Author Archives: Mike Grice

Death as a way of life

Posted by Mike Grice on

This post has nothing to do with transition, but instead deals with an integral part of being a Marine.  Just a few days ago, on September 19th, a Cobra attack helicopter crashed while conducting a training flight at Camp Pendleton, California.  Two Marines died, good men both, as they trained and prepared to defend our country.  It is a tragedy in the truest sense,  but it is also sad and inevitable part of what we do.  Many of my friends have asked me over the years what I thought about death and dying, and it is a very difficult question to answer for someone outside the profession of arms.  So in an effort to provide a little insight into death and how it affects those of us who travel with Death as a constant companion I am writing this post.

The military is an inherently dangerous business, and by definition a violent one.  In time of war it is expected that some of us will die.  That is the cold cost of doing business; the enemy gets a vote, and he delivers his ballot in the form of a bullet or a bomb.  Just as a fireman battles conflagrations Marines fight our nation’s enemies.  Sometimes the fire wins and a firefighter falls.  Sometimes a Marine does everything right but a sniper’s bullet finds him anyway.  There is no fairness, there is no equity.  It is what it is and we have all come to terms with it.

In my case, my reckoning with mortality came on a September day in Ar Ramadi, Iraq.  I had been in country for a few weeks, and it was my first combat tour.  I lived and operated out of Forward Operating Base Junction City,  which was also known as FOB Ramadi.  It was a vast fort-like compound that held a thousand or so of us, and it was in the heart of the Sunni Triangle at a time when the insurgency was approaching its peak.

My first days were disturbing, to say the least.  Tanks and armored vehicles rumbled by as attack helicopters flew their patrolling orbits overhead.  Fighter jets streaked by thousands of feet overhead, and gunfire ebbed and flowed in the distance.  Our FOB was attacked by rockets or mortars pretty much daily, and sometimes several times a day.  I found myself thrust into this maelstrom, in charge of my Marines and Sailors but less experienced in actual combat than a lot of them.

I couldn’t sleep.  The helicopters never stopped flying, and the tanks came and went at all hours.  Charlie Med, our field hospital, was a hundred yards away and the casualties arrived around the clock.  It was a frantic place, one with seemingly no rhyme or reason, and I was disoriented by the whole experience.  My heart felt that it would explode with every incoming rocket; the thump of mortars in the distance made me weak at the thought of a steel projectile flying through the air with me beneath it as it hit.  I ducked at the small arms fire, and warily looked for cover to dive behind when the next attack hit.  I was a bit of a nervous wreck- the fear of the unknown became palpable.  I was afraid of death, and the fear of dying unsettled me to no end.

Then came that day in September.  I was supposed to go to a nearby base for a briefing- riding in my armored HMMWV and travelling with a platoon of Cavalry in vehicles just like mine, except where I had an armored roof they had turrets with machine guns.

We met at a staging lot at 0815, and as we stood in a loose circle of drivers and passengers discussing the route rockets screamed into the base.  One struck a barracks about 100 meters or so away, another landed in a motor pool, and a third impacted just outside the DFAC (Dining FACility- fancy new term for chowhall).  In an instant, one Marine was killed and a Soldier was mortally wounded.  They didn’t do anything wrong- fate had just snuffed them out.  It was arbitrary.  They never had a chance.   It was capricious.  They never saw it coming.  It was the spectre of Death incarnate; his cold and bony finger touched them, and in that instant they joined the ranks of the fallen.

We had no time to reflect or mourn.  Five minutes later we were on the road, passing through the redoubt and into Indian country as it was commonly known.  We drove about five minutes, and slowed our advance to cross a bridge that led to the other base.  Our little four vehicle patrol had no sooner driven onto the narrow span when machine guns began barking their angry chorus as a firefight erupted on both banks of the river.  The bridge was cut off, and we found ourselves in the extremely uncomfortable position of being on a bridge between to forces that were shooting at each other, and we couldn’t quite figure out which side was which.

That didn’t last long.  Rocket propelled grenades hissed across the narrow river and rocked a bus onto its side in an explosion of bright flame and black smoke.  We don’t have RPGs- but the insurgents do.  Red tracers flew in the direction where the RPGs came from- we use red tracers, so the gunners in our tiny convoy opened up on consonance with our compatriots on the river bank.  Soon enough, there were rockets, grenades, and bullets flying around everywhere- and all I could do was sit there and watch.  I was riveted to my seat.  What do I do?  Get out of the vehicle (our training said no- never leave an armored vehicle, but the exploding bus was a compelling argument to get out!) or open the window and start shooting? (Again, our training stayed my hand- I could not identify a clear target- and without Positive Identification, or PID, I wasn’t supposed to shoot).

So I sat and watched.  The thump and crack of heavy machine guns was accompanied by the staccato rip of their smaller cousins, and in an eternity that lasted a minute or so the far end of the bridge opened up and we started moving again.  In less time than it takes to read this sentence we were pulling into our destination, FOB Hurricane Point.

I wasn’t shaking, but adrenaline had replaced all of the blood in my system.  I was sweating, hot, cold, hysterical, aloof, thirsty, nauseous- it was a wrenching and visceral rollercoaster of feelings and emotions.  I stepped from my truck and looked around.  My cavalry friends were joking and laughing and talking about football.  My more experienced Marines broke out a pack of smokes and lit up.  I couldn’t believe it- the most harrowing experiences of my life had just happened, and it wasn’t even 0900 yet!

It was then that I felt a something come over me.  My pulse slowed, and my breathing came back to normal.  The pensive tension that had sat like a festering knot in my gut melted away, and for some reason I felt that everything would be all right.  In an instant, I passed a threshold into a different place, and became a different person.  It was as though someone had placed their hand on my shoulder, and with their touch all of my fears fled back into the recesses from which they came.

I had joined the ranks of the fatalists.  Fatalist sounds like a harsh word, but it really isn’t.  There are two types of people in combat; those who are afraid to die and those who have accepted that they will.  I left the camp of the former and joined the happier band of the latter, the band of men and women who had experienced the epiphany of mortality.  I came to accept that death was inevitable; maybe in the next minute, maybe tomorrow, or maybe at the end of a long and happy life.  We are all going to die.  What we are able to do in the face of that staggering knowledge defines us, however.  When the weight of fear fell away I found myself free to lead and fight and kill and, if necessary, die without worrying about it.  It was a true revelation.

