An Exploration of the Life of Retired Defence Personnel

Serving the defence forces can be enervating for a lot of reasons but doing it for 30-40 years and then getting retired and going back to the civilian life can take an extra toll on the mental health of the defence personnel. Because of this it becomes important to understand the life experiences of the retired defence personnel. This qualitative study aims to explore the life experiences of the retired defence personnel when they were serving the forces and after being retired. For achieving this goal twelve participants were approached and semi structured interview were conducted. Using thematic analysis on the data it revealed that family, aspects of serving the defence forces, transferring as an inevitable part of the job, professional and social aspects of being retired and the challenges faced after being retired, and emotions attached to the forces and ultimately the motivation to serve the forces came out to be the major themes in this study. This study paves path for further research to explore the challenges faced by defence personnel and ways to improve mental health of the defence personnel.