A Brochure Changed Everything: From JAG Courtroom Battles to Page‑Turning Political Thrillers

Join us as we get to know Army veteran, former JAG officer, civil affairs officer, and political thriller author Francine Ehrenberg. Francine shares how a random brochure in a law firm desk drawer rerouted her from a bored real estate attorney to Army JAG. She opens up about the shock of coming home to “too much” comfort after living on MREs and unexploded ordnance, why she keeps serving through American Legion and Boys State, and how decades in criminal law and military justice fueled her second act as a novelist. Her story is a reminder that your path doesn’t have to be linear, humor is a survival skill, and you’re never as alone in transition as you may feel.

Chapters

• 01:19 – Introducing an Army JAG, Civil Affairs Officer, and Author
• 02:16 – The Desk Drawer Brochure That Changed Everything
• 05:05 – From Active Duty JAG to Civilian Prosecutor and Army Reservist
• 06:35 – Humanitarian Missions in Albania
• 09:18 – Reverse Culture Shock: Coming Home Overwhelmed
• 11:22 – Serving After Service with American Legion and Boys State
• 15:00 – A New Mission: From Courtroom to Creative Writing
• 19:19 – Transition Advice: You’re Not Alone, Reach Out, Stay Open

Key Takeaways

• One Brochure Can Change Everything: Francine didn’t grow up around the military and was bored stiff in real estate law—until she opened a drawer, found an Army JAG Corps brochure, and discovered a path that matched her desire for meaningful, high‑stakes work. Be open to opportunities that don’t look “planned.”
• Reverse Culture Shock Is Real: Coming home after deployment from harsh conditions to a comfortable bed, full grocery stores, and constant connectivity can feel overwhelming and even guilt‑inducing. If your transition feels “off” or “too much,” you’re not broken—you’re recalibrating.
• Service Doesn’t Stop at ETS or Retirement: Through the American Legion and the Boys State program, Francine continues to mentor rising high‑school seniors, teach criminal justice, and expose them to public service and the legal system. There are countless ways to keep serving and stay connected after you take off the uniform.
• Your Skills Translate More Than You Think: Years of JAG, prosecution, and financial crimes work translated into rich storylines for political thrillers filled with courtroom scenes, money laundering, and high‑stakes investigations. Your experiences (good, bad, and bizarre) can fuel a powerful second act.
• Humor Is a Survival Tool, Not a Cop‑Out: Francine’s mantra—“you can either laugh or you can cry”—isn’t about minimizing hardship; it’s about staying human in the middle of it and giving yourself space to move forward.

Follow us for more real veteran stories to guide your transition, and share this episode with someone who feels overwhelmed by coming home. They may just need to hear they’re not alone and it’s okay to laugh through the hard parts.

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Have feedback or questions for us? Email us at ashleyjones.creative@gmail.com.

Transcript

Francine Ehrenberg 00:00
Have a sense of humor, even through the worst of times, because you can either laugh or you can cry sometimes. And I suggest laughing and find peace even with your new transition, and enjoy the transition and learning new things and discovering even new things about yourself, and turning to and leaning on the people around you.

Kathleen Smith 00:24
Welcome to Exit Buddy: Veteran Stories to Guide You. This podcast shines a light on real struggles and triumphs of veterans navigating life after the military.

Rachel Bozeman 00:34
In each episode, we dive into heartfelt stories of resilience, setbacks, a little humor, and growth as veterans transition and find new purpose in civilian life. And here for the journey, we're your hosts. I'm Rachel.

Kathleen Smith 00:47
And I'm Kathleen. If you're looking for inspiration, practical advice, or just a reminder that you're not alone in your transition, Exit Buddy is here to help you thrive beyond the uniform. Enjoy today's story from our next honorary Exit Buddy. This is Kathleen, and welcome to another episode, Rachel. How are you doing today? Things have finally warmed up in this month of May.

Rachel Bozeman 01:10
May is the best month around. Not saying it's somebody's birthday month, but just saying. I'm doing great, Kathleen.

Kathleen Smith 01:19
And it's also Military Appreciation Month, so we love the month of May. So today, we're excited to welcome Francine Posner Ehrenberg, an Army veteran and former JAG officer and a civil affairs officer who has an incredible story about accidentally finding the military and discovering a creative voice through service. Welcome to the show, Francine.

Francine Ehrenberg
Thank you so much. I'm excited to be here and talk to you guys and your listeners.

