Retirony



"Financial planner: It doesn't look like you've been saving anything for the future! Wiggum: Well, you know how it is with cops. I'll be shot three days before retirement. In the business, we call it retirony. Planner: Well, what if you don't get shot? Wiggum: What a terrible thing to say! Oh, look! You made my wife cry!"

- The Simpsons

Retirony is a portmanteau of retirement and Irony, though how much of the latter it has is up for debate. Retirony is a way to make the audience feel sorry for a character's death without having to actually give him more than ten minutes of screen time. Anybody in a dangerous job who's only a few days away from retirement or flying one last mission before going home to marry their childhood sweetheart is absolutely doomed to death by Retirony, whether that takes the form of a cold-blooded criminal, an ace German fighter pilot or a great big robotic monster.

Just alluding to the existence of a character's family or showing a photo of them is enough for the audience to get the idea: the guy has a life outside of being a Red Shirt.

In the rare case that an exception is made, it is usually because the character is "going home to" a child, especially one his wife gave birth to after he shipped out—perhaps Infant Immortality has a proxy effect? If enough of this happens, they essentially get "promoted" up to Mauve Shirt, or leave for good, alive.

Retirony is rarely played straight anymore, since it has become such a well known and joked about trope.

See also Tempting Fate, Fatal Family Photo, If We Get Through This, Nothing Can Stop Us Now and Nothing Can Save Us Now.

Related to Yank the Dog's Chain. Contrast Crusading Widower, where the one to die is the cop's family.

Anime and Manga

 * Subverted in Last Exile: a soldier mentions that he only needs two more battle survival medals to retire, right before a hopeless battle in which it's clear that everyone is going to die. The battle is then cancelled, and the soldier survives. Subverted even more when
 * Death Note, episode 5: FBI agent Ray Penbar is talking to his fiancée about the family they're going to have, right before Light takes control of him and kills him. Though, in this case, the fact that he ignored his former FBI agent fiancee's advice and reminded her she wouldn't need to think after they get married undermines the sympathy. The wife on the other hand is definitely sympathetic (though is still subjected to misogyny).
 * In the first episode of Soukou no Strain, the Grabera students are preparing to graduate and become glorious Humongous Mecha pilots just like Sara's brother. Guess who swoops in and kills everyone but Sara.
 * In the second-to-last episode of the first season of Sailor Moon, the girls decide not to say any "just in case" goodbyes before fighting the final battle, instead choosing to think about where their lives will take them afterward. By the end of the episode, all but the title character are dead. On the other hand, they get better.
 * In the Fullmetal Alchemist series, the first important character to die is . A running gag in the series was that . This is also Lampshaded in the manga when is quick to point out that in movies and novels such talks are a surefire way to get the bullet.
 * Sent up (like many cliches) in The Tower of Druaga.
 * In the first episode, as they face the Crimson Knight, Black Knight, poor, faceless armoured Utu completely out of the blue says he will go home and get married "just after they finish the battle with Crimson Knight, Black Knight." This despite having gone through many battles before this, without saying anything. He then charges straight at the Black/Crimson Knight by himself and gets skewered. Then, to show there is no possibility that he could have survived, there's a Say My Name moment (UTUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!!!!) as well as an on-screen text which says "Utu has died".
 * And again, later in the episode, after the earlier-defeated Crimson Knight, Black Knight saves the protagonist because he's The Only One Allowed to Defeat You, the Crimson Knight, Black Knight makes the mistake of saying the exact same thing, and suffers the exact same fate via dragonfire. Finally, in the protagonist's final confrontation with the Big Bad, the Big Bad says it too.
 * It's referenced again in the very last episode of the last season, a sort of lampshading of the previous lampshading. Right before the big final battle, at a point where we could legitimately expect a main character to die in a non-joke scene (this being the final episode, and after some have already died earlier), Utu actually proposes to Fatina.
 * Notably, she turns him down immediately, which is probably directly responsible for the fact that everyone survived that battle. Smart move.
 * The second part of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure has a German soldier named Mark show up, and within two pages of his arrival declare that he and his girlfriend are getting married once he gets leave. Five pages later, he's dead.
 * In an early chapter of 20th Century Boys, a legendary police detective collapses in the street and dies when he is just one week away from retirement (While on his way to his grandson's birthday party, no less). In this case, there is a reason for the timing. He had just passed on a case he had been working on to a trusted colleague. Unfortunately for him, the colleague was actually working for the enemy and decided He Knows Too Much.
 * In Naruto:
 * One person in pretty much the only Official Couple, with a kid on the way.
 * Earlier in the series, Hayate Gekkou. While investigating his death, one of the ANBU mentions the fact that he was engaged... to the woman currently staring at his broken sword. Ouch.
 * The Majin Tantei Nougami Neuro anime has a policeman obsessed with Cop Shows who attempts to invoke this trope on himself through a complicated plot involving killing cops which he frames a criminal for. It doesn't work.
 * Lampshaded and parodied in Kidou Senshi Gundam San. The original TV series and movie have one of Char's comrades killed off during atmospheric entry. In the parody version, just before they launch, the same soldier shows Char a picture of his sweetheart and tells him they're planning to get married once the war is over. Char attempts to stop him, to no avail. Cut to the unfortunate victim plunging to earth, and Char going "I knew it."
 * Subverted in Higurashi no Naku Koro ni, when Ooishi, who is putting off his retirement for one last case, only dies in a few arcs. Also subverted with Akasaka, an almost father: Rika tells Akasaka something terrible will happen if he does not go back to his family. Since the series has many innocent-turned-murderers running around, one would expect Akasaka to be the one to die, but instead his wife does, all the way back in the city. His daughter lives. In other arcs the wife and child both die or are both fine)
 * Tony from Baccano!! probably sets a new record for this: he survives all of thirty seconds after the retirement announcement before one of Russo's lackeys kills him and steals his uniform. This winds up actually being relevant to the plot.
 * The Record of Lodoss War OVA includes a random unnamed soldier of the Holy Kingdom of Valis in the episode "The War of Heroes." At the beginning of the episode Parn notices a pendant on his neck, and the soldier says it was a gift from his son for good luck. At the end of the episode, when the battle is over, amongst the dead the pendant is found on a soldier's corpse, presumably the Red Shirt from the beginning.
 * In Black Cat, Sven's old partner Lloyd is revealed to have died shortly after buying his daughter a present.
 * Mobile Suit Victory Gundam: In the midst of a protracted Zanscare assault on Earth, Zanscare's Lt. Duker Iq proposes to his subordinate, Renda, after learning of her own plans to live peacefully on Earth after the war. True to the form of this trope, both Iq's carrier flagship and Renda's mobile suit are destroyed in the battle that takes place immediately afterwards.
 * A very strange subversion and something of a Tear Jerker in retrospect: Huang's griping during the end of the first season of Darker than Black. He complains about having to schlep people around and says he's going to retire and spend the rest of his life fishing, and shortly afterward Hei somewhat jokingly tells him to quit smoking, since it'll shorten his life. He dies shortly afterward after luring the Syndicate agents following him into a car chase, but it's shown at the last minute that he'd already been shot. He knew he was dying during his talk about retiring, and in all likelihood Hei did as well.
 * Mobile Suit Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory combines Retirony with His Name Is-- to make it blindingly obvious that the character in question is gonna bite it. South Burning opens an episode with his annual physical, where the doctor comments that he should consider retiring soon. Later in the episode Burning muses on getting in touch with his estranged wife after the Zeon remnants are defeated. That's when the His Name Is-- element kicks in...
 * The Galaxy Railways II, episode 10. A plague is accidentally released on a planet. Two people there are going to get married. You can guess what happens.
 * The third episode of Puella Magi Madoka Magica has Mami being happy about having finally made true friends and no longer has to suffer about being a Magical Girl on her own any more, making her talk about having a party with her new friends after they kill the Monster of the Week. Predictably, the monster kills her instead.
 * In Muhyo and Roji's Bureau of Supernatural Investigation, two Arcanum guards, Furuya and Iwamoto are about to get married and leave the Arcanum, which Iwamoto is quite eager to do..
 * Aberline in Black Butler and his fiance were expecting a baby.
 * In Bomberman Jetters, Shirobon's older brother Mighty was becoming increasingly frustrated with his obsession in mastering the Bomberman fighting style as he served the Jetters team. He eventually reached his breaking point when his best friend and partner Birdy was wounded in an earlier mission and Shiro was abducted by Mujoe, and before that had learned of how much Shiro missed him during his time away. The stress of it all eventually drove him to the point that he admitted that was wasn't cut out for this heroic business and pledged to his brother before departing again that the next mission would be his final. Naturally,
 * One episode of Madlax featured an assassin going on one last job before retiring - to kill Carrossea Doon. He fails and is killed by Limelda.
 * Played to the hilt in episode 4 of Katanagatari, where the show goes far, far out of its way to build up viewer sympathy with a ninja mook goes on for several minutes about his plans to go home and get married after this one last mission, only to have one of the protagonists brutally kill him.
 * Happens several times in Monster. In an early episode, Tenma meets a disgruntled journalist whom he eventually becomes friends with. The poor guy tells Tenma about his family that left him, and eventually promises to quit smoking on the doctor's advice. Of course, he never gets the chance.

