How I resigned from the Navy (or tried to, anyway), and you can too!

The Prologue

When I joined the Navy way back in 2005, all I knew right then was that I wanted to join the Navy (check), I wanted to be a Surface Warfare Officer (working on it), and I wanted to be stationed on a destroyer in Japan (on my way!). Beyond that, I didn’t really have a plan, but I kind of figured that by the end of my five-year commitment, I’d either know exactly what I wanted to do when I got out, or I’d be so hooked on the Navy that I’d stay to twenty. My first tour, straight out of college and set in the dark days after SWOS DOC but before SWOS BDOC, was kind of a mixed bag. Although my later experiences were generally better (relative term), at the end of my initial commitment I found myself with no clear plan for a post-Navy career, and ultimately stayed in because “change is hard.” Which leads us to…

The End

I reported to my second Department Head tour fresh off my Command Qualification Exam and just after promoting to Lieutenant Commander. Things were looking great! At this point, I was pretty well convinced that I was staying in until at least the twenty-year mark, because who the hell resigns their commission after ten years and reaching a rank they can retire at? Well, me, it turns out. I started thinking seriously about resigning from active duty a few months into the tour, and finally made up my mind at about the midway point. We’ll save the why for another post (maybe), and leave this one to the how:

Timing is key (MILPERSMAN 1920-200). It’s the rare officer who will happily advertise their desire to “depart the pattern” a moment before they have to, particularly if they fear backlash or are still waffling on the whole “being unemployed” thing (I mean, gosh, the economy was great six months ago, but today?), but at some point, no matter how careful you’ve been to ensure that nobody is looking over your shoulder as you read through the MILPERSMAN, you will come up against a deadline that will force your hand. “Everyone” knows that a resignation must be submitted so as to reach NAVPERSCOM at least 9 (but–and this isn’t in the MILPERSMAN that I can see, but it’s on the website–not more than 12) months before their desired month of detachment (from active duty). But depending on how your PRD at your hoped-for last duty station lines up with the end of your commitment and your desired detachment from active duty date, you may need to show your hand sooner than that. Here are two scenarios:

a) You should tell your detailer. One way or the other, your detailer and your Chain of Command will find out you intend to resign from active duty. If your PRD lines up nicely with the end of your commitment (or your commitment is up before your PRD–not that you’ll be getting out ahead of your PRD), your detailer and your Chain of Command will surely find out what you mean to do when you submit your resignation (duh), but it’s in your interests to give them–most especially your detailer–a heads up sooner, if for no better reason than that they can ensure you are fully aware of the requirements and timelines involved. What you are getting here is gouge, based entirely on a cursory review of the MILPERSMAN and my less-than-fond memories of my own particular circumstances circa 2017. You will (probably) resign from active duty only once: your detailer will see many such resignations, including some botched with some lessons learned. So even if you can sneakily submit your resignation prior to becoming eligible for reassignment (more on that below), consider letting the detailer, at least, know beforehand. But remember: you must submit your resignation NLT 9 months prior to your desired month of detachment from active duty, even if you’ve been waiting and waiting and waiting for your detailer to get back to you.

b) You must tell your detailer. This applies if you won’t be able to submit your resignation until about 6 months (or less) before the end of your current tour, as would be the case if your active duty service obligation extends to 6 or more months beyond your PRD. For example, if your PRD is 30APR21, but your service obligation requires you to remain in the Navy until on 30NOV21, the earliest possible date you can submit your resignation (at least going off the website) is 30NOV20, which is within 6 months of your 30APR21 PRD. Timely notification to your detailer is essential in this case (and required by instruction) because at about 6 months before the end of your tour, absent notification from you to your detailer that you intend to resign, you become “eligible for reassignment.” The gist is (and you should read the MILPERSMAN) you CANNOT become eligible for reassignment and THEN submit your resignation. As my detailer put it to me, “Once I show you a slate, you will be obligated to enter into orders negotiation and accept whatever orders I give you,” (or words to that effect). If that happens, that means you’re not going to be submitting your resignation at your current command–you won’t be eligible to, per the instruction–you’ll be waiting until you are within 9-12 months from the end of your NEXT tour, and hoping you don’t make the same mistake again. In order to AVOID MAKING THAT MISTAKE TO BEGIN WITH, you MUST notify your detailer in writing (a scanned/e-mailed letter worked for me) that you intend to submit a resignation prior to the end of your current tour, and so to please not consider you for a follow-on tour. As of posting, Navy Personnel Command’s website and the MILPERSMAN both specify a minimum of 6 months prior to the first day of the month of PRD for letters of intent. So in our hypothetical example above (30NOV21 service obligation, 30APR21 PRD), you would actually need to submit your Letter of Intent NLT 1OCT20. Be forewarned: in doing this, you are essentially volunteering to extend at your current command until your date of detachment from active duty (however long it takes to fulfill your service obligation), because there is no other option. This applies even if you are on sea duty with a ship due to deploy, in which case you might want to discuss with your CO what that means for you: will they let you stay behind with a shore det, or will you be standing deck watches until the very end? With that brief disclaimer, here’s what I wrote for my letter of intent:

                                                    23 Feb 17

From:  LCDR First M. Last, USN, XXX-XX-LAST4SSN/DESIG
To:    Director, Navy Personnel Command (PERS-4412)

Subj:  Notification of Intent to Resign from Active Duty

1.  My current Projected Rotation Date (PRD) is SEP 2017.

2.  It is my intention to resign my active duty commission at the conclusion of my current seven-year incentive pay contract, signed 19 Apr 2011.

3.  I intend to submit my request to resign from active duty nine to twelve months prior to the conclusion of my current incentive pay contract.

