In 2008 I decided to stay in the Navy.

My reasons were both emotional and rational. The logical side of my brain looked at the global economy in the throes of the financial crisis, I had a new baby, student loans, and an upside-down mortgage—none of which were ideal circumstances for a career shift. The emotional side of my brain concurred. I just didn’t feel my mission was complete. My friend had recently died in a plane crash at the aircraft carrier, casualties in Iraq were up, and my squadronmates were getting sent overseas to Afghanistan. The thought of getting out just didn’t sit well.

On the day decided, I took stock of my goals. I was looking for a job that would provide for my growing family, where I could rise on merit, where I would be part of a team working towards a common goal, and where I would be challenged every day doing something I am good at. I realized that I was describing my job as a Navy pilot. I called my detailer, stayed in, and never looked back.

In the decade since, I’ve been a sounding board and mentor for fellow aviators going through the same heart-wrenching internal debate. I’ve never tried to talk anyone else into staying—but I have tried to retain a winning group of men and women who can reconcile their internal conflicts about service. Sometimes they stayed in but, frankly, more often than not they got out. Most of the people I know who left Naval Service said something like this:

“This is not an easy decision. Honestly, it’s the hardest decision of my life. But it is the right decision for me. For the last four years or so, I’ve been in this cycle. I’ve been stuck in this process. I haven’t been able to live the life I want to live . . . I’ve come to the proverbial fork in the road, and I made a vow to myself that if I ever did again, I’d choose me, in a sense. It’s very difficult; I love this team, I love my teammates . . . and as part of this team, as a member of this team, and because of how I feel, I know that I am unable to pour my heart and soul into this position, which would not only sell myself short but the team in the end as well.”

And with that, they take off their flight suits and leave active duty.

That quotation, of course, isn’t from a service member. Those words were from former Colts quarterback Andrew Luck, plagued by injury and stuck in an “unceasing and unrelenting cycle of injury, pain, rehab, injury, pain, rehab.” He retired from the NFL at the ripe old age of 29.

Strangely, what made me think of his early retirement wasn’t the pregame Super Bowl hype from Miami. It was a plane crash in the Australian outback.

Last week I learned that three fire fighters had died in Australia. It is the kind of sad news that in the age of information saturation crosses my desk or pops up on my phone at a rate too quick to process. I remember hearing the news but not breaking the stride of my normal day.

Hours later my cellphone had enough missed calls to let me know that something bad had happened. The word was spreading that my friend and U.S. Naval Academy classmate Paul “PC” Hudson was the copilot of the crashed firefighting C-130. He was a great guy, a proud Texan, big personality with a warrior spirit. He was a rugby player, a good beer drinker, and a better friend.

I thought maybe it was a mistake. I was wrong.

“PC” had recently retired from the Marine Corps. He had a full pension, two master’s degrees, and a whole world of opportunity. But knowing him it doesn’t surprise me that he wound up fighting fires in Australia. For the man I knew, that sounds about right.

I’m sure that throughout his career “PC” also wrestled with whether to stay in or get out. He was too smart not to do the math and too good a person to not think of the ones he loved. But for some reason the time was never right. Even after hanging up his Marine uniform he still had work left to do. He was a fighter, and fighters go out and find themselves a hard fight. Unfortunately, sometimes they lose.

Soon, the football world will turn their attention to two veteran quarterbacks. Tom Brady and Drew Brees, age 42 and 41 respectively, are at the end of their contracts. Neither has announced their retirement and both could find themselves as free agents. I will be shocked to see either of them leave their teams and don a different uniform but maybe I shouldn’t be surprised. They both strike me as the kind of men who will continue the fight until someone else tells them they are done.

There is an irony to this NFL season that began with a 29-year-old pro-bowler retiring and will end with two 40-something future hall of famers looking for work.

The story of Andrew Luck to me isn’t being soft. It is a reminder that even dream jobs are hard; hard on your body, your mind, your family. Eventually, everyone starts to break. The people who recognize that day and walk away should be applauded. Andrew Luck won’t get his jersey in the rafters but he shouldn’t have to leave the field to boos.

On Super Bowl Sunday there will be 338,114 people on active duty in the Navy. That is almost exactly one-tenth of 1 percent of the population. Not everyone deserves a parade and a pension, but all deserve our appreciation whether they get out on the first day they can or have to be escorted to the door kicking and screaming.

I have no hard feelings for anyone that gets out of the military. I’ve been close myself, and am close to having to make the decision again. But, watching the Super Bowl this weekend I’ll think of my friend who took off the uniform and became a free agent to keep playing for a different team.

I am sad he’s gone, and conflicted over his death. A mutual friend described it as “A good death, at the wrong time.” I don’t think I believe in “good deaths” but I do take some comfort in knowing he died doing something important and that he was good at, as part of a team that took risks and made sacrifices for a greater good. Clearly that was what he wanted to do, and so I wish he had gotten to do it for another 42 years.

I also think of the Indianapolis Colts players that stuck around. They were long shots with Luck at the helm. Vegas Super Bowl odds put them at 15-1 during the preseason. The day after he retired those odds jumped to 30-1. The Colts rallied to start the season and stayed in the fight. At the end of week five, with Jacoby Brissett at QB, they were 3-2 and coming off a 19-13 victory over the eventual AFC Champion Kansas City Chiefs. Things fell off from there. They just didn’t have the right pieces to make it all the way. That’s football.

It’s not the Navy, though. Today, there are four carriers at sea getting ready for their own Super Bowls. The goal of the Navy team is to be so procedurally sound that any combination of players can plug in and win the game. Over the last decade some of our stars, like Luck, have moved on and out, and some of our veteran legends have stuck around. Not everyone agrees, but I—and, I think, those that leave the service either because they think it’s time or because others tell them it’s time—have no doubt that if called upon, we still have enough good players on the field for the big game.