Rachel Bozeman 01:50
It is absolutely a pleasure. So we like to start with something very simple. We just like to understand a little bit of your origin story and how you ended up in all of the great roles that you've had. Tell us a little about why you decided to join the military, maybe some twists and turns that occurred throughout your career, and how you ended up at the JAG Corps and where you're at now.

Francine Ehrenberg 02:14
Sure. That's a loaded question, isn't it? That's a lot of stuff. So I had never known anyone in the military. I grew up in New Jersey and had not met or known anyone who had served, or even knew on my own really anything about the military. So I graduated from college, went to law school, and then after law school I was working at a real estate law firm and I was bored out of my mind. That type of law was just mind-numbing to me and I didn't really love it. I kind of always wanted to do criminal law. So the lawyer that I was working for, I asked him if it was okay if I could, in my spare time, also take on some work with the public defender's office as a pool attorney, where they pull out these little individual cases to attorneys if they have a conflict and can't take the case themselves. So he said, "Yeah, absolutely." In my desk, in the bottom drawer, I have an application you can fill out for the public defender's office. So go ahead and find that and fill it out. So I go to his office, go into his desk, and I'm looking around trying to find this application to be a pool attorney. And I don't find that, but instead I find an application for this thing I'd never heard of called the Army JAG Corps. And I'm looking through this brochure and it showed me that you could be an attorney and also be an officer in the Army. And I just was like, "Oh my God, that sounds..." I had no idea that was available. That sounded so exciting to me. I had never even been out of New Jersey except for maybe New York. But I mean, I had not traveled and not done anything like that in my life. And so I filled out the application and was accepted into the JAG Corps. Two funny aspects to it. One is that when I eventually told the lawyer that I'm going to be leaving the firm because I'm going into the Army JAG Corps, he's like, "I don't understand. What is that? I never heard of that." And I'm like, "I got that from your desk." And he said he had absolutely no idea what I was talking about. So it was kind of like, "Wow, maybe that was meant to be." And then the other odd aspect of it is my father had left when I was two months old, and I didn't know this, but after I joined the military, I found out that he had served also in the Army as well, not in the JAG Corps, but in the Army. And I just thought that was so strange.

Rachel Bozeman 05:05
Love it. What a fun story, where it just kind of twists and turns and what appeared in a desk and didn't even know, and yeah, you are there. So let's talk a little about now and kind of the civil affairs, the work you're doing in civil affairs. And really, how did you get involved in that activity, in that work?

Francine Ehrenberg 05:22
Well, initially when I was in the Army, I was active duty for the first three years. I served a total of 12 and a half years. So I started as a first lieutenant just doing JAG work. And I tried a lot of cases in court, court martial cases, all criminal. And I loved it. I mean, it was just the most exciting, wonderful thing as a defense attorney for the Army's Trial Defense Service. Eventually, I was hired back in New Jersey to become a prosecutor at the Bergen County Prosecutor's Office. And so I decided I would stay in the Army, but as a reservist. At that time, I think I was a captain. Eventually I became a major. But someone, I don't even know who it was anymore, said, "Oh, you should look into being a JAG attorney in a civil affairs unit." So when I came back, eventually that's what I did. I joined a civil affairs unit. I was the only lawyer in the unit. I trained, took the Civil Affairs advanced course and trained at the JFK Special Warfare Center and School at Fort Bragg in North Carolina. And civil affairs, I loved it. I think it's the most rewarding career in the Army. So what we did was essentially humanitarian assistance and disaster relief. We would travel to foreign countries. In one example, I traveled to Albania, and I was the liaison between the civil authorities of that country, the police and mayors and different people in the country and the military authorities.

Kathleen Smith 07:13
Very cool. This is a real interesting aspect of military life that I didn't even know about. So thank you for sharing your story, Francine. So talking about these deployments and then adjusting to civilian life, you had a very interesting role when you were on the deployments because you were sometimes the only woman serving, and in many of the countries it was dangerous and unknown. And what was that like? What was that isolation maybe like? Maybe those challenges. And then how did that prepare or not prepare you for coming back to civilian life?