                              Very respectfully,
                                  //s//
                              F. M. LAST
                              LCDR, USN

Was that perfect? Probably not, but it did the job.

Recap. If you will reach the end of your current commitment prior to or concurrent with your PRD (give or take a couple months) and wish to detach from active duty at that time, you must submit your resignation 9-12 months out, but you should also tell your detailer sooner. If you will be within about 6 months of your PRD PRIOR TO being 9-12 months out from the end of your initial commitment or your desired detachment from active duty date, then you must still submit your resignation 9-12 months out from your desired detachment date, and you must also notify your detailer prior to becoming eligible for reassignment (at least 6 months prior to the 1st day of the month of your PRD).

Now it’s time to…

Be honest, but not too honest. Okay, so after you’ve figured out that narrow sliver of time in which you can submit your resignation, and you’ve made any necessary preliminary notifications (b above), the next step is to come up with the words that will sever your ties with the Navy (or at least the regular component). By instruction (still in the MILPERSMAN, but a different article), you are required to submit your request to resign from active duty according to a particular format, and to include an enclosure indicating the reason for your request. The main body of this document, the subject “UNQUALIFIED RESIGNATION REQUEST FROM ACTIVE DUTY (ACDU),” is fairly boiler plate. You jot down some dates, some contact information, who will be claiming the body after your career suicide, whether or not you intend to affiliate with the reserves (if you have a choice), etc.–all pretty standard stuff. It is in the enclosure to this document, the “Reason for Submission of Request,” that you get to finally tell your chain of command, the Navy, and THE WORLD how you REALLY FEEL.

…but then if you go talking to other people, seeking out advice and whatnot (not a terrible idea), you might be advised to tone it down a bit. Maybe just leave it to a single paragraph, expressing your gratitude to the Navy for the chance to serve, your hopes for the future, and, if applicable, your desire to serve in other ways (i.e. to affiliate with the reserves). For what it’s worth, I elected to expand beyond the usual “safe” blurb, but I did tone things down a bit (just a bit) from what I would have liked to write as an “end of the world” sort of speech. Since we aren’t going to get into why I put in a resignation, I’ll include a fragment of my “Reason for Submission of Request” below, for formatting purposes only:

                  Reason for Submission of Request

   I am grateful for the experience and opportunities I have been given while serving as an officer in the United States Navy. There are three primary reasons why I am submitting my resignation.

   Stuff.

   Stuff.

   More stuff.

   It is my desire to affiliate with the Selected Reserve and seek mobilization opportunities that will allow me to fulfill my personal goals while still serving the nation.

For what it’s worth, no one said… anything at all in response to my writing “stuff, stuff, and more stuff,” and my career as an active duty officer was neither more nor less over after writing it than if I had just stuck with the boilerplate. I am also under no illusions that more than a few people (probably none beyond the routing chain, if that) are likely to have read it. Although I wrote more than I think most would recommend, I don’t think I wrote anything that would keep me from getting a letter of recommendation to post-grad education or future employment if I should need it—and that’s probably as good a reason as any to filter things, if you do feel inclined to write more than boilerplate. Apart from that, don’t violate the UCMJ, don’t make it personal, and don’t go too far off the rails, but otherwise (my opinion) be honest about your reasons for resigning. Tell the Navy why you’re leaving, or resign knowing always and forever that you could not, even in your final moments, say clearly and concisely what prompted you to sever ties with the organization you may have once loved. Anyway, those are my thoughts, mileage may vary.

Epilogue

You may have noticed that we jumped from “the prologue” to “the end” with no beginning, no middle, and no further discussion of a post-Navy career. For what it’s worth, I left the Navy with not much in mind, and nothing lined up. To hearken back to the title of this post, that’s partly because I ended up staying in the Navy for a couple more years and being medically retired (my resignation was accepted and I received separation orders, but then some medical stuff took over–may become the subject of a later post). To be fair, there was definitely some overlap/commonality between the whole “wanting to resign” vs “being medically retired” vs “not being able to think about the future.” I ended up not settling on a future career until my last couple months in the Navy and then, because the career I settled on needed more schooling (law school), I had to spend my first year post-Navy taking exams, applying to schools, and marking time in a sort of holding pattern while I waited for fall to come around again. Under more optimal circumstances, I might have lined all that up prior to or concurrent with my last year in the Navy, then left the Navy in the spring (as I did) and had a nice long summer before rolling right into school in the fall (that first fall out of the Navy, I mean). There may be a post on that later, but for now I’ll close with a summary, and some random thoughts:

1. Have a clue about what you want to do when you leave the Navy, whether you ultimately retire or succeed in getting yourself administratively separated midway through your first tour (no judgment here: I know it happens and not always to people who deserve it).
2. Always check with your detailer first. Always check your detailer’s website first. Pers-41 for SWOs, of course.
3. Then check with your detailer.
4. Don’t expect anyone to try and talk you out of resigning.
5. Keep an eye on the timeline, always (PRD, end of service obligation, desired separation date, etc).
6. Be professional and respectful in your resignation letter, but don’t be afraid to be honest, too.
7. Regardless, keep things in perspective: your active duty career is already coming to an end, it’s what’s next that counts.
8. If, as you write your letter, you find yourself so overwhelmed that it feels more like an end to everything than just an end to your active duty naval career, step back and find someone. Right now. Call the VA’s mental health crisis hotline if you need to.
9. Don’t knock the reserves. My biggest regret in being medically retired rather than separating as originally planned (not that I really “planned” anything when it came to getting out) was losing the opportunity to go into the reserves.

Nothing lasts forever. Some things don’t even last twenty years…

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