Comic Books

 * Battlefields: Happy Valley features an experienced Australian Air Force crew running missions over Germany during WW 2, as they're three missions away from finishing their tour, they're joined by an inexperienced pilot. He proves to be an able pilot, but on his third mission, and everyone else's last, he is killed, while everyone else survives and is discharged.
 * In an Ultimate Marvel example, a middle-aged ex-assassin is seen playing with his grandchildren before being called out of retirement to kill Nick Fury. It's a trap and he gets killed.
 * Subverted in Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, in which Commissioner Jim Gordon, mere days away from forced retirement, is accosted by gang members on his way home from work. Via narration, he says that he's thinking of his wife, and... Cut to a newscast, as the newscaster says that Commissioner Gordon was shot dead... before correcting herself and saying that he shot the gang members dead.
 * Sin City. Detective John Hartigan was on his last hour of his last day before retirement, as soon as he rescued skinny little Nancy Callahan. Too bad he lives in Sin City. He ended up being shot in the back by his partner, framed for raping the child he saved from an actual child rapist, then thrown into jail where he was resuscitated so that he could be beaten up some more, and then forced to confess to the accusations.
 * The "Secret Invasion" arc of Black Panther opens with the Skrull villain narrating that after completing this mission to conquer Wakanda, he will have enough money to retire. He dies.
 * There's a scene in Scion where a Raven Red Shirt goes off to fight the Herons after a reference to his wife and daughter has been established. He dies (pretty quickly, too) and the "camera" even lingers on his corpse for awhile as the battle rages on.
 * In the Punisher graphic novel Born, Stevie is down to "thirty-nine days and a wake-up" before he can leave Vietnam behind for good. You can guess what happens to him by the story's end.
 * In the last issue of X-Statix, the team decides to go on one final mission before going their separate ways. None of them survive the mission. Even Dead Girl appears to die for good!
 * Parodied in Nextwave, where we open up one issue meeting Officer Mangel at the start of his last week on the job. Turns out he's a Complete Monster, who takes cuts from drug dealers in the neighbourhood, robs a guy-who's been nearly blinded by other muggers-because they took his wallet but missed his billfold and takes a cut from the local flophouse. By the time something evil burrows into his chest, the reader is happy to see him get his comeuppance.
 * In Mickey Mouse and Friends #303, some of the cop cars get broken after a run in with Mickey's new spy-car that had only a day until retirement.

