There and back again. Careers, professional knowledge and “reintegration in civil life” among the Argentine military officers

Given the structure of the professional careers in Argentine military institutions, commissioned officers get their retirement relatively early, in average when they are less than 50 years old. To many of them the alternative is to completely retire and live calmly on their pension, or finding a new activity in which they can obtain a supplementary income and canalize their personal and professional interests. Based on in-depth biographical interviews with retired officers of the Army, the Air Force and the Navy, this paper explores the way in which these agents move from the public service towards the private sector and, more generally, how they accomplish what they themselves call “reintegration in civil life”. My research shows that the forms of reconversion are strongly embedded in social networks: at the time of retiring, these officers are invited by – or they look for the support of – old comrades, relatives and friends that help them to get into new fields of activity. They are assumed to have managing, organizational, directive skills – that they call “capacity to lead men” – ready to be valorized in sectors such as private security, real estate administration and other service activities involving large numbers of personnel. Specific skills of some military specialties are particularly appreciated in civil aviation, shipping companies or engineering. These alternatives seem to be the most frequent since the access to the public administration is vetoed to them because of legal and mainly political reasons, and labor market is reluctant to these overskilled and overaged people. As a result, these agents initially trained in State institutions transfer a part of their professional know-how to the private sector, contributing to a silent and subtle but permanent process of diffusion of military norms and competencies in civil life.