fromtheeditor Passionate Pursuit


Discovering they’ve got a little extra free time on their hands, more and more military retirees are choosing to pursue jobs they’ve always dreamed about.


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any of us, I’ll bet, were challenged with the question “What do you want to be when you grow up?” by our par-


ents. At younger ages, we probably had no clue at all — or else had glorious visions of becoming anything from a musician to a professional baseball player. Of course, in the MOAA audience, I’ll bet there are plenty who aspired to become soldiers, sail- ors, Marines, or officers in the Air Force or Coast Guard — and achieved their goals. “What do you want to be?” is the theme


of our story “Dream Come True,” page 56. It tells the tales of people who have completed at least one full career and then decided to launch into new jobs in totally unrelated fields. For example, we can take inspiration from Nancy Irwin, who had a first career as an opera singer, then became a stand-up comic, then earned a doctorate in psychol- ogy, and now works in the field of sexual abuse counseling and healing. So maybe there still is time to become a musician! The careers story is one feature in our special section on retirement. Every March and September, we bring you a col- lection of material focused on making the most of your retirement. Whether you’re getting close to that inevitable event or are many years out, it never hurts to research and prepare. We hope you find the retire- ment guide and stories useful. Finally — back to the topic of career


achievement — our cover story intro- duces you to an officer who has reached


1 0 MI L I T A R Y O F F I C E R S E P T EMB E R 2 0 1 0


the peak of an Air Force career. For Gen. Norton A. Schwartz, USAF, his selec- tion as Air Force chief of staff came suddenly. As he says, “I would characterize it as unexpectedly. We were getting ready to move on to other pursuits.” Schwartz is responsible


for organizing, training, and equipping 680,000 Air Force personnel — active duty, Guard, Reserve, and civil- ian. This comes at a time of major mission shifts due to wartime needs, advances in technology, aging aircraft, and shrinking budgets. One example of a technology-driven


transition is the employment of remotely piloted aircraft (RPAs). “RPAs are enor- mously valuable,” says Schwartz, “particu- larly for missions requiring persistence. A U-2 typically operates less than 12 hours at a time, given demands at that altitude on the aircrew. Global Hawk can operate up to 36 hours and in numbers that challenge the manned aircraft fleet.” To learn more about how the Air Force


is preparing for the future, check out “Into Focus,” page 84.


— Col. Warren S. Lacy, USA-Ret. PHOTO: STEVE BARRETT


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