Ashley Wiser is a financial literacy advocate, disabled Veteran, and founder of this blog Get Wise, Get Rich, Get Out: The Financial Guide for Transitioning Service Members. 

For a while, I was a designated nuclear key turner. I pulled my first alert on the Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) weapons system in September 2019, in an underground nuclear launch control center in the middle of nowhere Montana.

For better or for worse, my military career has been a lifetime defining experience–as military careers short and long tend to be. It’s more than a job, it’s an identity.

I grew up a military brat. My father was an Army Armored enlisted soldier turned Psychological Operations officer. My childhood was chaptered by my father’s assignments with thirteen moves and ten grade schools. Since my childhood was unusual, I craved the traditional college experience so I ended up at the University of Iowa (Go Hawks!) studying history, languages, and creative writing and catching as many Hawkeye football games as I could.

With some help from ten months of my father’s transferred Post 9/11 GI Bill benefits, I began learning how to stretch military benefits from a young age and, by way of my GI Bill student status, connected with the Student Veterans of American chapter on campus. There I met a community of kind, generous, curiously haunted, and definitely interesting student Veterans who took me in as one of their own. They mentored me in all the benefits of military service from the concrete, financial perks to the intangible sense of honor.

The summer before my senior year, I was confronted with the reality that I would still graduate with $35,000 in student loan debt and a liberal arts degree. I wanted to write, but I lived in the American heartland whose primary industries were agriculture and insurance. Not to mention my, albeit interesting, seriously limited life experience. I had to get serious about my post-grad plan.

That summer I read a Robert Kiyosaki book—best known for his Rich Dad Poor Dad empire—that my father had given me, and my whole future changed. Up until that point, I believed that I would work until I died, maybe earn a six-figure salary once in my 40s, and still be paying down that $35,000 student loan debt well into my 50s. Even the phrases “financial independence” or “passive income” were completely foreign to me.

It all sounded fantastic, but I had little to no resources, credibility, or actual credit. I had always wanted to write, but I had limited life experience to write about, and—now that the world of financial independence was open to me—I didn’t want to spend the next decade floating from one meager arts grant to another. I wanted to write, but also be rich. So, I decided the best way to fast track my financial independence goals was to press pause on writing and pursue military service.  

This strategy was very effective. In some ways too effective.  

By my first alert in 2019, I had already been a commissioned Air Force Officer for nearly three years, spending most of that time on casual status at Vandenberg (then) Air Force Base while the Office of Personnel Management was still recovering from their enormous 2015 cyber hack—breaching thousands of federal personnel records and creating a multi-year backlog of security clearance investigations.

Sometimes, I still think about those beach weekends on the California central coast, Pacific sunsets, wine tasting in Solvang, Santa Barbara Art Walk on Sundays, and sharing my knowledge of military financial benefits with every peer and colleague who would listen.

I told my best friend then, “These are the good old days.” They were.  

After about three weeks of pulling rotating night shifts in 24 hour alert cycles in a school bus-sized, metal box, completely cut off from the rest of the world, I realized I was an extrovert who enjoyed city living and needed near-constant human social contact to survive. Within one month, I knew I needed a career change.

Unfortunately, manning in my career field at that time was dangerously tight–a single illness could change the entire squadron’s alert schedule for the rest of the month. Cross training options were virtually nonexistent.

At the time, post “cross flow,” there were only a few ways out of the Missileer career field: (1) cross training into a Rated Flyer position, (2) decertification in the nuclear career field Personnel Reliability Program (PRP), and (3) separation. I didn’t want to fly or be an RPA Pilot and PRP disqualification sounded like a slippery slope to a medical discharge and complete end to a military career.

To this day I still wonder why some thrived and some dived, though I know personality and culture of course played a large role. How could a job that sounds so simple–sit here underground and wait for the orders we hope will never come–be so soul-splintering?

I only had two years until my contract was up. Though, it seems those two years in Montana were an entire lifetime.

To anyone out there who has ever felt trapped in their own lives, fantasizing about getting into a car wreck on your way to work, I feel you. My sliver of pride was my Master’s degree and progress toward my financial independence goals.

In those two years, I bought my first investment property, house hacked my way to my first $100K, and finished my Masters degree all while living out the COVID-19 Pandemic in a state who’s pandemic-era slogan was, “Social Distancing Since 1889.” Did I already mention I desperately relied on human social contact to survive? My COVID silver lining was, finally, getting more than two, consecutive days of quality sleep for the first time in six months. It was certainly a time.

When my time was finally up, I found my next life in Washington, DC by way of the National Nuclear Security Administration Graduate Fellowship Program and began the standard government contracting career. Really, it’s not so bad.

Now in my 30s and settled into my new life in the National Capitol Region, it’s often hard to comprehend those two years happened at all. I’ve long paid off my personal debts, bought my second property, and have enough retirement savings that even if I stopped saving today, 30 years of compound interest will push my retirement portfolio north of $1 million. Spoiler alert: when you have 30 years of compound interest on your side, you don’t need much in contributions.

Finally, within a year of my separation, the VA awarded me a generous disability rating, that, although I’m not sure I would do it all again, has definitely provided me the support to lift my head above the rate race fray, look around, and seriously ask myself, is this it?

NOT, is this it, I’m a little disappointed. There’s no possible way I could be disappointed in this life more comfortable than I ever seriously predicated for myself. Rather, is this it, am I really done starting over?

I know myself too well, now. I’m addicted to change, to starting over, to learning, to trying new things. It’s what drew me to the military lifestyle in the first place. So now, eight years of military service, and one generous VA Disability Rating later, I thought it was time to revisit my writing aspirations.

Now, I’m a disabled Veteran writer, focused on topics related to military financial planning, military culture, and sometimes nuclear security. If you’re interested, you can check out my recent poem “Invitation to a Launch,” on Inkstick Media and read The Blog—which is what you came here for in the first place. 

Fortunately, since my Missileer days, I’ve learned the good ole days are not only interned in the past; they lie ahead as well. This blog is dedicated to sharing financial insights and stories by and for transitioning service members so that our next lives, post service, may be even better than your past ones.

The name Get Wise. Get Rich. Get Out. derives from the three goals this blog has for our readers: Get Wise on how your money (and service) can work for you. Get Rich by starting early and sustainability. Get Out of the service whenever the time is right for YOU.

Whether your military transition happened last year or lies fifteen years ahead, let’s talk transitioning and money.   

Ashley