Selil posted: I have considered it though in the career pathway as an obstruction.
I never perceived the possible opportunities that crossed my path as obstacles to my academic career, but then I am a poli scientist, not a technologist, so our situations are different. Gov’t work and clearances obviously has not hurt John or Rex’s careers, but by the same token you clearly see career issues given your line of research.

Instead one of my abiding issues is that I prefer to be able to pursue research questions that I find interesting rather than doing work/research to answer questions/issues that others set for their own purposes, so those possible opportunities involving doing gov’t work direct or via consulting never appealed to me however much better paid than academia. Working in a military academic environment, of course, one retains academic freedom but for any number of reasons these particular opportunities either did not pan out or did not appeal to me at the particular time.