U.S. Air Force veteran Choice Jackson spent nearly a decade in the military, though her transition to civilian life may have been more of an uphill battle.
Jackson spent eight years in the service, joining in 1989 and spending essentially all her time in base operations working in a flight tower at Beale Air Force Base in Yuba County, Calif. The daily duties, as she told Military.com, were “very, very stressful” and occupied her entire military career that was spent on that base until she left service in 1997.
Her story is one of countless others involving veterans pursuing career aspirations in a new chapter of their lives, finding what sticks and what may not be the path forward. As with any civilian, that formulated plan can look a hundred different ways and doesn't always turn out as intended.
Jackson is proof of that. Before ever spending half her time active-duty and half in the Reserves, she was encouraged by her mother—also an Air Force veteran—to enlist.
“She's, like, ‘Hey, go in the military.’ And I was like, ‘No way, who are you talking to?’” Jackson said. “But it ended up being one of the best decisions I've ever made. … I knew that path was a successful path because I had seen my mother do it.”
It was the post-military career that provided an invigoration in the second half of Jackson’s life.
'A Few Career Changes'
Jackson, speaking to Military.com from the Dallas area, said that a military career wasn’t ever really in her professional outlook until her mother offered a convincing sales pitch.
Prior to ever stepping foot onto Beale Air Force Base, Jackson actually worked as a mortician due to her affinity towards science and finding the field itself interesting.
But the economics of that career path were hazy. She said that unless you actually own a funeral home, a long-term career with a consistent salary is nowhere near guaranteed.
After leaving the Air Force, her life became an exercise in trying new things. “Quite a few career changes,” she said.
Aside from a military career, Jackson’s mother also had a health care background. She passed that knowledge onto her daughter. Jackson’s interest in fields like science and health care, combined with information technology, gave her an open sea to cast a line.
I did many, many years between health care and IT and sometimes mixing the two. But I learned, kind of got my love for computers while I was in the military.
“Working in the flight tower, that's what we did all day—we were on the computer and doing flight plans and making sure planes are not going to crash into each other while they're up there. And that kind of sparked me just with the basic DOS [operating system], we had the flat screen and blue screen and whatnot. I bought my first computer while I was in the military and just kind of went from there," she added.
She was self-taught for most of it, too, prior to going to school and attaining a bachelor's degree in IT management. Later, she got a master's degree in cybersecurity.
More Degrees, More Experience
Jackson also went to nursing school, utilizing a computer science and health background to become a certified nurse assistant for nearly 30 years.
Meanwhile, she wasn’t slowing down. She kept getting degrees and immersing herself, even if things didn’t go quite exactly as planned.
For example, by the time she received her cybersecurity degree in 2019, the COVID-19 pandemic put a wrench in her plans. She never actually worked a single day in a dedicated role.
But from what I learned in the military, I know how to pivot. Change does not bother me, scare me, freak me out. That's just what we do, we learn how to pivot.
Recreating herself was a theme she was accustomed to, notably after being married at one point to a military spouse who served 26 years himself. Jackson realized what reinventing one’s self can look like.
Once the pandemic was in swing, Jackson thought about teaching CPR. She went through the Department of Veterans Affairs’ vocational rehabilitation program, which she had also gone through for nursing school.
She walked in with a complete proposal put together, knowing the affiliated costs and what certifications were necessary to get her instructor licenses. But due to the sensitivity of the pandemic, nurses like Jackson were required to be CPR certified by the Red Cross or American Heart Association.
“I started teaching CPR in my dining room,” she recalled. “I turned my dining room into a classroom, advertised on the Red Cross and the Heart Association. And because there's nobody else doing it, I had no competition.”
She worked evening hours a few days a week, finding success with her own set hours and prices and a lack of competition.
Connecting Veterans With Purpose
One day, Jackson saw an email in her inbox from an organization called NPower.
The national nonprofit helps connect young adults and military-connected persons find jobs in the tech sector, especially to circumvent traditional barriers to entry. NPower provides free, comprehensive training programs to individuals from low-to-moderate income communities.