I still feel that hand on my shoulder from time to time when things get stressful.  It is not an uncomfortable feeling, really, but actually one that is a little reassuring.  The hand on my shoulder is a bony one, and it belongs to Death.  It is his reminder to me that he is coming, and some day he will take me away.  All Marines feel his presence, because he is always at our side, reminding us that we all join him sooner or later.  On Monday afternoon Captain Jeffrey Bland and 1st Lieutenant Thomas Heitmann slipped the surly bonds of earth in an attack helicopter and Death took them before they could return home.  They died as any one of us could, and there but by the grace of God go any one of us.  Death comes for us all, and in our business he shows up frequently.  It is the knowledge that he is forever at your side that frees your soul, because living with fear isn’t really living at all.  Knowing he is there, patiently waiting to take you to the other side, is a truly liberating feeling.  He cannot be cheated; he always wins the race to take you across the mythical river Styx.

Not today, maybe not tomorrow, but someday.

Someday….

Reflections

Posted by Mike Grice on

This past weekend I had occasion to go back to where it all started, well, at any rate where my life as a Marine began.  As a resident of the greater San Diego area I am bounded by Marine and Navy bases and stations pretty much on every side, and during my years in uniform I have been fortunate to serve aboard many of them.  This includes the Marine Corps Recruit Depot, where I shed my civilianhood as a petrified teenager only to return nearly two decades later as a senior officer who helped run the joint.  Oddly, during the course of my career I had gone from being an inmate within the mustard colored walls of that hallowed institution to one of the metaphorical fat men behind the curtain who made the whole thing run.  Upon my graduation from bootcamp I had sworn a solemn oath never to return to the wretched shores of San Diego, but like most youthful bents I disregarded it, came to my senses, and ultimately returned.

The Depot sits next to the Lindbergh Field, which is San Diego’s major airport.  Any Hollywood Marine (as graduates of MCRD San Diego are known) can tell you, it is endlessly torturous to be suffering the indignancies of being a worthless recruit while watching airliner after airliner take off from a runway only a few hundred yards away- the very personification of the elusive freedom that they have sworn to defend but relinquished when they arrived at bootcamp.  It was one of those planes that brought me back to the depot.

My father in law had been down for a visit, and as it was time for him to head home I took him down to the airport.  With the kids in the back seat, we headed down to drop him off, and as we drove past the unmistakable  architecture of the training grounds I noticed that I was running low on gas.  After a few hugs and handshakes, he headed for the gate and we hit the road.  Never one to pass up the chance to save a buck or two on gas, I drove over to MCRD to take advantage of the PX.

We approached the gate, and I saw no small number of teenagers no different than myself some quarter of a century ago waiting for a taxicab ride by the entrance.  Each seemed accompanied by a small mountain of luggage that comes only from an all-expenses paid vacation to such an establishment; seabags (duffel bags for non-nautical types), garment and gym bags in the mottled green that matched the camoflage of their field uniform, and the ubiquitous black satchel that contained their orders and other important papers.  Like a thunderclap, I was instantly transported back to when I was one of them- a young man eager to step out on an exciting journey.  Just as quickly as a thunderclap passes, though, my reverie was broken by the Marine guard at the gate brought me back to reality.  Suspiciously eyeing my longish hair, he offered a salute and a thoroughly professional “good morning, Sir!” as he saluted and waved me through.  It was not as though my life passed before my eyes, but my psyche was twisted with the realization that I was no longer looking forward to my life as a Marine, but instead was passing the baton to those who were.

I cruised over to the gas station and filled up.  My kids had been here many times before, so when I asked if they wanted to see my old workplace they eagerly agreed.  Besides, I needed to get my last haircut (!), and it is seemingly apropos that the last hair that I part with in the service of my country should go into the same trashcan as my first- with the only real difference being that it is a bit more silver now, and maybe just a little less in the dustpan than when I started.

After getting my hair cut (a snappy ‘do called a “low-regulation” – indeed the “lowest low-regulation” that I could talk the barber into) we headed out to see the sights.  Our first stop was that small fitness area behind the “RESTRICTED AREA” sign that marked the hallowed grounds of the Drill Instructor School.  I had served as the director of the Marine Corps premier leadership school some years ago, so I invoked executive privilege  and we snuck over to cavort a on the pullup and dip bars.  Even though I am still a senior officer on active duty, and even though I was the director of the school, I still got chills up and down my spine as I violated the rule to stay out of the restricted area.  Such is the power of the training that recruits endure on the path to become Marines; I still dreaded the thought of a drill instructor finding us where we weren’t supposed to be and taking his revenge upon such dangerous rule breakers as myself and my two rambunctious kids.

I breathed a sigh of relief as we left Drill Instructor School behind and walked up and down the arcade, which is a half-mile long open portico that is the distinctive hallmark of the base.  The smells and sights crossed the chasm of time; the place looks almost unchanged despite the years that have passed since I first stepped foot onto the yellow footprints.  Across the parking lot, on the parade field (or “grinder” as it is universally known), we saw a platoon of camoflage wearing recruits frozen in mid stride,  surrounded by a blur of Drill Instructors in their service uniforms who seemed to be everywhere all at once.  They were being evaluated on their ability to conduct Close Order Drill, or COD.

Again, the time machine between my ears kicked into overdrive and I was back on the grinder, younger, leaner, and terrified that I would make a mistake and incur the painful wrath of my Drill Instructors.  With a shudder, sat on a bench and pulled my kids over.

“What are they doing?”

“What kind of guns do they have?”

“Are they your friends?”

I answered their questions (“Drilling”, “M-16 Service Rifles”‘, “we are all friends”) and watched the magic happen.  It was cathartic to see the next generation of Marines being made before my eyes, and oddly enough it looked exactly as it did when I was here back in the mid ’80s.  It is what makes and keeps the Marine Corps great; the tireless dedication to duty, the selfless passion to the institution, and the certainty that being a Marine is something momentous are all sparks that ignite the burning flame that lights the soul of each and every wearer of the Eagle, Globe and Anchor.