Francine Ehrenberg 07:52
The difficulty of the deployment varied by where I was sent, but to me the hardest one for me personally was in Albania. I was the only female and we were on this kind of overcrowded base camp. There were, I don't know, hundreds of soldiers and officers there from various countries, from actually six: United States, Romania, Bulgaria, Italy, Greece. I can't even remember what the other countries were, but there were six countries that were there. And I was the only female. And the challenges were not just being the only female, but also just serving with all these other countries, many of whom did not speak English, and I didn't speak their language necessarily. And having to deal with coordinating activities with all these different military as well as the civilians. And all of that was very challenging at times. You know, it's very stark, harsh conditions. There's unexploded ordnance all over the place. It was dangerous at the time, and we were building a road that went from Albania to Kosovo. And at the same time, we'd taken on sort of a side project where we were helping to try to rebuild some schools, because the schools there didn't even have running water. So another challenging aspect to it was coming back home after the deployment, because it's kind of hard to describe, but everything sort of felt a little overwhelming coming back home. Because in Albania, the conditions were so horrible and dangerous, and we had so little. And we're eating just what they call MREs, meals ready to eat. So coming back home, there was everything in existence now. I mean, even sleeping in a comfortable bed felt so over the top and decadent. And eating foods and being able to food shop and all the things that we always take for granted was such an overwhelming thing. Like it was too much. Having a television, listening, and being able to talk to my family. Even in Albania, we didn't have access to phones and things like that, so I wasn't able to keep in touch and talk to my co-workers and friends and family. And coming back, it just felt really strange and overwhelming, is how I would describe it.

Kathleen Smith 10:40
I can sympathize with that. During my younger education days, I did spend some time in third world countries, and I remember coming back. I slept on the floor. I just, it felt guilt. I felt guilty having a bed.

Francine Ehrenberg 10:56
Exactly.

Kathleen Smith 10:56
I remember not eating for several days. It was just my mind could not wrap around having worked so hard in one area and then coming back and having so much.

Francine Ehrenberg 11:10
That is exactly the feeling as I would describe it, yes. And it was a big adjustment.

Kathleen Smith 11:16
Yeah, I'm sure that many people in the audience have gone through similar things. Thank you. Thank you for that.

Rachel Bozeman 11:22
It sounds like that's continued to kind of be part of who you are, your DNA and your culture, and who you are about giving back and really that kind of humanitarian approach. And so I want to pivot just a little bit and talk about maybe some of the work that you're doing here stateside and working with the Boys State program. So can you tell us, what is the Boys State program, and really what is your involvement there, and just some of the goodness that exists in the program?

Francine Ehrenberg 11:47
Oh, absolutely. So after I retired, I decided that I wanted to stay active in volunteering. And so I joined an American Legion Post in a town nearby where I live, and they're all over the country. So if there's any listeners that you're done with the military but you still want to sort of surround yourself with people who understand, who have served, and have sort of that like-minded desire to continue to serve in some capacity, the American Legion was a wonderful way to do that. And eventually I became the vice commander of the post. And by doing that, one of the other legionnaires, a gentleman who has since passed, he told me about this Boys State program. And he said, "You should come to it." And Boys State is another program that is all over the country. Each state has its own Boys State program. So I worked for the American Legion New Jersey Boys State program. And I went down for just a day at first and observed what they do there with the boys. And I just fell in love with the program, just even from the one day that I was there. And he encouraged me to come back and volunteer for the full week of the program the next year. And I got involved with it and fell in love with the program. It's a program that is available to boys who are rising seniors in high school. And the way the program operates is it's just so amazing. It gives them a little taste of military life, but it also teaches them about politics, about elections, about how voting happens, how candidates are elected, and things along those lines. And so I've volunteered there for five years. I've met so many wonderful young men across the state of New Jersey who are so impressive and that ultimately go on even to serve in the military. Both of my own sons actually went through the Boys State program, and one is now in his last year as a cadet at West Point, and the other one is in the ROTC program and a freshman at Cornell University. And at Boys State I would teach a criminal justice class. I love doing that, teaching about that, even talking about the military and the JAG Corps and what I did there. And also I would bring groups of boys to the local courthouse, and they would meet the judge and observe some court proceedings. And they would tour even the police station and get to see the drug dogs and talk to police officers. So it's just a wonderful program. If families out there that are your listeners hear this and they have a boy who's a rising senior in high school, I can't recommend the program more highly. It is wonderful.

Kathleen Smith 15:00
Well, it's also interesting. Pretty much every veteran that we have spoken to on the show has found some way to give back. And it is something that I think is just so inspirational to everyone, that not only do we take our experiences, but we share them. But I also, another thing that we have noticed about all the guests, which you would have as well, Francine, is you've been able to expand your creative side. And you've written two novels. Tell us a little bit more about that.

