thompson has done both. The founder of SF2BIZ, a nonprofit aimed at “empowering Special Forces veterans to seize opportunities in business,” Thompson wrote THE TRANSITION MISSION as an operations manual for the type of passage he has made. The book is short–less than 100 pages–and its conversational style belies the abundance of information packed inside. Thompson covers resumes, researching companies, curating an online presence, and building a brand, as well as the more existential question, “Where do I begin?” Ex-military readers will find themselves well-positioned for success. (Or they could do what Thompson does, according to his LinkedIn page: work for “a DoD client,” a job he surely owes more to his military contacts than any transition plan.)
And for the readers who are not ex-military?
To us, “transition” means something different. We read about soldiers who suffer from PTSD, and I began Thompson’s book hoping to read about the struggles to settle into placidity after the thrill–and terror–of war. It took a surprisingly long time to realize Thompson’s book was focused on new careers, not old lives. Civilians, I think, wouldn’t assume that veterans face extraordinary trouble landing a job. If they do, Thompson should explain this earlier and more fully.
This would require re-imagining the book’s readership, a herculean piece of editing but one Thompson should consider. His audience seems to be limited to soldiers in search of the nuts and bolts of creating a post-military career. But what if the book were written for all readers? What if Thompson wanted them to see the courage, the dedication, and the resilience of soldiers in non-combat situations? In a nation whose leaders too often use the Armed Forces as a sword and not a shield, a book like that would do a world of good.
Full of tidbits and in an easy-to-read style, former Green Beret Herb Thompson has created the definitive guide for soldiers in search of civilian careers in THE TRANSITION MISSION.
~Anthony Aycock for IndieReader