Film
"Chad (as Darth Vader): Alright, we Needa new captain. Heh heh. Are any of you three days from retirement?"
 * Subverted in Memphis Belle. The entire crew is on their last mission. They make it back in one piece.
 * Finding instances of this trope in war films is the subject of the game "Spot the Stiff", explained in this Punt and Dennis sketch.
 * Parodied in Last Action Hero, a cop mortally wounded in an explosion (which of course leaves the Made of Iron Action Hero untouched) gasps out with his last breath that he was "two days before retirement". The Genre Savvy main character (the boy, that is) sees this coming from a mile away, and calls it as the smoke fades.
 * In the movie Sin City, John Hartigan is framed for the abduction of the girl he actually saved on the last day before his (forced) retirement, for which he spends eight years in prison. And then he dies.
 * He does manage to.
 * Detective Jerry Black is all set to retire, before he makes... The Pledge. He doesn't die, technically speaking, but it is still a tragedy.
 * In We Were Soldiers, a soldier gleefully announces that his wife is due to give birth that day. Shortly thereafter, he is mortally wounded by napalm.
 * When the older flight attendant in Snakes on a Plane says that she decided to make one last flight before retirement, you know she's a goner. It's averted with the other female flight attendant, though. It's her last flight before leaving to study law. However, the combined force of the two having their "one last flight" at the same time is probably what really unleashed thousands of snakes on the plane.
 * Similarly, in the film Executive Decision, one of the flight attendants can't stop gushing about her recent engagement/wedding, while the rest of the crew congratulates her. Guess who dies first when the hijackers take over the plane?
 * Against all odds, the exception comes through for SFC. Troy Barlow in the film Three Kings. During his little adventure in post-Gulf War Iraq, Barlow is shot (while wearing a kevlar vest), exposed to tear gas, captured by Iraqis, brutally tortured, shot again (sans the vest), and still survives to go home to his wife and daughter (who are brought up frequently). As for his Southern-accented friend who, self-admittedly, has no family to go home to? Not so fortunate.
 * Taken to ridiculous heights to lampoon the idea in Hot Shots. One character, appropriately named "Dead Meat" Thompson receives a visit from his wife as he's preparing to fly a training mission, and what follows is an enormous list of things he has to live for, including his beautiful wife, that he's carrying his (unsigned) life insurance papers with him, and that he's figured out the real culprits in the Kennedy assassination but hasn't told anyone and has the evidence on him.
 * In Falling Down, Prendergast, the cop who is investigating Bill Foster's violent breakdown is retiring that very day (and the other detectives joke that he's bound to killed today)
 * Perhaps he changed his mind about retirement before the midway point of the film, bypassing the trope's effect?
 * In the Live Action Spawn movie, Al Simmons goes on one last mission before retiring with his wife to start a family. Take a wild guess what happens to him.
 * In the 1986 movie Aliens, after the initial battle with the titular creatures goes to hell in a handbasket and it becomes clear to the survivors that they are trapped without assistance, PFC Hudson (played by Bill Paxton) rants "Aww man, I was getting short, too, four more weeks and out, now I'm gonna buy it on this rock!"
 * In Letters From Iwo Jima, the one named Japanese soldier who survives is the one who was forced to leave his pregnant wife behind when he was called up and has never seen his daughter.
 * Subverted in Se7en, in which one of a pair of police partners is set to retire within the next few weeks and is on his last case, but the other guy...well, doesn't die.
 * In Fort Apache (John Ford's 1948 film, loosely based on Custer's Last Stand), Captain Sam Collingwood is trying to get moved from Fort Apache to an instructing position at West Point. When his wife finally gets the letter saying that his transfer went through, he is riding off with the regiment to confront the Apaches. Someone tells her to go, to run and tell him that he should come back, but she says "Sam isn't a coward", and then twists the knife by handing the letter back to the message-boy, saying "Keep it. For the captain's return."
 * Subverted in Lethal Weapon 3. Just before going into a building with a bomb, Sgt. Murtaugh says that he only has 8 days to retirement. He survives the subsequent bomb explosion. Later, his Genre Savvy wife insists that he wear a bulletproof vest at all times for the last six days before he retires. He ends up surviving the film.
 * Probably because he ends up changing his mind about retirement.
 * In Bruges: Harry leaves his loving family near Christmas to hunt down Ray; Ray has struck up a beautiful romance with a beautiful Belgian drug dealer. Their numbers are up, safe to say.
 * Drugstore Cowboy. Bob is killed just as he was getting over his drug addiction and going clean.
 * The end of Carlitos Way. Carlito is on his way to escaping his life of crime for good when he's killed over an earlier slight. Shamelessly ripped off by Layer Cake...
 * At the end of Layer Cake, the character decides to leave the drug business with a nice nest egg only to get shot by his new girlfriend's jealous ex. Whether or not he survives in the film is open to interpretation.
 * The Sting. Con artist Luther Coleman and his apprentice Johnny Hooker pull off a big score. Later we see Luther's wife and children, and he tells Hooker that he's going to use his share of the money to retire. That very night he's thrown out of a window to his death by thugs—because of the scam that provided the money to retire on.
 * In The Hunt for Red October, the instant the Russian sub officer says he plans to live in Montana, marry an American woman, and raise rabbits once they defect, it's only a question of how he's going to die.
 * I'm Gonna Git You Sucka: Two extras (a man and a woman) are talking, with the man holding the woman's hands. A minor villain opens fire with a machine gun, killing the man. Later the woman pulls a box (with a ring inside) out of his pocket and puts the ring on her finger, saying "I waited 12 years for this!". He had been proposing marriage to her: the ring was an engagement ring.
 * The Riff Trax for The Empire Strikes Back, which has Chad Vader as a guest riffer, has Chad joking about Darth Vader's You Have Failed Me... moment with Captain Needa.
 * The Riff Trax for The Empire Strikes Back, which has Chad Vader as a guest riffer, has Chad joking about Darth Vader's You Have Failed Me... moment with Captain Needa.


 * To Live and Die In LA: William Petersen's partner is about to retire but, before he goes, he decides to try and bust a ring of counterfeiters. Bad move. He is shot and thrown into a dumpster for his troubles.
 * Michael Mann's film Public Enemies, turns the death of John Dillinger into one of these.
 * Face Off has an example of retirony where the character retiring doesn't actually die but is about to be put in a bad situation. FBI Agent Sean Archer is about to perform one final task to put an end to the reign of a terrorist (Castor Troy) he had been pursuing for years for killing his son. Once this case was closed he would request a desk job and be away from the action. It doesn't quite work out as planned.
 * The 2009 movie Moon has an original and heart-wrenching subversion to it. Sam Welles has two more weeks of his three-year contract on the Moon until he gets to go home.
 * No Country for Old Men averts this trope with Sheriff Bell, who is close to retirement throughout the movie. In the end, he retires, and is one of only two characters to survive.
 * Eight Below actually had this happen with a dog. Old Jack was introduced in the beginning of the movie as having "just turned ten and getting ready for retirement." Naturally he is one of the two dogs that does not survive.
 * The Cannonball Run plays this in retrospect. J.J. is telling Pamela about all the things his father was going to do when he retired, then adds "He died two days before he was supposed to retire."
 * The remake of The Italian Job has John Bridger mention that the opening heist will be his last. Guess what happens.
 * The guardian of the scroll in the opening of Bulletproof Monk hands over the responsibility, declares that after sixty years he is finally going to take a vacation, and is promptly gunned down by Nazis.
 * German parody movie Neues vom WiXXer had a police officer coming into a room where a gunfight was taking place, announcing that his doctor told him he didn't have cancer after all. Guess what happens to him...
 * Turned on its head in Short Time where the main character is deliberately trying to get himself killed while a few days from retirement: mixed up physical results have caused him to believe he is terminally ill and he's trying to die in the line of duty so that his family can get the police insurance money.
 * In Brooklyn's Finest, Officer Eddie Dugan has only two weeks till retirement. Subverted, as he survives, just barely.
 * In the theatrical version. When the film originally premiered at Sundance, Eddie killed himself in the last scene of the film: he shot himself through the mouth while on a boat fishing, but the ending was already depressing enough with out it. His death scene is a deleted scene on the DVD.
 * Subverted in Star Trek VI, where all of the crew are on their last mission, due to retire in a matter of months. None of them die.
 * Spoofed like so much else in Black Dynamite, where upon entering Fiendish Dr. Wu's headquarters one character starts talking, for no apparent reason, about how this is his last day in the posse and how he's going to start a family. He's then immediately impaled by a spear. The trope is then lampshaded when Black Dynamite 'flubs' his line by saying, "Who saw that comi- Who saw where that came from?"
 * Red Tails features Lightning, the only main character to die in the film who is shot down just days before he's going to marry his fiancee.
 * In Exiled, Sergeant Shan keeps on ignoring mobster activity while he can, and when he finds himself getting the tiniest chance of coming close to getting even tangentially involved in mobster activity, phones up their boss and pleads that he only has a few days left before he retired.
 *  The Sender sees the main character's father get killed right before the end of his tour of duty. He got better
 * Paris in Pitch Black, to the extent that he was "supposed to die in France".
 * The Cop in Faster was only a few weeks away from retirement with full benefits before the main character killed him.
 * Subverted in Cellular. The cop Mooney was on his last day on job, but he managed to survive through the end of the film.
 * One of the guards at the checkpoint outside the villa raided by The Dirty Dozen comments that he's going on leave in another week or so. He and his compatriot are the first casualties.
 * Big Tits Zombie features a stripper days away from retiring, only to turn into a zombie.
 * Lampshaded in Scream 4.
 * At the end of The Guardian, Senior Chief Randall has finally accepted a desk job, but then he gets called out for one more mission...

