Embracing your inner Radar O’Reilly

If there is a role model for helping transitioning military professionals successfully emulate as they begin the countdown to a new civilian career, I would suggest Radar O’Reilly.

If you watch a few MASH episodes on TV, you’ll see how Radar, played by Gary Burghoff, built a network with others to get complicated things done. If Hawkeye needed specialized medical equipment to help care for his patients, Radar called “Sparky,” one of his colleagues to trade something.

I have worked with a lot of military professionals from sergeants to colonels on how to effectively update their profile. I have come to observe that the ones who will get ahead when they depart military life have an inner Radar mindset.

Truly effective networking revolves around the give and take of life. If someone needs help finding the inside number to a person who might hire them, a well-developed network can help them locate that info.

I have talked with a few people where I have spent some time helping them adjust their profile, only to know that if I was to ever call them for a little help that I wouldn’t ever get them to return my call.

Most don’t have that perspective. I have asked some of my military transition clients for help, and they truly have opened some doors for me to help me market my newest military LinkedIn book.

As the chief of community relations at Lowry AFB, Colo., I created a program with 500 volunteers who did everything from helping at risk students learn how to read to helping senior vets manage the logistics of a parade with 400 units.

After I help provide five experienced Air Force NCOs with radios to help coordinate one Veterans’ Day parade, the mayor’s veterans affairs rep asked for their names. In about two weeks, Mayor Federico Pena signed thank you letters to the base’s senior commander.

Those thank you letters were sent to each volunteer’s commander and then his subordinate commander. I heard from several of those volunteers that those letters made it to each of the volunteer’s performance report. After the first round of letters, I never had a problem getting volunteers to give up a half-day from a holiday to help with the parade.

This military memory typifies the kind of give and take that transitioning military professionals need to embrace as part of their networking strategy. Gary Burghoff’s portrayal of the lovable Army corporal inspires me in my work as a public relations professional and as a social media adviser to give a lot to others, without the expectation of not getting anything in return.

I’m hoping that regardless of where you are within your transition journey that you, my fellow military professional, embrace your inner Radar.