As I watched them march by, it was clear to me that the next generation was as good as mine, and that the passing of the torch ensured that it would burn bright and clear for the next year, the next decade, and indeed forever.  The soul of the Marine Corps is the soul of each Marine, and it rests deep within each and every man and woman who has earned the title “Marine”.  I observed a part of that soul being born, and was proud be be a witness.

To them I say good luck, but make sure to enjoy the ride.  Too soon they will be sitting on a bench watching the generation that follows them march into their destiny just as I did this past weekend.  Despite the hardships, the terror of combat and the boredom that accompanies standing watch in the middle of the night, I would trade places with any one of them and do it again.

Semper Fidelis!

9/11

Posted by Mike Grice on

It is hard to believe that a full decade has passed since the greatest crisis of my generation struck home.  Every channel on television and every site on the internet, it seems, is reeling with coverage of the attacks on this anniversary of that momentous and horrible day.  I think that is good for all of us regardless of your background or political bent; it would truly be tragic if we collectively forgot about the events of that day and the effect the catastrophy had on all of us.

As a youngster I listened as my elders talked about where they were when they heard that President Kennedy had been shot. I was always a little mystified by their clarity- every one of them could reel off, from the top of their heads, where they were, who they were with, and what they were doing when they learned that awful news.  Never in my life had anything so momentous occurred; no event had bonded us as a people in the same way as Lee Harvey Oswald did with his Italian army surplus bolt action rifle.

I remember President Reagan’s brush with his own assassin and watched the space shuttle Challenger explode seconds after launch. The wall fell between East and West and we fought a war in the Arabian sands, but those events failed to captivate in the same manner as that fateful day in Dallas.  It wasn’t as though I wanted something to happen, but I felt that in some strange way my generation lacked that singularity of shared experience that brought everyone into the same place, into the same moment, and seared that moment into their souls.  I had never been party to an event that so universally affected everyone despite their race, religious beliefs, or political bents.

As we all know, that has changed.

In my case I was forward deployed to Okinawa, Japan when the twin towers fell.  I was the commanding officer of an artillery battery that was part of the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit, which is a crisis reaction force in perpetual readiness for whatever emergency may threaten the United States or her interests abroad.  It was in the evening, after dinner time, when I caught the first inkling that something was amiss.  The sixteen hour time difference between Okinawa and my home in San Diego made the early morning attacks a night time event for us, and the news came after most of us had gone to bed for the night.

My unit had been out training in the jungle, but had been recalled because a typhoon was headed straight for us.  We headed for the barracks after securing our our vehicles to protect them from the growing storm and storing our weapons in the armory.  With the rain beginning to come in sideways and the palm trees shedding their fronds we headed for our rooms to ride out the storm.  I ate dinner in front of the television set as I watched a football game on the Armed Forces Network, which is the American military’s television and radio system that brings home-spun sports and shows (and incredibly cheesy public service announcements) to those of us posted to foreign shores.  After the game I surfed through the local channels, which if you have ever seen Japanese television you know can be a visually jarring experience complete with incredibly colorful animated programs capable of inducing epileptic seizures and gameshows specializing in things like eating worms and swimming through kiddie pools filled with green slime.  As I flipped through the channels I saw a grainy image of what looked like an office building on fire.  I couldn’t really tell what it was because of the signal interference so I kept on plowing through the channels.  After a few minutes of not finding anything interesting, I headed for bed.

15 minutes later I was ripped back to consciousness by my ringing telephone.  It was particularly jarring because it had never really rung before, and the only people who had my number were my wife and the Marines in my unit.  I rolled over and picked up the handset, and the life I had known to that point changed forever.

“They’re doing it again!” my wife exclaimed.

“Who is doing what again?”

“They’re doing it again!  They’re attacking the World Trade Center!”

My wife had been in New York city during the 1993 attacks.  When the first plane flew into the tower, she instantly knew what had happened and called me.

Suddenly the grainy image made sense.   I turned on the television and watched the second plane disappear into the second tower in an vulgar eruption of orange flame.

After a hurried conversation with my wife, I put on my uniform.  I didn’t know what else to do, frankly, but at least it was something.  I called my officers and told them to round up the Marines while I went to see if I could find out what this all meant.

I bent my cap against the pelting rain and ran to a friend’s room.  He was the operations officer, and if anybody knew what to do it would be him.  Like me, though, he didn’t.  What he did know, however, was the immemorial martial response to crisis.  “Get ready,” he said, “because it’s gonnna be a long night.”

And it was.

Bracing myself against the growing storm, I went back to my room.  The Marines had been assembled, and somebody had to tell them what was going on.  Being the Commanding Officer meant that the somebody was me, and it was a duty that I felt completely inadequate to perform.

What could I tell them when I had no idea what was going on?  A million questions zinged through my head.  I had Marines from New York City in my unit, but had no idea if their families were safe.  I had no idea what was happening half a world away, where people were supposed to be protected because we were trained and deployed thousands of miles from home to keep the wolves away from our heartland.  Were we at war?  Would we be attacked?  Were our families safe?

With my mind reeling with the magnitude of events I stood outside the room where my Marines waited for me to pass the word.  To tell them it would be OK.  To tell them that their families were protected.

I walked into the room.  They rose to attention and warily eyed me as I stood before them.

“Get ready,” I said, “it’s going to be a long night……”

I paid up front

Posted by Mike Grice on

Quite a few posts ago I wrote about what it was like to come out of the metaphorical closet and declare that I was leaving the service.  With that announcement my career, which up to that instant was a successful one and filled with opportunities, was over.  I stepped onto the platform and watched the train continue down the tracks with my peers and friends continuing to ride the rails of a dynamic career.  Some went to the Pentagon, others to the various War Colleges, and no small number headed out for places exotic or dangerous depending on which spot on the globe they ended up.

With a sigh I waved goodbye and wished them well.

Why did I do it, then?  Why did I step off the train?  My career was moving upward and I was very well respected in my field. To parapharase Marlon Brando’s Terry from On the Waterfront, I coulda been a contender for promotion and the plum assignments that lay just down the line.  Why leave?

It is a truly complicated question with an answer that I am not sure I have fully come to grasp yet.  There was no singular event or crisis that drove me out.  There was no enticement from the outside world that drew me away.  As I wrote earlier, I woke up one day to the realization that it was time to go.

