If you remain in service to whatever intel group to which you belonged, no, you’re not “ex.” You’d never be ex-CIA, either. No such thing as an ex-spook for any national intelligence agency, not in my opinion. GHW Bush in my opinion behaved rather oddly at times pertaining to certain matters, and I’m not alone in attributing that to his being an old spook.
George H.W. Bush was in the CIA from the day he left Yale. Everybody knows that. He might’ve even been OSS prior to that.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4636008/Vladimir-Putin-admits-KGB-illegal-intelligence.html
Vladimir Putin By Thomas Streissguth Excerpt