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I'd retired for about six or seven years. Coming back to the business, I found that I was sort of not quite a has-been, and it wasn't a new career, it was just kind of difficult to crack the nut, so to speak.

After I had gone through this matter with the President I told him of my condition of health and that my doctors felt that I must take a complete rest and that I thought that that meant leaving the Department finally in a short time.

I wasn't the one managing my career back then, that was the problem - I was 14 years old.

When I retired from active duty, I still felt that I owed something to my community. That's why I pursued education... I still miss the classroom and recall those days fondly.

And I spent that time working as an insurance adjuster and going to law school in the evening, and then when I left law school, I joined the Department of Justice in Washington.

I basically took six or seven years off, but then I had another five or four of me not working at all because I was in school. It was really 13 years of me not working at all... I really couldn't even think about it.

I spent 28 years working in healthcare. I thought I'd retired from non-profit community health care.

I took three years off. I differentiated myself from the industry. Found my identity - sort of... I haven't graduated yet. I'm not legitimately educated yet, but maybe one day.

I was fired at the pinnacle of my career, on my 39th birthday. And in the year that followed, I learned that there are many psychological phases of being 'let go.'

I'd been going to college for nine years, and before I completed my dissertation, I quit.