A 2023 survey of 1,000 U.S. military veterans revealed there are an average of three different major challenges on this journey: finding a job (33%); parting ways with friends in the military (28%); and finding a purposeful career (28%). That’s according to OnePoll on behalf of Sport Clips Haircuts for its VFW’s “Sport Clips Help A Hero Scholarship” program.
Bertina Ceccarelli, CEO of NPower, told Military.com that “word of mouth carries real weight” in her organization. Referrals often come from NPower alumni or via VA newsletters and social media.
Many are referred by fellow service members or NPower alumni who share their positive, often transformational experiences with friends, family, and their broader military community.
To date, more than 3,300 veterans have gone through NPower programs. On average, between 600-700 veterans participate each year.
“AI and automation are reshaping what employers expect from today’s workforce,” Ceccarelli said. “At NPower, we're evolving our skills training programs to meet the moment, ensuring our students graduate ready for the jobs that exist now, not the ones that existed a few years ago.
“By embedding AI into our training alongside strong foundations in cloud, data and software development, our students are gaining hands-on experience with in-demand AI tools and learning how to use AI to be more productive, solve real problems, and succeed in modern tech roles.”
For Jackson, a self-described lifelong learner, she was instantly open to the idea of participating in the NPower program. Since she was learning tech and computers decades ago, Jackson described the NPower experience not as a “re-learn but a constant learn.”
“That's one of the things that I like about tech is that it's constantly evolving,” she said. “It's constantly changing, I like the challenge. Right now with AI, I love it. This, for me, is like the world catching up with my breath.”
After NPower, Jackson worked at Citi Bank for 3.5 years as a senior engineer analyst. She actually retired from that position in December 2025.
Mother-Daughter Affair
It’s a family affair in the Jackson household.
Not only did Jackson go through NPower, but so did her daughter, Jasmine, 27, through the Houston, Texas, chapter. She intentionally followed in the footsteps of her mother and grandmother.
“You can't be what you can't see,” Jasmine told Military.com. “I feel like to some extent, seeing someone that you trust and is close to you already pursue it and it is a successful journey, it does make you more inclined to believe that you're able to pivot into tech."
I think a lot of times, at least to my generation, tech seems oversaturated or super hard to get into. So, just being super hesitant about the access or, like, can you even penetrate that type of sector? I think seeing her do it definitely made me feel like it was feasible.
Jasmine went to college at Villanova University for political science and then educational policy analysis, attaining a fellowship abroad in Greece while she taught. That didn’t last long, however, finding the day job of teaching monotonous and lacking stimulation due to the constant repetition.
Instead, after about three years in the education field, she became a tech analyst at Deloitte and works to solve different problems every day—be it password lock-outs or WiFi connectivity issues.
Having tech “thrown at you” lets one find their niche in the field, she said. Her future aspirations, due to her intrigue with AI and bridging the gap between people and tech, is in tech law.
“Even I had the fear at one point that [tech] was hard to be penetrated,” she said. “I feel like with the job that I'm doing now, I find it so impactful to be able to like break things down into layman's terms because a lot of things with technology for older groups or just people who aren't doing it in their day-to-day, they feel like they can't learn or they won't be able to kind of like hop in there and take care of themselves when it comes to technology.”
Veterans' Opportunities Increase With Time
Choice Jackson acknowledges that her path was not the easiest, fully expecting in her post-military career to continue on more of a rigid path complete with traditional protocols.
That corporate America-type existence never panned out, though, as she said she realized that most companies operate quite differently from the military.
Also, she said that veterans today get a lot more looks from employers and recruiters compared to the 1990s. She thinks she missed out on opportunities because of that misconception between how service members were trained and whether they were ready for life outside the military.
“I don't know how it changed, but a lot has changed,” she said. “People see now the value in veterans; they see the value of the integrity that we have to have in the military. And we don't leave that behind.
“So many things that we learn in the military, we take it with us for the rest of our lives. I still make my bed the way I did in the military. It's something that you don't lose. That integrity—it's kind of a weird dynamic because you have to be a leader and you have to be a follower all at the same time. You've got to be good at both.”