Literature
"St. John: "Megan, the irony is, I'm a good pilot. I think I can survive another 26 days... But on the twenty-fifth day, the day I'm coming home for good, I'll catch a missile because short-timers are the most vulnerable... I got two words: screw that!""
 * Lampshaded in Tanya Huff's Valor's Choice. One of the squad members is looking lovingly at a picture of his daughter, and another squad member snatches it out of his hands, rips it up and starts ranting about how anyone who starts making references to family or retirement is the next person to die. The first squad member, confused, starts to talk about his upcoming retirement and is summarily gagged.
 * Aral Vorkosigan mentioned at one point that he was going to duck this trope by never retiring. And when last seen was still in active service, as planetary viceroy of Sergyar.
 * Technically, he retired from active service twice (the first time after Escobar, the second time after being medically invalided out from being Prime Minister). He just kept getting un-retired, as both Emperor Ezar and Emperor Gregor kept offering him newer and larger jobs.
 * Sergeant Jack Vincennes from L.A. Confidential manages to more or less fix the mess he's turned his life into, patch up his differences with his wife and is looking forward to retiring in a couple of weeks... so, naturally, he catches a bullet in the face.
 * Matt Howard, the first person to die in the Honor Harrington series: the only thing we're told about him is his name and that he was due to retire from his service in two years.
 * Played with in Feet of Clay: Sergeant Colon makes a lot of noise about how he's six weeks away from retirement and wants to go live in the country and "buy a farm". This being Discworld, he doesn't actually "buy the farm", and after some far too up-close-and-personal experiences with animals, decides he wants nothing to do with rural life after all.
 * Played straight in Jingo, in the scene where an Morporkian patrol surprises Vimes and Ahmed. Ahmed kills a pair of the soldiers before Vimes can clear up the misunderstanding. While disposing of the corpses, their sergeant mentions that one of them had just been showing the squad a picture of the girl he left behind the previous night.
 * In Angels in Iron, it happens before a mission that a Mauve Shirt knows ahead of time is going to be fatal. It does, indeed, kill him.
 * In the novelisation of the Doctor Who story "Spearhead From Space", a policeman who is shot dead by Autons is going to retire the following day.
 * Lampshaded in Descent: Stealing Thunder, when protagonist Ben St. John is shown worrying about this trope:
 * Lampshaded in Descent: Stealing Thunder, when protagonist Ben St. John is shown worrying about this trope:


 * Star Trek: New Frontier, "Missing In Action": A Romulan on a stealth ship desperately wants to get home to his pregnant wife. He dies by being blown out the airlock by Soleta, along with every other Romulan on the ship except the Subcommander, who saw his commander's treachery coming.
 * The novelization of Friday the 13th (film) mentions that the soldier guarding the captive Jason at the beginning only has a few weeks of service left.
 * In the Alex Rider book Scorpia, an elderly assassin in the SCORPIA organization decides to retire from the organization to spend more time with his grandchildren, but not before the Big Bad Julia Rothman gives him a suitcase containing something as a parting gift. When he opens it on the gondola, it turns out to be...full of poisonous scorpions!
 * The narrator of All Quiet on the Western Front dies preceding the Armistice.
 * Admiral Helaw in Death Star. To be fair, his impending retirement wasn't given nearly as much attention as his caution, since he was telling his protege, Admiral Motti, that even the best-laid plans can go awry and Motti mustn't think that even the Death Star couldn't have a fatal flaw.
 * Teased in Sharpe's Waterloo, in which d'Alembord postpones his retirement—and marriage—for the titular battle, and becomes convinced that he's therefore going to die. He loses a leg, but survives.
 * The set-up is inverted in Catch22.  has actually completed all the missions he needs to get sent home to the U.S., but volunteers to fly more because he needs to stay near the Italian girl he has fallen in love with. He is pretty much doomed from the moment he agrees to go on even one more mission.

Live Action TV
"Xander: I’ve been lucky too many times. My number’s coming up. And now we’re short! One more rotation and I’m shipping state-side, you know what I mean?"
 * Col. Henry Blake, from M*A*S*H, was sent home from the Korean War by plane. The rest of the cast later finds out that his plane went down and that there were no survivors. To make the actors' reactions more believable, they had rehearsed the final scene with Radar reading a letter from Col. Blake, but at the last minute the director swapped it with the message about Col. Blake's death.
 * Unfortunately, technical difficulties forced them to reshoot the climactic scene.
 * A subplot of another episode had Father Maculahey learning that a wounded man had switched his dog tags with a friend who just invoked this trope so that he could go home, and trying to figure out what he should do about it.
 * Tour of Duty, which followed a platoon of soldiers fighting the Vietnam War, had an odd tendency of killing off anyone who was 'getting short' (ie: Was about to complete their mandatory one-year Tour and be sent home). Even the main characters weren't always immune to this.
 * Played with when one character was only grievously wounded when he found out he was 'getting short'. In a much later episode, we find out that said character later recovered in hospital, re-enlisted, got promoted, and returned to combat...only to be Killed Off for Real this time.
 * An episode of CSI: Miami, Horatio is talking to Speedle about his bike, saying Speedle might need something with a door one day. Speedle says he has plenty of time for that. Two minutes later, Speedle is dead.
 * Another episode inverts the trope by having a new medical examiner show up, cheerful about starting her first day at work. Seconds later she is shot to death.
 * Thus, making her an example of...(puts on sunglasses)...hirony.
 * YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
 * Done to Gallant in Iraq in ER. The instant he starts to say he has a wife at home he can't wait to get back to,.
 * In Psych, a bounty hunter mentions that the Case of the Week is his last before retirement. Shawn instinctively ducks, then brings up this trope.
 * In a brutal invoking of this trope, a character is brought out of retirement in The Grid and killed shortly after.
 * Played straight in the first season of The West Wing: President Bartlet asks his friend the happily married army doctor about his wife and kids... he's dead by the end of the episode.
 * A variation occurs at the end of season 5:  was called out of retirement to help on a diplomatic mission to Israel and was killed during a car bombing.
 * Inverted with Lister from Red Dwarf. He tells Rimmer about his plan to save up all of his money, take only a few more trips on the ship, and then retire to Fiji with his cat. He is then forced to go into stasis, which means that he survives while everyone else on the ship dies, leaving him stranded in a ship that's been adrift for 3 million years.
 * In Farscape, two bounty hunters gets a quick mention at the start of the episode that this is going to be their last mission. And do they survive it...?
 * It happens again to Chiana's friend in "Home on the Remains"—she strikes it rich, and, of course gets mauled to death before she can collect her riches and retire.
 * Inverted in the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica. Commander Adama is a few days from retirement in the miniseries, and is one of the only humans who doesn't die. He doesn't retire, either.
 * In the second episode of Maou, a friend of the protagonist's details his plans to quit being a loan shark and open up a restaurant. Before the end of the episode, he's died of an asthma attack while being threatened by an angry client who thinks he kidnapped her daughter because she couldn't pay back her loan.
 * Subverted by the Genre Savvy Xander in the season 3 finale of Buffy the Vampire Slayer:

