"No, I know you well enough that this was really the only choice."

"Sir, it's been an honor to have served under you."

So, that's how I became a civilian. Well, not yet as I had another 30 days of leave before ETS, after a three-week wait for evaluation which came back at 60%.

I knew that I needed a couple more operations to remove pieces of metal embedded in me, so I didn't want to start something I'd need to interrupt. So, my career path seemed to be take classes as a welder, get SCUBA certified (civilian, as I had a military one) and get job offshore on oil...