Nearly one year after resigning as Missouri’s first Jewish governor, Eric Greitens apparently is ready to return to public service and the public eye.

The Kansas City Star reported last week that Greitens has told friends that he plans to rejoin the Navy this fall and that he is working on his fourth book, which he hopes will be published later this year.

Greitens’ star zoomed across the Missouri sky in 2016 when he parlayed his background as a Navy SEAL into a victory as a political novice. Then his career flamed out just as spectacularly in the wake of allegations that he was involved in physically damaging sexual conduct with a woman who was not his wife. 

Charges in that case, and reports that he illegally used a charity donor list to help his campaign, were dropped after he left office. 

Since then, Greitens has been the subject of repeated rumors that he was plotting a political comeback. The Star reported that his campaign committee for governor remains active and spent about $15,000 in the first three months of this year on salaries and expenses. 

Greitens was notoriously difficult to pin down during his time in office. Not surprisingly, he did not comment on reports of his return to naval service or an upcoming book. But the Star says any return he makes to military service won’t be as a SEAL. Instead, he will be a general unrestricted line officer, assigned to an operational support center in St. Louis.

If Greitens has found ways to channel his considerable talents into ways to help the American public without being blinded by an overambitious reach for political power, we wish him well. He could yet salvage a public image that he badly undermined, all by himself.