"Waiter: Here, have some wine. This is my last table before I go home and see the wife and [mimics being shot] kkkkghh!"
 * Subverted by the Brigadier in the 1989 Doctor Who serial Battlefield. While the early scenes showing the Brig enjoying a cosy retirement with his wife before answering the call of duty once more are designed to set up a tragic end, he miraculously survives the climatic face off with the Destroyer.
 * Mercilessly Lampshaded in the Doctor Who episode "The Impossible Planet". ("'No turning back'? That's almost as bad as 'nothing can possibly go wrong', or 'It's gonna be the best Christmas Walford's ever had!'")
 * Inverted in Terror of the Vervoids - instead of being killed on his last voyage, Rudge threatens people with a gun and allies with the Vervoids.
 * One Mad TV sketch features a cop one day from retirement and his partner encountering a pair of armed robbers. They exchange shots, and every bullet fired hits the near-retiree. Even the ones fired after the fleeing robbers ricochet back just to hit the retiring cop.
 * This clip from Whose Line Is It Anyway? parodies this trope as used in Saving Private Ryan.

"Tony: You did good. Gibbs: For once, DiNozzo's right Kate: [stands up] Wow, I thought I'd die before I ever heard... [sniper bullet to the forehead]"
 * Played with at Kate's death at the end of NCIS season two.


 * In the pilot episode of Wiseguy, Vinnie's mentor Stan Dermott announces that he will be retiring to Florida after finishing one last investigation. Dave Steelgrave, the target of that investigation, murders Stan.
 * Parodied in a Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode. A very young looking cop is killed in the line of duty and one of the guys quips "And he had only fifty years before he retired."
 * Again in Future War, the heroes kill one dinosaur and the film immediately cuts to another one roaring, prompting Mike to have the dinosaur lament that his dead buddy was just two days from retirement.
 * In the "Stay Focused or Die" episode of Deadliest Catch, the Katmai sinks, and the ten survivors are forced into two life rafts (holding four and six). In the one with the six, one of the crew members stripped to the waist in order to try to close the raft's flap and save everyone's lives. The captain gets choked up as he talks about how the man turned to him, grinned, and said they were gonna see their kids again minutes before being swept overboard.
 * Subverted brutally in Rescue Me. The Chief is rotated out of the firehouse for a desk job. Instead of living and enjoying his income 'til a peaceful end...
 * Played straight and then subverted in The Adventures of Brisco County Jr episode "Bye Bly", where Lord Bowler talks of retiring to become a wine grower in Napa. Needless to say he's shot and killed by Big Bad Bly. So naturally Brisco has to use the Orb to go back in time (again!) to save him.
 * Discussed by Punt And Dennis, in their "Spot the Stiff" sketch.
 * In Japanese drama Shokojo Sera, based on A Little Princess, Seira pleads with her father to not go anywhere dangerous before he left. He promised, but eventually he would come to break that promise as he goes into the mines. That day, there was an accident that cost him his life.
 * In the pilot of 21 Jump Street, Charlie Donagan is six months from retirement and trying very hard to defy this trope. His hot-headed young partner Tom Hanson really isn't helping.
 * Dwight's father, a detective with the MPD, died just days before hanging it up in Memphis Beat. Dwight was never really the same after that incident, and it's implied this is part of the reason he joined the police force in the first place. Dwight recently discovered evidence that, and has since developed even more confused feelings about him and the incident.
 * The first episode of Detroit 187 has both a veteran cop about to retire and fulfill his dream of living in Italy as well as a rookie detective whose wife is about to give birth. Neither can shut up about it and it annoys their partners throughout the episode.
 * Since the show is currently running and He keeps mentioning retirement is only months away...
 * In Star Trek: Voyager, Joe Carey (the engineer who was shuffled aside in favor of B'Elanna Torres) would disappear for episodes - and even entire seasons - at a time, only making appearances in flashback or alternate-reality episodes. In the late-seventh season episode "Friendship One", he shows up again, lamenting that he's one nacelle away from completing a model of Voyager, as well as discussing his family. He is then killed on an away mission by the alien-of-the-week. Interestingly, Carey is the final on-screen casualty from Voyager in the series - the crew makes it back home just a couple episodes later.
 * Brutally inverted in The Bill when Probationary Constable Billy Rowan was stabbed to death in his first episode.
 * Parodied on Thirty Rock's 100th episode, when a gas repairman repeated tells people it's his last day while showing people the picture of the girl he's going to marry. At the end of the episode, he remarks that he made it through his last day, and then realizes he's been shot.
 * Castle does this with Captain Montgomery. Having announced his intention to retire at the end of the 3rd season's next to last episode (an announcement that's waved off by Beckett), he turns out to be a part of the conspiracy that led to Beckett's mother's murder in the 3rd season's last episode. He was only a rookie at the time, and has spent the rest of his career atoning for it, and he's only lying to Beckett to protect his family. He dies killing Hal Lockwood, the man who would kill his family and Beckett, but it's after he was fatally shot by Lockwood.
 * Law and Order 's Claire Kincaid debates leaving the DA's office (and possibly the legal profession altogether) shortly before she's killed in a car accident.
 * Brutally subverted on Law and Order UK (while simultaneously playing Birth-Death Juxtaposition straight). DS Ronnie Brooks gushes to his partner about the birth of his grandson and the possibility of reconciling with his estranged daughter. Minutes later. . .his partner is shot and killed.
 * Played very, very straight on T. J. Hooker whenever a cop is killed. But in a show like this, it's to be expected.
 * On Person of Interest this forms the backstory of one of the "persons of interest". A soldier in Afghanistan finds out that he is going to be a father and shortly afterward switches seats with his best buddy while on a mission. A bomb goes off and kills the soldier which causes the buddy to feel enormous guilt. When the buddy gets home he tries to help the dead soldier's wife and gets involved with some very shady characters.
 * Played straight on Home and Away, when Charlie was shot by Jake on her last day as a cop shortly after making plans to move to Sydney with her daughter and their respective boyfriends. She died in hospital, after her life support was switched off.
 * Though what with her previous three and a half years on the show, this doesn't quite tick all the boxes.
 * An early episode of Star Trek opens with Kirk presiding over the wedding of two ensigns. Just before he can pronounce them man and wife, a red alert sounds, forcing them to abort the ceremony. The rest of the episode deals with the Enterprise battling a Romulan ship. At the end of the episode, Kirk asks if any of the crew were killed. It turns out that everyone on the ship survived -- except the guy who was about to get married.

