Rites of Passage and Military Discharge: What Van Gennep's Three Stages Mean for Veterans

A rite of passage has three stages, according to the anthropologist Arnold van Gennep: separation, liminality and incorporation. Military discharge delivers the first stage as an administrative event. Published research on British veterans describes an exit built around handing back papers and kit, with limited resettlement support, and a period of feeling between roles. Many veterans therefore have to build the second and third stages for themselves. This article explains the framework, summarises what research says about discharge and identity, sets out what official transition support covers, and shows how veterans can mark the passage.

Van Gennep's three stages

Van Gennep published Les rites de passage in French in 1909. The University of Chicago Press issued the first English translation in 1960 and a second edition in 2019 with an introduction by David Kertzer. The book argues that a life is a succession of transitions and that rituals across many societies follow one pattern.

Reference works describe the middle stage as one of "suspension". The Encyclopedia.com entry on van Gennep notes that people in the transitional phase were seen as a risk to themselves and the group, which is why societies built rituals to bring them back in.

What research says about discharge and identity

• Role stripping. Williams and colleagues interviewed 20 retired servicemen, all Royal British Legion members, in an English city. In their 2018 paper participants described returning identity cards, watches and equipment as a loss of status. They felt "marked" as neither military insiders nor fully accepted civilians, and described limited and inconsistent resettlement support. The authors frame the transition as liminal, drawing on van Gennep. The paper documents exit mainly as an administrative handover and does not describe formal discharge ceremonies.
• Substitute structure. The same study found that the Legion's coffee mornings and events gave participants ritualised routine, belonging and a "modified military self". Group settings supplied part of what discharge did not.
• Strong identity, harder exit. Binks and Cambridge interviewed seven former British service personnel. Their 2016 study reported that individuals with a more salient military identity had more difficult transition experiences.
• A phase that may not end. De Reuver and van Meijl argue in Defence Studies in April 2026 that many Dutch veterans experience "permanent liminality": no longer in the military and never ordinary civilians again. This summary draws on the abstract only.
• A ceremony study. The Frontiers in Psychology review of 28 studies (Gettings et al., 2022) includes a 1991 qualitative study by Obenchain and Silver in which Vietnam veterans attended a "Welcoming Home" ceremony. The review reports that it gave veterans a chance to address isolation and alienation through affirmation. It gives no sample size or numerical outcome.

These studies are small, qualitative and from several countries. They support the reading that discharge leaves a gap in meaning and status, and they fall short of showing that a ceremony closes it.

What official transition support covers

Both countries run structured transition support. The published descriptions focus on planning, benefits and employment.

These schemes do real work on jobs and benefits. Their published descriptions list no ceremony or recognition event, so the identity side of leaving receives little structure. Service-leaver pages across CTP and Military OneSource confirm the focus on practical readiness.

How veterans can mark the passage

A veteran does not need to wait for an institution to supply a rite. The research suggests that a group setting with shared routine carried real weight for the Legion members Williams studied. Four routes follow that pattern:

• Join a recurring gathering. A breakfast club or a Royal British Legion branch offers regular company with people who served. In the US, VFW and American Legion posts and Team RWB chapters fill the same role.
• Take a role. Volunteer teams such as RE:ACT in the UK and Team Rubicon in the US give a defined task and a team identity.
• Choose a marker. Pick a date and a small event, such as a meal with people who knew you in service, to name the end of one status and the start of another.
• Tell people your new status. Incorporation needs witnesses. Say to family, colleagues or a veteran group what you now do and what you want recognised.

The first two routes rest on the evidence above. The last two are practical suggestions drawn from van Gennep's framework and have no trial behind them.

Limits of the framework

Van Gennep wrote a descriptive account of ritual across societies. Researchers use it as a lens for veteran transition, and no trial has tested whether adding a ceremony changes outcomes such as employment, wellbeing or loneliness. The statement that discharge skips the second and third stages is an interpretation. It fits the interviews in Williams and colleagues and the abstracts above, and a veteran who received a ceremony, a mentor or a strong unit farewell will describe a different experience. Treat the framework as a way to ask what your own exit lacked.

One designed attempt: the ImmersaCore

Total Veteran built its ImmersaCore, a five-day residential immersive, as the missing middle and closing stages. It has a defined start and end, workshops and themed days, time away from both the old institution and ordinary civilian life, and a closing dinner at which the cohort witnesses participants celebrating their own first steps. The design intent is to supply a liminal threshold and a moment of reincorporation alongside the checklist support above. This article reports no outcome data for it.