Do you think winning Powerball means you can cash out and walk straight into retirement? It’s a rumor that pops up every time the jackpot hits the stratosphere, usually passed around formations like a half-remembered safety brief.
The truth is a little less Ritchie Rich and a lot more paperwork.
Myth #1: You get an automatic discharge.
This one is the barracks lawyers’ favorite, and the most wrong. There’s no clause in your military contract that causes it to magically burst into flames when you hit a jackpot like you’re at Hogwarts. The military certainly won’t let you go easily, even when you get that bag.
The Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines don’t care if you’ve got $500 or $500 million; you belong to the U.S. Military, and enlistment still runs until it doesn’t. Relax, that doesn’t mean you’re trapped forever. A service member can request a voluntary separation, and in some cases, the chain of command might approve it. But it isn’t automatic, and it isn’t guaranteed.
Winning Powerball won’t have your CO handing you an out-processing checklist the next morning. If you’re in an essential job function, you’re probably stuck in an essential job function until your enlistment ends.
Myth #2: A Coast Guardsman and a sailor were instantly discharged after winning.
This one’s a Frankenstein of a rumor and a bad one at that; the best in bedtime barracks storytelling. The supposed Coast Guard winner in 2016 was a 29-year-old instructor at the Coast Guard Academy. Then-Lt. Andrew Norberg’s $1 million jackpot was real, but it appears he stayed at his job—just another bit of smoke pit fiction that’s been recycled enough to sound real.
According to legend, Navy sailor Lela Ann Pate won a substantial amount of money in Texas back in 2004, but not a single reputable outlet covered this supposedly monumental moment. A factual example (and the most recent one) is the U.S. Army’s Jared Lehman, who played a local lottery just after moving to Pennsylvania and hit for over a million dollars in June 2025. The 25-year veteran made no statement about leaving the Army service; he only wanted to ensure his family and community are taken care of.
What’s clear is that winning doesn’t automatically separate anyone from service. At best, a troop can request a voluntary separation (or steal their sergeant’s iPhone), but the jackpot itself doesn’t hand you a DD-214.
Myth #3: High-ranking officers need secretary-level approval to leave the military.
Needing secretary-level approval to leave the military after winning the lottery sounds like something a salty staff sergeant might say to you through his fifth Marlboro Red, just to shut down smoke-area daydreaming.
Here’s the deal: there’s no secret chain-of-command blockade for generals or colonels who want out after winning the jackpot. Like everyone else, senior officers can resign or request early retirement. For most, it’s handled through normal branch channels, not wrapped up in Pentagon-level red tape.
That said, there are special rules for officers retiring in the highest grades. If a general or admiral wants to retire in their final rank, the Secretary of Defense must certify that they served satisfactorily in grade, especially for 3- and 4-star postings. This isn’t some lottery-triggered free-for-all; it’s a standard personnel control tied to retirement grade, part of broader, longstanding military personnel management law.
So no, the SecDef (or SecWar) isn’t personally signing off on exits, probably, only on declining eligibility for retirement at that final star rank. Sure, the higher you go, the more persuasion might come into play because losing a commander is a fairly big deal, but at the end of the day, no regulation says the Pentagon gets to veto the general’s yacht-buying dreams.