Music
"And Frankie kicked a mine the day that mankind kicked the moon God help me... he was going home in June."
 * "I Was Only Nineteen" by Redgum, a song about The Vietnam War, contains the line:

"Charlie died at daybreak; he died from a fall. He'll not see his mother when the work's all done this fall."
 * The pilot in Kim Wilde's song "Cambodia" goes missing in action just when his wife is expecting him to return home.
 * The protagonist in Cold Chisel's "When The War Is Over" fears becoming this. He also mentions that if he makes it back alive, he won't be the same man.
 * The Cowboy in Michael Martin Murphey's "When the Work's All Done This Fall" hasn't seen his home "since very long ago" and is planning to return as soon as this cattle-herding season ends.


 * "El Bandito" in "Cross the Brazos at Waco" is planning on giving up the outlaw life to be with his sweetheart. He's caught and shot dead by the posse one stanza after discarding "the guns she hated."

Theater

 * Notably subverted in The History Boys: Hector is being forced to retire early because the headmaster has discovered that he had been groping his students. At the end of the show, he is allowed to come back next year, only to be killed on his way home when his motorbike crashes.
 * In The Rose Tattoo, when Assunta tells Serafina that her husband's job smuggling dope under bananas in his 10-ton truck could lead him to get killed, Serafina protests that tonight is his last run for the Brothers Romano and that he will can start making his own living tomorrow. Serafina waits in vain for the return of the truck and its driver, which meet a fiery end together before next morning.

Video Games
"Redshirt 1:Is it bad luck to mention I'm getting out in two weeks? Redshirt 2:Shut up and keep moving."
 * The only good playable character in the Super Robot Wars Original Generation series to die? The brave Captain who had one last campaign to go on before he retires to train soldiers.
 * Slight subversion in Fire Emblem 7. We don't find out until after Leila, Matthew's love interest, is killed that he had intended to quit and marry her after this last mission.
 * The Code Geass game for DS parodies this. In one stage, the player sees two Mooks talking, one saying that when everything is done, he plans on returning to his hometown and getting married. Immediately afterwards, Zero enters and kills him.
 * The No One Lives Forever series was very fond of Enemy Chatter like this too.
 * After a dozen missions or so in Call of Duty 4, as the player character and his squad are escaping from the events of the previous mission, Staff Sergeant Griggs and Captain Price begin talking about how to serve a beer (cold or warm?). Griggs mentions that he'll have to "school y'all when we get back to the States," and Gaz mentions stopping in London first, where "I'm buying". Thanks, thanks a lot.
 * The American characters in World At War in the mission "Breaking Point": in the opening narration sequence, Sgt. Roebuck explains that "once we take Shuri Castle, we go home. All of us." By the end of the mission, either he or Polonsky is dead. The player hears the earlier statement repeated in his head as Polonsky/Roebuck hands him the fallen Marine's dog tags, as if to further drive the point home.
 * Dragon Age: Origins features as a fellow Grey Warden recruit, Ser Jory, who is awfully keen to tell you of his lovely wife back home (pregnant with their first child, natch), and how much he can't wait to get back to his family when the war is over. Guess what happens?
 * The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion has a humorous example of this trope seen from the other side in one of the Dark Brotherhood quests. The player character is tasked with the assassination of a notorious rival of the Dark Brotherhood, a certain captain of the guard who is retiring.
 * Slightly subverted, as in this case, that "certain captain of the guards" already have retired, and is now on some kind of holiday. But the Dark Brotherhood will "not let him have his victory like this", so you go and catch up with him even after he is retired.
 * In Fracture the hero Jet drops down into a spacious tunnel and stops to receive a message while two redshirts drop down and proceed ahead of him. Before they get taken out in a blast from an unseen source this exchange occurs.

"Anyway, this particular Space Marine just showed the rest of his platoon a picture of his sweetheart, who just found out she's pregnant, and who he can't wait to see again as soon as he does one last mission. So, y'know, don't feel bad about taking him out; he's doomed."
 * In Neverwinter Nights 2, there is Amie, who, if spoken to before the end of the Harvest Festival, mentions her plans for the future, which include, but are not limited to, "Adventuring, finding some artifacts with you and Bevil, then eventually settling down and retiring to Candlekeep where she'll tell stories to children into old age." Sure enough, the very night after the Harvest Festival ended, she was blasted by a bunch of fireballs.
 * Mass Effect 2 seems to lampshade this with Captain Bailey of C-Sec, who makes note of his fondness for Earth and his plans to retire to "the foothills" before making it clear that he doesn't plan on retiring any time soon, hinting at this trope.
 * In the first game, a scientist in Peak 15 - a research facility beset by acid-spitting bug-like aliens - bemoans the fact that her contract was up just when the bugs attacked.
 * And then there's the crewman in the Crew Quarters of the ship talking to a friend for the first few missions about his newborn daughter and his wife living on a Terminus colony called New Canton before it's hit by the Collectors. However, it turns out the crewman was able to arrange his family to be moved to the safety of Earth, so it seems to be subverted. And then the entire crew's abducted, and it's up to the player whether or not they'll let this man see his family...
 * Moved to Earth, you say? In the opening of mass effect three is earth being invaded. Thus, moving his family to earth, and he likely followed them himself after 2, as he did not appear in Shepard's crew for a second round in 3... Well, at least he doesnt have to worry about his family any more.
 * In Mass Effect 3, muses about retiring, relaxing on a beach, and maybe collecting seashells. When Shepard replies that he'd go crazy from boredom within five minutes, he quips back that maybe he'll run tests on the seashells. Needless to say,.
 * In Episode 4 of Strong Bads Cool Game for Attractive People, it's frequently mentioned that Coach Z's character Renaldo has two weeks until retirement. There are a number of close calls, and far more lampshaded references, but what eventually gets Renaldo is being left behind on a space station that's about to crash into the sun. (Or rather, the fact that Strong Bad deleted the scene where he would have been rescued).
 * In Wing Commander II Elizabeth "Shadow" Norwood is close to retirement when the Kilrathi kill her. Indeed, as soon as she mentions that she's retiring next month a Genre Savvy player knows exactly what's coming.
 * If Paladin dies in the first game, Shotglass laments that he was a month away from retirement. Canonically averted; he takes up a non-combat position in Special Ops in WC2, and survives the war with the Kilrathi.
 * In the first game's Secret Missions 2 expansion, Bossman starts to repeatedly talk about wanting to see his family again. He dies soon after.
 * Some of the evil mooks in the 2005 Punisher game claim they were about to retire/are married/have kids/whatever. It's possible to leave them alive (but not as much fun).
 * Ace Combat seems to have a lot of this.
 * Ace Combat Zero's PJ announces that he's going to propose to his girlfriend after the last mission - he even bought flowers. Guess who happens to brake right into the path of the final boss's laser as he tried to move back into combat flight formation.
 * Ace Combat 5 The Unsung War has two occurrences: The first is right after your squad rolls over the "impregnable" enemy fortress and would have been a mere two missions away from finishing the game if it wasn't for a third-enemy spy organization convincing your (now-usurped) government that you're traitors.
 * Ace Combat 6 Fires of Liberation has it up the wazoo with Shamrock. During the Liberation of Gracemeria (basically the endgame), he talks about how he's going to introduce you to his family, going so far as reminding you to bring flowers for his daughter. When it's revealed that his family was killed during the operation, in the final final mission, he goes all suicidal and flies right into a Death-Star trench run style alley to get important mission data. He gets hit several times and isn't seen to bail out. Subverted in that
 * Subverted in the Battlefield: Bad Company games. Your squadmates spend the whole game commenting that this is the CO's last mission before he can retire. He survives, despite both often Tempting Fate and being black, but he's kept out of retirement.
 * Subverted in Final Fantasy X, where Auron
 * Invoked in Kingdom of Loathing, in the fight against the Space Marine.