Francine Ehrenberg 15:32
Absolutely. Writing is now my passion in life, and I just loved it. And the way that I came about that is my aunt, Adrian Mancha, was the curator of films for like 30 years at the Museum of Modern Art New York, and then she subsequently became the curator at BAM, the Brooklyn Academy of Music. At 95 years old, a few years back, she passed away. But she was my inspiration, and she always loved when I would write. And I used to just write as a child, little poems and stuff, and she would type them up on her typewriter back in the day. And to me, to have that piece of paper with something that I wrote that was typed felt like this big honor. Like today everybody types and we have computers and everything, but back then having something typed was a big deal. And so she was my sort of muse that encouraged me to write. And after she passed, I don't know where I really got the idea, but I just felt called to write a novel. And my experience mostly, as you know, is with regard to criminal law. When I was in the prosecutor's office, I also eventually became a Deputy Attorney General and the supervising Deputy Attorney General in charge, the deputy bureau chief of the Financial and Computer Crimes Bureau at the Attorney General's Office. And so I used that experience with learning about money laundering and just all kinds of crimes, and I put that into my book. And so I based a story around crime and money laundering and politics even, like some of the things that I'd learned from Boys State. I decided to write sort of a political thriller. And the first one has done really well. It's called America's Candidate, and I've just completed the second one, the sequel to it, and that's called A Dangerous Screw Loose. And it's a very fun, twisty suspense thriller novel, again, that takes some of my own personal experience and my involvement in prosecuting crimes. And there's courtroom scenes within this book, and there's just so many elements that are based fictionally but have some element of things that I've seen or I've done throughout the course of my life. And I just love it.

Rachel Bozeman 18:14
Well, I'm excited to check it out. I'm over here already looking on Amazon. We are excited out here.

Kathleen Smith 18:23
There are a lot of really good reviews on Amazon for your book.

Francine Ehrenberg 18:26
Thank you. Thank you. And I've enjoyed this. I enjoy all the time discussing the book and meeting people through that aspect, through being a writer now. People I wouldn't have met if I had only ever done just practicing law and serving in the military. And this is a new way to now connect with all new people. And it's a lot of fun.

Rachel Bozeman 18:49
Well, you've had such a fun story and such a fun journey. I love how you found a brochure and it turned out to go change the whole trajectory. And so one more piece of kindness that I'm hoping you'll bestow upon us is, is there any other advice that you would give to some of our listeners and those transitioning, just so that they can be set up for that most success? We've talked about some of the difficult, the ugly parts of coming back from deployment, but any other advice or any other sentiments, thoughts, suggestions that you might have for our friends out there?

Francine Ehrenberg 19:19
I would just say that when you're transitioning, there is probably a time that you do feel sort of alone and moving on to something different, unexpected, scary even at times. And I would just want people to realize and understand that you're never alone. Anyone who served has gone through what you're going through. And you should reach out to those people and connections because they'll absolutely understand what you're going through. And you never know where good advice will come from, where somebody will say something that really resonates with you, or somebody has a new opportunity that they want to talk to you about. And I would just say keep yourself open to those types of things. And even have a sense of humor, even through the worst of times, because you can either laugh or you can cry sometimes. And I suggest laughing and find peace even with your new transition, and enjoy the transition and learning new things and discovering even new things about yourself, and turning to and leaning on the people around you because they've been through it. They understand, and they want to help. They love to help. And I think all of those things are really important to keep in mind.

Kathleen Smith 20:42
Well, that's another reason why we started Exit Buddy. And that's why every single one of our guests, we do a newsletter. It's posted on LinkedIn, and all of our guests have been very welcoming that you can connect with them on LinkedIn, you can connect with other people who are listeners and followers. Thank you, Francine, for sharing your story with us. Thanks for joining us today. All the best of luck with your second novel.

Francine Ehrenberg 21:06
Thank you so much. It's been a pleasure. Thank you.

Kathleen Smith 21:11
I really loved talking with Francine today because she had a very interesting attorney story. We've had some really phenomenal attorneys on here, but how she found her career, how she gave back through her humanitarian efforts, but I think also really talking about how strange it was coming back from deployment. We've had several guests who've gone on deployment, but they've not really talked about how difficult it is when you come back, how strange it felt. And I really loved her advice on laugh and reach out and don't feel alone. How about you, Rachel? What did you like about our time with Francine?

Rachel Bozeman 21:51
There was so much, and I would ditto all of that. But I also just loved the serendipitous — I'm making up my own words today, Kathleen — of it. You know, finding a brochure that nobody knew existed that kind of opened eyes, and then how it tied back into her family story. And I just love that, just kind of embracing every opportunity that comes across your desk or your boss's desk. We would love for you to follow all of the episodes and subscribe to the LinkedIn newsletter so that you can hear more stories. Till next time, see you later, Exit Buddies. Bye.