Leaving, however, is not that simple.  The time I chose to depart the Marine Corps coincided with the end of the best job that I had during my career- being the Commanding Officer of a combat unit in time of war.  I had been competitively selected to lead a highly trained and specialized unit of Marines and Sailors, and to take them into combat.  It was an incredibly demanding and challenging assignment, but it was the most rewarding thing that I had done in my 27 or so years of wearing green.

It is addictive being in command.  I had been fortunate to command five different organizations at various levels during my career, and each time I handed the flag to the next guy was a significant emotional event.  My last command, however, was the most momentous because I was selected to take charge by a board of senior officers and my orders came straight from the Commandant of the Marine Corps- the top Marine himself.  I was one of the lucky few who was able to command; less than one in five officers are selected to do so at my level.  For a career Marine a successful command tour is a harbinger of things to come- promotion, top level schools like the National War College or a fellowship to a prestigious university like Harvard, and the possibility of command again in the future.  For officers who aren’t selected to command, however, those opportunities are less likely.  Being picked opens doors for your career that for others remain forever closed.

Assuming command is also assuming a debt.  A debt to the Marines and Sailors that you lead as well as to the Marine Corps writ large.  After all, if you are selected by definition you are in the top of your peer group.  The expectation of our most senior officers and no small number of my peers is that you, the one entrusted with such a critical and rewarding position, will give back to the Marine Corps and repay the debt incurred by being given the most important job there is- leading our young men (and women) in the defense of our nation.

Since I chose to depart active duty when I handed the flag to my successor, however, no small number of Marines viewed my departure with disdain.  In their minds I had taken the best job but not repaid the debt that it incurred; I had in essence eaten dessert and skipped clearing the table and doing the dishes.  In their minds I was selfish.

I agree that assuming command incurs a debt.  The trust and confidence in a commander is nearly absolute; he or she is entrusted with the lives of our youth and with the defense of our nation.  Command is also a crucible of sorts.  The commander leaves command a different officer because he or she has learned lessons only imparted by such a demanding job.  Many are positive, such as the satisfaction and pure joy you experience when your Marines do well and your unit succeeds.  Many are negative, such as when you or your unit fails.  Command means being on duty 24/7 from the day you take the flag to the day you pass it on- complete with midnight phone calls because one of your Marines is in the brig to meeting the casualty evacuation helicopter at the field hospital when your wounded Marines are brought in from the fight.  Command tempers an officer as a furnace tempers steel, and it is for this reason that the doors I wrote about earlier spring open.

A debt is indeed owed, and I am a firm believer in paying my debts.  In my case, I paid my debt up front.

The debt is one that I have not been alone in discharging.  My family has paid an enormous price throughout my career, but in particular the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have taken a disproportionate toll.

I have deployed a lot.  That isn’t unusual for a Marine particularly in time of war, but in my case the deployments were punishing.  I deployed to war four times in a five year span of time; again, that isn’t as much as some, but certainly more than most of my peers.  I have young children (currently ages 11 and 8), and the things that I missed are utterly irreplaceable.  Little things like my oldest sons 6th, 7th, 8th, and 10th birthdays.  Little things like being gone either in a combat zone or preparing for the fight for over half of my youngest son’s life by the time he hit seven years old.  Countless holidays-Thanksgivings, Christmases, Easters, Halloweens- spent in a foreign country while my kids open presents or trick or treat without their father.  The worst bit was coming home from deployment when each of my kids was little, though.  It is an incredible punch to the gut when you step off the bus and your kids don’t know who you are because they were too young when you left to remember that you even exist, and in my case it happened with both of them.  My kids paid their part of my debt.

When I wasn’t deployed I was in the field training or off at some conference somewhere.  My wife, who has an incredibly demanding career of her own, held it together despite my absence.  Parent-teacher conferences, trips to the doctor, homework, sports, and everything else that parents do fell to her, and she soldiered on and made it work.  She paid her part of my debt.

So on that fateful day when I woke up and realized it was time to go I did so with a clear conscience.  The debt had been repaid by my entire family: I had spent 30 out of 60 months drawing tax-free pay for being in a combat zone and my family supported me and kept it together despite the crushing demands that deployments bring.  I do not feel that I have not repaid the Marine Corps for the privilege of command.

I paid up front.

(Almost!) my last haircut

Posted by Mike Grice on

So there I was…..

Most great stories and nearly all tall tales start with those four words.  The following post is neither, but more of a cautionary tale about how reality often smashes my errant assumptions, and in this case, it smashed my belief that I had completed my weekly visits to the barbershop.

So anyhow, there I was.  Standing at the customer service counter in the Separations and Retirements section of our base Installation Personnel Administration Center (IPAC- yay!  Another acronym!),  I held in my excitedly trembling hands a folder that contained all of the papers, documents, and adminstrivia required for me to check out of the Marine Corps and start my life as a civilian.  Under the assumption that once the I had completed all of my checkout requirements (don’t worry- posts a-plenty on those requirements are in the works) I would be able to take off my uniform for the very last time and explore the exciting new world of hair care products.  My giddiness was suddenly crushed, however,  by a sign on the bulkhead (Marinespeak for wall) that proclaimed in bold capital letters:

ATTENTION CUSTOMERS:

According to MCO P1020.34G, both

Males and Females must be within

grooming regulations and appropriate

Civilian attire or Uniform of the Day

It wasn’t a new sign.  A little dusty and curled at the edges, it was hung in the typically austere fashion of all such signs in administrative offices across the Marine Corps; a plain black and white sheet of paper inside a plastic document protector and taped to the bulkhead with some yellowing cellophane tape.  It also wasn’t alone.  Glancing around, I saw that identical signs in identical document protectors were taped, pinned, or otherwise stuck to almost every vertical surface in the office.

Apparently they wanted the Marines and Sailors to look like Marines and Sailors when they came to the office to conduct their transition related business.

That, in and of itself, is no surprise.  However, I was a bit taken aback because I realized that I had indeed not had my last Marine Corps regulated haircut, and here’s why:

I have posted several times about the End of Active Service (EAS) date.  It is your last day on active duty, and the next day your obligation to serve your country is complete (unless you have a reserve service obligation of some sort) and you are free to run amok and do all of the things that you couldn’t do in uniform- like grow your hair and sleep in ’til noon.  Totally makes sense.

