Days? It once took me 4 months to have a package manager installed that was blocking a project. Defense software engineering is a whole other level of misery.
I left defense and I'm now in a BigCo. and loving life because things only take days at most. Appreciate what you have?
This is my experience in defense as well. After my proposal for a talk at a software conference was accepted, I found out that the estimated date for getting the required content review from Corporate Communications, Legal, and InfoSec was several weeks later than the conference itself. In practice, though, a thoughtful VP up the management chain recognized that this was a problem and fast-tracked it.
I left defense and I'm now in a BigCo. and loving life because things only take days at most. Appreciate what you have?