"Goat-butler: That's right, I'd actually planned on washing my hands of this business when this job was over, and returning to my hometown. Sorry, my little goat sister, Onii-chan...I was only ever a nuisance. And I ...a-actually had a childhood friend, and was going to marry her when I got home! Virgilia: Nooooooo! Don't trip so many loser flags!"
 * Lampshaded in Saints Row 2, as one of the lines a cop will say in a standoff with the player is something along the lines of having one week left before retirement.
 * Used in one case of Ace Attorney Investigations.  mentions that this is his last day before retirement, even officially announcing his retirement at midnight, right before
 * In Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, at the Glitz Pit, King K says that after one more match he is going to retire. Later you find him and Bandy Andy under a block, because.
 * God of War III's
 * Spoofed in Umineko no Naku Koro ni's infamous Krauss vs. Goat-Butler scene, which teaches us that it's always good to make sure your Elite Mook isn't ten days away from retirement before sicking him on the Puny Humans.


 * Lampshaded by Grand Theft Auto IV in the mission "To Live and Die in Alderney". Your partner for the mission reveals that he's just married the love of his life, and has also been busy caring for his aging mother and putting his sister through college. Can be averted in that he doesn't have to die during the mission if you watch out for him.
 * In one World of Warcraft quest, one NPC is greatly saddened by the death of his wife, as he had planned on retiring with her after his mission was over. In another example in Cataclysm, a Horde negotiator to the Dragonmaw plans on retiring afterward. and wonders if he is expendable because of his red shirt.
 * One tip mission in City of Heroes references this trope. Alongside the regular enemies is a "Retiring Detective" who is ten levels lower than the rest of the enemies, pretty much guaranteeing he'll get defeated by accident.
 * Dead Space: In the first game you're on the USG Ishimura, a ship that was the first of its kind and is scheduled for decommissioning the following year. All the actual crew die horrible, sometimes self-nflicted deaths. The ship is left abandoned before finally being brought to another place,
 * Sephiroth in Crisis Core essentially was considering abandoning Shinra and SOLDIER after their mission in Nibelheim depending on the results of the mission, namely because of growing distrust of the organization. He abandons it, all right, and wipes out Nibelheim as well.
 * In Dungeons of Dredmor, one of the randomly generated Enemy Chatter lines is "one more adventurer and i can retire". Unfortunately for it (or, perhaps, fortunately—this IS a Roguelike), that adventurer would be you.
 * The Joker claims that this happened to his father when he was young in a taped interview you can find in Batman: Arkham Asylum, but Doctor Young decides (probably correctly) that he just made it up.
 * In Corpse Party, we have Mayu Suzumoto, who has just finished her last day at her current school before she transfers.
 * Parodied towards the beginning of The Reconstruction—the character saying this is onboard a ship that's about to be rammed, and is narrowly missed by the ramming ship's frontal spike. He decides to stay away from the action.
 * Variation in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim: wants to cure himself of his lycanthropy before he dies so he can go to Sovngarde. He sends the player on a quest to help prepare the ritual. While (s)he's away,  assaults, and, naturally,  is the only casualty. (Luckily, it turns out that the ritual can still be done and  can be cured posthumously and be able to go to Sovngarde anyway.)
 * Operation Flashpoint has a rare non-lethal (canonically) example. Armstrong (the player character) has almost finished his term stationed on an island in the middle of nowhere and is about to be sent home when said island becomes a warzone.

Webcomics
"One B-movie law got broken, however - when elderly characters are killed by villains, it should be shortly before retirement, not immediately afterward. It’s more emotional that way. They say."
 * In Girl Genius, a Genre Savvy overseer stops a prisoner just before she can declare that she's nearly earned her freedom. "Fool! Never total your points out loud!" This one is justified by the fact that they are all prisoners in a giant, sentient, psychopathic castle which thinks it has a sense of humor; it is entirely possible that announcing how close you are to freedom there could directly get you killed, and the other prisoners aren't much better; there's no need give them a new reason to kill you.
 * Carson von Mekkhan inverts the trope: he retired three days before his place of work was attacked and blown up. His replacement - who was, tragically, his son - died instead.
 * This Captain SNES halloween special.
 * Darths and Droids parodies this trope, with Darth Maul.
 * Parodied in the "Henchman Retirement" arc of Evil Inc.. The company has to find a way to off the soon-to-be-retired oldest living henchman, Abe Vitale, otherwise they'll go bankrupt from his $28,000,000.00-a-year pension. "No one ever expected a henchman to retire" and the investment funds were misused due to a misprint and lost.
 * Lampshaded by the Genre Savvy Elan in this The Order of the Stick.
 * Played straight in another strip where a police chief announces he's getting too old for thi-
 * Also played with in the Adventure Game, where one of the ilustrations of Haley's Sneak Attack is a goblin who says it's his last day before retirement, not realizing Haley's hiding behind the door, weapon ready.
 * The B Movie Comic:


 * Occurs in This strip of Nuzlocke. Loudred notes that while he may currently have the lowest stats on the team, he'll evolve in one level and be back on top again. Naturally, he was the one who died. It was even Lampshaded in the comments, with a direct reference to this trope.
 * Parodied in this Monsterhood strip.

