The Veteran Gap: How to Improve Veteran Retention

Let me start with a story.

It was midnight in Fallujah. I was a first lieutenant in the Marine Corps, riding in a convoy with a female detainee in the back of my vehicle. My job that night was to escort her home to her village.

When we arrived, I took off her blindfold. She was terrified, and honestly, so was I. I didn’t know what her life would look like after we drove away. I only knew she wasn’t free.

Here’s the irony: I had every freedom in the world, and I was the one at war.

From the neck up, I was a prisoner. I was struggling with major depression and an eating disorder, and nobody knew. I took care of every Marine in my platoon except one: me.

When I got back to base that night, I opened a letter from my dad, the one person who knew. He wrote:

“Theresa, you’re at war. But the real war is happening inside of you. Asking for help is a sign of strength, not weakness.”

A few days later, I asked for help.

The Gap I Found

Recovery showed me I wasn’t alone. Years later, I saw the same struggle in veterans in corporate America: high performers on paper, quietly lost, and missing the mission, team and purpose the uniform once gave them.

That’s why I left traditional physical therapy. I wanted to serve veterans like me, in a place where they often feel lost.

The Cost of the Gap

Research from Syracuse University’s Institute for Veterans and Military Families found that nearly half of veterans leave their first civilian job within a year, and more than 65% leave within two. Veteran retention isn’t just an HR metric. Replacing an employee costs an estimated one-half to two times their salary. For a company hiring 100 veterans, that’s millions lost.

Gracie, a veteran I met at a Fortune 100 company, was doing great work. Her company wanted to keep and promote her. What she wanted was connection.

“I didn’t feel as connected to the veteran community as I would have liked,” she told me.

That’s the Veteran Gap. It’s not a compensation problem. It’s a purpose and connection problem.

Programs like SkillBridge help bring veterans in the door, and veteran ERGs help them find each other. Both matter. But neither was designed to keep veterans connected to the mission once they’re inside.

How We Close the Gap and Improve Veteran Retention

Our Veteran Leadership Pathway Program is built on our Be Well to Lead Well principles. It brings together a small cohort of about 20 veterans for three to five months, working alongside their organization. Together, they learn to:

• Lead Self: Thrive physically and emotionally in a demanding civilian role, even with injuries from service, and show up as the same strong leader at work and at home.
• Lead Team: Translate military communication and problem-solving to the civilian workplace, and lead with empathy.
• Lead Mission: Connect their own purpose and values to their organization’s mission.

Along the way, they talk, connect and bond. Leaders from their own organization come into the room to answer questions and get proximate. And the veterans want to stick around.

What Happened at Cisco in 2025

We ran Cisco’s Veteran Leadership Program last year (and launched the 2026 cohort this past September). Alongside the Cisco team, we measured retention and promotion, plus stress, resilience, sleep, nutrition and movement. Here’s some of what we found:

• 95% retained within the first year
• 55% promoted within six months of completing the program
• 90 Net Promoter Score (NPS)*

*Net Promoter Score measures how likely participants are to recommend the program, on a scale from -100 to 100.

After five months, participants saw significant improvements in:

• Sleep quality: 75% improvement
• Emotional self-regulation: 38% improvement
• Outlook: 28% improvement
• Perceived stress: 22% reduction
• Mobility and strength: 16% improvement

“VLP gave me an opportunity to reconnect with that part of my identity in a meaningful and positive way.”
— Gracie, Cisco Veteran Scholar

“I’m truly impressed with the program you’ve built for Cisco’s veteran leaders. Your emphasis on sustained leader well-being is something too often overlooked in corporate America… it really sets you apart.”
— Cliff Potts, Director, Cisco

We’ve since brought this work to the FBI, UVA Darden, the Veterans Health Administration and Warfighter Acquisition University, and the list keeps growing.

Our vision is clear: to become the gold standard for veteran leadership in corporate America and across our government.

Let’s Close the Gap Together

I have two questions for you.

1. Do you want to keep your veterans?

The time to invest is now. If you already support SkillBridge or a veteran ERG, the Veteran Leadership Pathway Program is the next step: keeping your veterans connected, healthy, leading within your organization, and staying with you.

Bring the Veteran Leadership Pathway Program to Your Team →

Or email cohort@mrxleaders.com

2. Are you leading everyone but yourself right now?

If you read this and thought, “This is me,” our Concierge Executive Human Performance Coaching is built for veteran leaders who take care of everyone but themselves.

Inquire About Concierge Coaching →

Or email coaching@mrxleaders.com

Finally, and Most Importantly

To all you high performers reading this (yes, you): my late father, an Army veteran, ended that letter I read in Fallujah with one more line. It has stayed with me ever since:

“You cannot hope to care for or lead others fully if you cannot care for and lead yourself first.”

As General Peter Pace, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, shared with my fellow scholars in the George W. Bush Institute’s Stand-To Veteran Leadership Program, “Taking care of your people is what good leaders do.”

I’d add one thing: just don’t do it from an empty tank.

Semper Fi,

Dr. T