Ahh, but not everyone leaves work on their last day and wakes up the next morning as a civilian.  There are some benefits that can insert a few days between your last day at work and your first day back in the real world.  Those benefits are known as “Terminal Leave” and “Permissive Temporary Assigned Duty”, or “PTAD”.

Terminal Leave, which is technically titled as “retirement or separation leave”, is referred to as “Terminal”  in the jargon of the service  (“You out yet?”  “Nope, going on  Terminal.”).  It is simply an opportunity to use up whatever leave (vacation time for non military types) that you have accrued before you get out.  This is actually a pretty big deal, because taking your leave instead of selling it back to the government offers some significant advantages.  If you use your leave you continue to receive all of your other pay and benefits, such as housing allowances, subsistance stipends (for food),  medical care, dental care, and so on for as long as you are on leave.  If you sell your leave back, which is the other option, you receive a lump sum payment for your your prorated salary.  In other words, you are handed a check (not really, nobody gets checks anymore- your bank receives an electronic deposit) that totals the amount of salary you would have made had you taken leave, but with the huge difference that no other benefits or payments are included.  Considering that a significant amount of the benefits package in the military is not part of your salary, you stand to lose out on some money as well as medical coverage and such.  Sooo……nearly everyone takes some terminal leave.

Permissive Temporarily Assigned Duty, or PTAD, is another way that you can get some time off with pay before you get out.  PTAD is mil-speak for Paid Time Off (PTO) in the civilian world, and it is allowed in a number of instances and for a variety of reasons.  Examples include time off for the father when the little ones arrive (great for when your kids are born while you are able to be there instead of  being off fighting the Taliban or Al Queda), for military families who are adopting children, jury duty, and the countless other events in life that occur that require you to be absent from work yet should not require you to use up your leave to attend them.  How it works is you, the Marine, are assigned a set of orders that direct you to go do what you need to do and report back in when you are done.  Using the example of paternity PTAD, when the child is born the father is granted ten days off to bring the newborn into the family.  During that time, he is free to care for his family without having to come into work or put on a uniform, which is good because he probably won’t be at his best at work anyway!  At the end of the ten days, he needs to come back to work and check back in.  When he comes back he must be within grooming standards and wearing his uniform.  (Before I get angry comments on how sexist the paternity policy is I must point out that mothers in uniform receive 42 days of maternity leave after birth, and that can be extended if medically required, so the benefits associated with parenthood are actually pretty good!)

Getting back to what Terminal and PTAD have to do with my desire to grow longer hair…

In my case, I had a significant amount of leave on the books.  Leave in the military accrues at a rate of 2.5 days per month, so you earn 30 days of leave a year.  Nice!  If you take it all, then you have none left over, but if you don’t take it all you build up a leave balance that grows monthly.  The regulations state that you can maintain a balance of up to 60 days of leave, but any leave in excess of that number on the change of the fiscal year is lost.  What that means is that  if you have 65 days on the books on September 30th, five of them are “lost” (meaning deducted from your balance with no payment to the leaveholder) and the new Fiscal Year starts on October 1st with your balance reduced to 60 days.

Well, there are a couple of wars going on and it can quite often be extremely challenging to take all of your leave.  For me, I had completed four deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan in the five years leading up to my transition, so I had not been able to take much leave.  In fact, since leave accrues until your EAS, I was looking at over 90 days that I could take as Terminal Leave.  Because there are literally thousands of people like me out there the 60 day annual limit on leave was temporarily increased to 75, and up till October 1st you could carry a balance of 105 days (because you lose excess leave on that day).  Anyway, I had to request for approval to use 95 days as terminal leave in order not to lose the time I had accrued because my terminal leave would bridge the fiscal year.  The request was approved, and so half of the equation was complete.

The other half is PTAD.  As a retiring servicemember I am authorized to take 20 days of PTAD to facilitate househunting, looking for a job, and other transition related tasks.  Similar to leave, every day that you are on PTAD counts- even weekends and holidays.  That means that 20 days PTAD is 20 consecutive days on the calendar that may be taken in conjunction with your terminal leave.  Pretty nice benefit!  You still receive your pay and allowances and can take care of the millions of things that need to be done as you transition.  For those moving away, they can take the 20 days with their terminal leave, which in effect allows them a nearly three week head start on their new lives.  And they get to start using haircare products that much sooner…..

Which brings me back to my coiffure related dilemma.  Since I was not moving away, I was actually eligible for a little more time off because I would be allowed to take my 20 days of PTAD in five day increments.  Locals like me can check out on PTAD on Monday morning and use five days that week, with the orders expiring on Friday at 1700 (five o’clock in the afternoon, which is the end of the work day).  The weekend would be “liberty”, which is naval terminology for time off that is not chargeable as leave or PTAD.  I would then go back in the next Monday and pick up a new set of orders…..and my 20 days became 28.  Excellent!

But……that’s where the signs plastered all over the transition office come in.  I would have to pick up my orders in uniform, or in appropriate civilian attire.  And within grooming standards, which meant I still have a few dates with my barber.  D’oh!

That’s OK though.  He is a great guy, and he knows just how low he can go and still keep my hair within regulations…..

__________

Lessons learned:

– Read the small print, or in this case, the signs that adorn the office.  I had never paid any attention to them because they never applied to me before, but now that they do their significance rocketed to the top of the chart.

– Pay attention to when you are getting out.  If you are not careful you can lose some of your leave when the fiscal year ends at midnight on September 30th, and once those days are lost you cannot get them back.  Your administrative section can help you get the waiver request together.

– If you are taking local PTAD then expect to go in every week to pick up your orders.  I had never heard of this requirement before, but I should have expected it because that is simply the way things are done.  As a result, I have a few more haircuts to take, but that is no big deal.  What is a big deal is if you don’t go in to pick up your orders you can get in trouble for Unauthorized Absence, which is the modern term for being AWOL.

– Terminal leave and PTAD must be approved by your commanding officer, and in some cases the service headquarters.  It is not a right, but is a benefit that may not be approved in some circumstances.  The rub is that while you are on terminal leave and on PTAD your unit goes without your replacement- he or she usually doesn’t show up until your EAS and you job is gapped.  Depending on what you are doing or what is going on, you may be too important to let go.