Web Original
"Linkara: And it probably doesn't help that the security guard has just two days left before retirement. Later... Spoony: And it's probably a bad thing to mention that every single one of these soldiers has just two days left before retirement. Later still... Spoony: And you know, what makes it really tragic is that everyone in the city had just two days left till retirement! Linkara and NC: Shut up!"
 * Labtech 062 was killed (...sort of) during his retirement party.
 * Parodied in this article at The Onion.
 * And this one, coming in from the other direction.
 * Referenced repeatedly in the The Nostalgia Critic review of Alone in The Dark

"NC: That coconut had just two days left until retirement. You bastard!"
 * And the review of Hook just after Peter Pan slices the world's slowest moving coconut thrown towards him.

"No homo."
 * Dragonball Z Abridged has Zarbon wanting to call his girlfriend to see where they were going to spend their one-year anniversary together. Vegeta blows his load all over his insides.


 * In the Yu-Gi-Oh the Abridged Series spin-off, Marik Plays: Bloodlines, there's a bit where Marik is lamenting the fact that he killed a hooker and mentions that "She only had a few days left until hooker retirement".
 * In the internet novel Spliced, Alex and his siblings make their escape while there's a retirement party going on downstairs.
 * This scene from How It Should Have Ended's take on The Avengers has one Chitauri planning to retire right before the end scene.

Western Animation
"URL: And Smitty just had a few days until retirement. Fry: What happened to him? URL: He took early retirement. Damn."
 * In addition to the Trope Naming exchange quoted above, The Simpsons parodies this in a McBain movie, where McBain's sidekick talks of his retirement and even shows a picture of his boat (christened, "Live-4-Ever") seconds before he is gunned down. Wiggum's car, a police dog, a bomb-defusing robot (in The Movie) and a giant novelty hat containing a hidden camera have all been a few days from retirement (the last one is a technical subversion, though, as the camera still functional enough to implicate Apu for selling expired foods despite being thrown to the floor). Also, the prisoners Marge frees when she runs her car into the prison walls are one day away from total rehabilitation.
 * Jokingly used in a "What If?" episode of Futurama. General Pac Man, leading Earth's defenses against an invading horde of video game characters, mentions his retirement plans and immediately gets shot.
 * Spoofed in a more recent episode where Fry becomes a cop and is partnered with recurring robot cop URL:


 * Parodied in the Family Guy Star Wars episode, where one of the rebels killed by stormtroopers says "I had two days until retirement!" as he collapses.
 * In the Grand Finale of Avatar: The Last Airbender, Iroh mentions his dream of retiring, and it is averted when he (and in fact everyone) survives to enjoy it.
 * In a Cutaway Gag in The Cleveland Show, a job-hunting Cleveland becomes a cop two days away from retirement. Subverted in that he refuses to draw fire, resulting in his younger partner getting killed instead.
 * In American Dad during a mini-series of Roger's Golden Turd, a police lieutenant who's a week away from retirement finds and keeps the gold turd from the suicide victim for himself. He takes it home to show his wife that they can pay for a great retirement. He faces guilt and attempts to return it resulting in an argument between the two. His wife accepts his decision. She makes tea and secretly adds rat poison to his cup.
 * Also parodied in episode Con Heir, with an aged museum security guard who, after telling one of his loved ones he refuses to retire because he considers his job his life, right before getting beaten up by Stan. Said guard actually lives and reconsiders.

Real Life

 * Capt. Edward Smith of the RMS Titanic had announced his intention to retire after the ship had completed its maiden voyage. (So, a ship widely promoted as "unsinkable" and a captain on his last voyage. Honestly, they just didn't stand a chance.)
 * A common misconception is that he was going to be retired when they arrived in New York. It would have taken effect once the Titanic had returned to England.
 * This is the worst: A 60 year old Japanese man was accidentally killed by his coworkers at his retirement party.
 * Michael Jackson WAS going to retire after one last worldwide tour... But it didn't work out.
 * The Red Baron Mannfred von Richtoven was finally shot down 2 days before he was due to go home on leave. Taking the irony Up to Eleven, his last words were to a fan begging for an autograph: "What's your hurry? Are you afraid I won't come back?"
 * Making it into the history books because you were the last man shot before the war ended is kind of embarrassing.
 * A police dog was killed chasing a criminal a week before he was going to retire. This seems to be a not uncommon trope for police dogs.
 * The US Military will practice troop rotation for overseas deployments. The period in which a soldier is on the tail end of a deployment is often considered the most dangerous, as the soldier is likely to be thinking about going home to safety and getting out of the war, possibly letting down his or her guard.
 * The Fukushima I - 1 nuclear reactor was badly damaged in the days following the 2011 Sendai earthquake. The earthquake occurred just over two weeks before the reactor was scheduled to be shut down.
 * Shigeru Yokosawa, a sixty-year-old hospital admin in Iwate Prefecture's coastal Rikuzen-Takata, would have retired at the end of March 2011, had he not given his life by, in the face of an approaching ten-meter tsunami, rushing to the first floor of the building to retrieve the hospital's satellite phone. The phone he saved became his colleagues' only lifeline to the outside world right after the disaster, and was later decorated with a legend reading "Yokosawa's phone. Our chief is helping us from heaven."
 * The captain of Continental Airlines Flight 603, which overran the runway and was destroyed by fire after several tires blew during the takeoff roll, was reportedly about to retire. He survived, but two of his passengers didn't.
 * Charles Schulz died the day before the last Peanuts comic strip was published.
 * 70 year old aid worker Warren Weinstein was kidnapped in Pakistan two days before his scheduled completion of work and return to the US.
 * There's at least one case of someone cleaning out his office on one of the Towers the morning of 9/11 (although in this case, it was due to switching to a better job rather than retiring).
 * Dermot Morgan died of a heart attack just 24 hours after finishing filming the last series of Father Ted.
 * Andy Rooney passed away on November 4, 2011, one month after his final regular segment on 60 Minutes. "Y'know, I always wondered... why do some celebrities die shortly after their retirement? I remember, when I was a kid, WE never did stuff like that."
 * In Canadian Politics, Jack Layton had been campaigning as federal NDP leader for the job of Prime Minister several elections in a row, and almost each time was dismissed in popular opinion as the candidate who didn't have a chance. In the 2011 election, he managed to make it at least to official opposition leader status... but died just a couple months afterwards.
 * The police chief of Greenland, New Hampshire was killed in a drug bust gone bad on April 12, 2012. He was two weeks from retirement.