The other side of transition

Posted by Mike Grice on

My last post was the second of three that delves into the transition educational opportunities that I was fortunate enough to take advantage of.  As many of my readers have pointed out it was another long one, so in an effort to keep things moving along without bludgeoning you, my friend the reader, with another lengthy post I present this brief missive about transition…

Transition is a nice word.  It is a genteel euphemism that we in the military use to describe the transformation from uniformed defender of freedom and the American Way of Life back to the population we all came from.  It makes you feel a little warm inside because it is such a nice word; great feelings about what lies ahead, but also feelings that belie just how nice parts of the transition really aren’t.

There are a lot of elegant synonyms for transition; words like passage, conversion, and adjustment come to mind.  Not bad!  You can read these little bits of cheerful lexicography and your blood pressure stays nice and low.  “I am transitioning.  How nice.  It’s a happy passage from my days in uniform to the rest of my life as a civilian.  The conversion should be a gentle one because of all the programs and whatnot that are out there to help me along.  I used to be a civilian, so the adjustment shouldn’t be too bad!  La de da de da…”  These happy terms are usually accompanied by images of palm trees swaying overhead as you lounge on a nice sandy beach with a mai-tai in one hand and big fat cigar in the other.

Other synonyms are not so nice.  Upheaval.  Distortion.  Revolution.  “Ahhhhhhhhh!  What am I gonna do?  What can I do for a living?  I have no idea what to do for the rest of my life!  Aaaarrrrgh!”  Not so good for your blood pressure.  Visions of a future sitting at highway offramps with a cardboard sign offering to work for food compete with a strong desire to see how fast you can make it all the way to the bottom of a bottle of brown liqour go dancing around your head as you reach for the antacids and Alka-Seltzer.

The truth of the matter is that the transitional process is often only looked at from one perspective- the perspective of “getting out” and neglecting “what’s next”.  We all tend to focus on our End of Active Service day- our EAS- because that is when our career carriages turn into pumpkins.  Woe to those of us who don’t get everything done before midnight….but all too often Marines (and Sailors and Airmen and Soldiers) don’t pay close enough attention to the morning after their last night in uniform.  What are you going to do next?  All of a sudden everything on the list is checked off and you have nobody telling you where to go, what to do, and what to wear as you do it.  It is just you, alone with your thoughts and probably a splitting headache.

There is nothing wrong with sitting around in your underwear for a week or so burning through bags of Cheetos and cases of beer, but that isn’t much of a plan for the rest of your life.  What often occurs is just that- the giddy feeling of hanging it up wears off pretty quickly and is replaced with a burgeoning feeling of dread at the uncertainty that lies ahead, not to mention an epic case of indigestion from all of the junk food and cheap beer that turned out not to be as  rewarding as you thought.  Just like a hangover, the after effects are often not quite what you expected, and then it is too late to go back in time and perform those actions that needed to be done months before.  Without a plan things can go horribly awry- just ask anyone who thought that dropping out of high school would lead to a great upper middle-class way of life these days.  You make your own luck a great man once told me, and sometimes we all need to be told what we need to do even though we don’t want to hear it.

As a commanding officer I made a point of sitting down with each and every Marine and Sailor that left my command.  Many were moving on to new duty stations, but many were also getting out.  The conversation invariably turned to what they planned to do with their lives, and the answers were sometimes surprising.

“So, John (or Bob or Bill), what are you going to do when you get out?”

“Go back to school, sir.”  This is the answer I got about 80% of the time.

“Great!  Good for you.  Where?”

There were a million different answers to this question, but they all boiled down to variations of:

“I am going to (fill in the name of college/school/apprenticeship here).”

or…..

“I dunno.”

The first answer led to a great discussion of life after the Marine Corps- the benefits available with the Post 9/11 GI Bill are quite frankly spectacular.  These Marines and Sailors were well on the way to a successful life on civvie street because they had made a plan and were ready to make it happen.

As for the second answer, well, that led to a completely different dialog, which focused on not ending up like the guy with the cardboard sign.  Some were receptive, some just looked at me with the hollow stare as they inwardly prayed that the bad man (me!) would just stop talking…..but I wouldn’t.  After torturing them for a while, I would wheedle a commitment out of them to do something, anything, but to have a plan.

I think it worked.  I still get emails and facebook hits from a lot of them.  It is very gratifying to hear that a Marine with whom I had such a conversation was now well on his way to graduating from college, and believe it or not I actually run into them from time to time.  Most memorably was a young corporal who got out years ago, and long after he hung up his uniform our paths crossed at Disneyland.  He was there with his young family, and was happy to report that he had completed an apprenticeship as and now had a great life as a locomotive mechanic for the railroad.  I also receive appeals for help from those who didn’t have a plan or who found life on the other side of the fence a lot different than they remembered it.  Where some may turn that into an “I told you so” moment, that isn’t helpful.  I do what every Marine that I ever asked for advice did for me- I see how I can help.  That’s what Marines do, and you know what?  It is just as gratifying because you know that some day down the road the person you help today will send you an email or drop you a note to let you know how things turned out.  And odds are that they will turn out just fine.

Back to class, part 2: the 25+ Pre-Retirement Seminar

Posted by Mike Grice on

“The phonebook’s here!  The phonebook’s here!”

Well, this isn’t the phonebook and I am not Navin R. Johnson, but this is the much anticipated and often promised posting on my second foray into education on transition.  This is the second of three posts about the transition classes and seminars which was fortunate to attend.  The subject today is the 25+ Pre-Retirement Seminar, which is a week long symposium that focuses primarily on training us, the soon to depart active duty set, on the finer points of changing careers. Specifically, this course is intended to provide jobseeking training on a more senior level than the previous TAP/TAMP classes.  Consistent with the title of the course, the student body was comprised with career Marines and Sailors who had served over a quarter of a century in uniform- a truly distinguished (at least we liked to think so!) group of about forty men and women.

Unlike the TAP/TAMP curricula, this seminar did not meet the requirements mandated by the Department of Defense for a transition class.  As such it is truly voluntary but proved to be well worth the time spent!  TAP/TAMP was a broad array of briefs and classes that centered on the mechanics of transition and is intended to educate the nation’s newest veterans on the rights and entitlements that they had earned through their service.  Since all of those subjects were thoroughly covered in the TAP/TAMP classes, the 25+ Pre-Retirement Seminar could focus on what each and every one of us was most worried about: how to get a job.

The course spans an entire week, with an introduction on the first day by a retired Marine named Dan from the Marine Corps Community Services Personal and Professional Development center located aboard Camp Pendleton.  We were shoehorned into a smallish classroom in a building that was new sometime around the Cuban Missile Crisis, but the air conditioning worked so we didn’t really have anything to complain about.  After Dan went over the schedule and the administrative details (like where the heads, I mean bathrooms, were located and more importantly where we could find some coffee), he introduced Chuck.  Chuck would be our teacher, mentor, and confessor for the succeeding days of the course, but the first day belonged to Dan.

Dan’s portion of the class covered some of the same topics from TAP/TAMP, but from a more senior perspective.  For example, one of the guest speakers was a businessman from the local area who discussed entrepreneurship and the exciting possibilities of owning your own business.  “When you own your own business,” he observed, “you are realizing your own dreams.  When you work for somebody else, you are helping them realize theirs!”  True enough!  The concept of being an entrepreneur was more in line with our “older” class, because most young guys and gals getting out after a few years aren’t going to be in the position to go into business for themselves, but the education level and practical experience garnered over a few decades in uniform lend themselves to entrepreneurship.  Hmmm…..food for thought.

One of the most interesting and useful parts of the first day centered around a couple of sheets of paper held together with a standard government issued staple in the corner.  Starkly white with black text (in true government fashion- no fancy graphics or glossy paper for us!), its’ title grabbed my attention right away:

How Prepared Are You to Become a Civilian Again?

Great question!  I read on.

“How prepared do you think you are for the rest of your life?  There are many things to consider as you prepare to leave military service.  Think over each of the questions below and circle the answer that is most applicable to you.  The more “Yes” answers you have, the better prepared you will be.

Hmmmmmmmm.  How ready was I?

“1.  Do you discuss you upcoming retirement freely with your spouse, children, friends?”

Yep.  So far so good!

“2.  Do you know what community, state, and federal resources are available to help you make the transition from military to civilian life?”

Feeling a bit perplexed, I wasn’t so sure that a solid “yes” was the best and honest answer.  I circled “yes” anyway because I wanted to make sure my score at the end of the questionnaire was a good one.

“3.  Do you have a support system – friends, family – away from your work place?”

Whew!  Another easy “yes”!

“4.  Have you thought about meaningful off-duty roles that will prepare you now for civilian career opportunities?”

“5.  Do you have a lawyer with whom you are comfortable?”

“6.  Is your will up to date?”

“7.  Do you have a psychologist, religious adviser, or other professional to whom you can turn for sound personal advice?”

Gulp.  The questions were getting harder, or at least less easy to convince myself that I could continue to happily circle “yes”.  I didn’t realize that having a shrink or a priest was part of transition.  Needless to say, I wasn’t as prepared as I thought, but the exercise of completing the questionnaire did admirably serve to focus my attention.

Not long after being humbled by a simple 25 question questionnaire another lecturer took the stage.  He was a youngish looking guy with a nice suit, and the initial impression was that he was another businessman here to tell us what we needed to do with our lives.  His introduction, though, changed that misguided perception!

It turns out that he was recently one of us, and had made the transition to the other side a couple of years ago.  He was also a graduate of this exact seminar, and was standing before us to spread the gospel of hope and positivity- he was the “after” that we all wanted to become.  Dapper, smart, and articulate, he told us his story, which in a nutshell was that 1) transition is confusing and daunting at times and 2) once you transition, life can be pretty good.  It is the tweener time bookended by getting out on one end and getting a job on the other.  Not to worry though, he said, because we were in this course.  He credited his success to the lessons that he learned in the same seats that we were keeping warm- all we needed to do was pay attention and do everything that Dan and Chuck said.

Not long after his pitch we finished for the day.  Happily, the remainder of the week would be held at the old Officer’s Club, which was much more spacious and comfortable than the Hobbitlike warren we occupied on the first day.  An added piece of happiness was provided as well- we each got our very own copy of the book “What Color is Your Parachute” by Richard Nelson Bolles.  A good class and free stuff to boot!  Not bad!

Promptly at 0800 the next morning we all piled into the O’Club and got ready for Chuck to show us the way to our collective futures.  Before I go into the fine course he gave us, let me give you a little of his background.

Chuck enlisted in the Marine Corps back in the 1950’s.  He did four years on active duty and then got out.  One thing that has always followed him is that his transition from the Marine Corps was not as genteel as it should have been.  More of a “don’t let the door hit you on the way out!” than “thanks for your service”.  It always bothered him.

Chuck had a very successful career despite the failure of the service to prepare him for life on the other side.  He was a salesman and later an executive in the medical devices industry, and after retiring from that line of work he opened his own practice as a career consultant.  He has helped literally thousands of people prepare for interviews and snag successful jobs- including Marines and other servicemen and women.  At a Marine Executive Association meeting (MEA is a great networking association- more on that in another post), Chuck was asked if he could put together a transition seminar for more senior folks (like me!), and after putting a significant amount of diligent work in, he created this seminar.

Fast forward again a couple of years and there I was, sitting on the edge of my seat learning lesson after lesson on what transition was like.  Each and every transition seminar is fantastic, and they are variations on the theme of transition and job hunting.  Chuck’s seminar focused on the hiring process, and most telling was his perspective as a businessman.  He started by handing out a workbook of sorts which contained the entire slide package for his classes along with space to take notes.  This proved to be very useful over the next few days, and my only regret is that I didn’t take more notes!  He used anecdotes from his experience as an employee and employer as well as a wealth of statistical data and research to teach us the ins and outs of how to conduct a successful job search.

There are four specific topics from Chuck’s seminar that were more in depth than the other seminars, and I learned a ton by participating.  Here they are in no particular order:

1.  The importance of professionalism.  Chuck has interviewed literally hundreds, if not thousands, of job candidates.  One of the things he does in his practice is to act as a professional interviewer for companies on the other coast.  He performs initial interviews for professional “C” level (CEO, COO, etc.) candidates- interviews that, if successful, will get them in the door with major companies at senior levels.  Chuck shared with us what it is like to interview senior people.  Some of the vignettes were hilarious, some were a little uncomfortable, but all were lessons in how to put your best foot forward when interviewing.  It isn’t just your resume and a new suit that makes an impression, but little things like cleanliness of your fingernails (engine grease under the nails is only acceptable when applying for a job as a mechanic), the condition of your shoes (ever heard of polish and a brush?) and your breath (is roasted garlic for lunch a good idea before an interview?) His perspectives really showed that it takes a lot of hard work and diligent effort to make an interview go well.  Likewise, it only takes a little laziness a little inattentiveness to make it go poorly.  Long story short- put the work in ahead of time and you will do fewer interviews and land a job.  Don’t do so an you will become a professional interviewee!

2.  Clothes.  The indefatigable Mark Twain observed that clothes make the man, and today I am sure that he would include women in that statement.  In this case it is absolutely true.  Too many of us have terrible wardrobes from decades ago or have a skewed perspective of what businesspeople really dress like (what?  I can’t wear my khaki tie with blue shirt?)  The first impression is critically important in a job interview, and if you look like an idiot things probably won’t go well when you try to dazzle the interviewer with your brilliance.  All they will see is a fashion disaster that they don’t want representing their company.

Chuck doesn’t just wax eloquent with anecdotes in the realm of haberdashery- he brings in the experts.  At the request of the seminar coordinator, the general manager from a nation-wide and well respected clothier gives a lengthy presentation on attire. Far from a sales pitch (and Chuck doesn’t get a kickback!), it is an in-depth education ranging from how suits are made (pretty interesting, really!) to the importance and differences between fashion and style (fashion being the trendy thing that is in this year, and style being timeless…for example, four button suitcoats were fashionable a few years ago, but the two button coat never goes out of style).  They went into great detail on the quality levels in clothing as well as how to dress, which surprisingly has a lot more to it than just slacks + shirt + tie + jacket.  Colors matter (I knew that) and textures do too (texture?  huh?)  Belts should match your shoes.  No bling- that nifty but obnoxious aircraft carrier tie tac is probably not a good idea…and best of all, they had a sale going on that weekend on clothing.  I went shopping and after a personal consultation I like to think that I am, indeed, a sharp dressed man!

3.  Resumes, cover letters, and other job related documentation.  Each seminar has a different take on resumes, and this one is no different.  Chuck preaches the merits of all of the various resume formats, but focuses on the chronological resume over the functional or combination formats.  In his words:

“I have a worksheet for the chronological resume that makes it easier to start. We have to start somewhere and filling in the blanks is easier than saying ‘let’s write a resume what kind of a resume do you want?’ Initially I took this approach [while teaching the seminar] and I had 40+ Marines and Sailors looking at each other. They honestly didn’t know where to start. We are all good at filling in the blanks and each person in the class knows the chronology of their own career. So if you fill in the blanks with your entire career we have a starting point. The chronological is easy for the class because they all have more than two decades of material to work with. When they finally decide on what they would like to do, then we can start discarding irrelevant information. But we had a lot of information to start with; at this point we can make the determination of what type of resume do I want to produce. Resumes are a very personal thing; the resume that you submit to an employer is the one that you decide is the best portrayal of you on paper. It is YOU in the absence of the real and physical you.”

Chuck’s point is a very valid one- the audience (including myself and 30 of my newest and closest herd-mates) have little to no experience with resume writing, and the chronological resume is a logical place to start.  I will devote no shortage of electrons to screen on resumes in the future, but in a nutshell the chronological resume is just that- a lineage of your career that starts with today and stretches back into the past.  How far depends on how much grey hair you have; if you are fresh out of college, then how you did in high school is relevant. Not so much for the “experienced” crowd.  In our case, the last ten years is the most important.  The functional resume is based on your skill sets and is not tied to a timeline.  This is good for situations where qualifications and certifications are important, such as the healthcare field (for example, a specialist in podiatry would probably address their ability to get around a foot pretty well).  The combination is just that, a combination between both of the other formats with the occasional other bit thrown in.  Cover letters are likewise important, because after all, you want to get a job, don’t you?  A mimeographed copy of the same resume sent to a multitude of firms won’t get you very far, and especially if there is not a cover letter to go with it.  The cover letter is a more specific introduction of you to the company you are submitting the resume to.  If you don’t have one, or if it is obviously a generic one, then you are guaranteed to feed the recyclable paper shredder without a second thought.  Other items are business cards, thank you cards, references…..all in all an extensive list of things about which I knew very little but that Chuck educated me on!  Again, I will be writing at great length about all of these in the future.  I promise!

4.  Negotiating salary and benefits.  Now this is important because it is something that all of us uniform are really terrible at.  We come from a background where our salary and benefits are the same for all of us:  you can look it up on the internet.  If you want to see how much I make a year, Google “2011 Military Pay Chart” and look up Lieutenant Colonel (paygrade O-5) with over 26 years of service.  Not so much in the civilian world!  You can get fired for telling everyone how much you make!  Biiiiiiig difference between the civilian world and the military, let me tell you.  Getting back to negotiating, Chuck breaks it down in easily understandable chunks that we can use to negotiate our salary and benefit with a potential employer.  Little things like 37% of people who ask for something get it, while 100% of those who don’t ask for anything get nothing.  Another gem is doing your homework- how much is the position worth?  More specifically, how much is the position worth where you want to live?  A salary in the midwest  is simply not the same as one in New York or San Francisco- you really need look into the background in order to determine what is right for the job, for you, and for your family.  He also goes into great detail about benefits, perks, and the like.  Company car?  Parking?  Mileage?  All of those things that I had not thought of were laid out in a logical and thoughtful manner.  There are literally dozens of resources just a few keystrokes away- try an internet search for the average salary and benefits for the type of job you are looking for.  Search several sites and average them together, and that will give you a benchmark from which to negotiate.  After all, the person with whom you are negotiating does this for a living, so you had better be diligent!

I learned a tremendous amount about transitioning from Dan and Chuck, and I am truly in their debt.  If you are on the West Coast, then start breaking down doors to get into the course.  If not, hopefully their seminar will be established at a base near you….

__________

Lessons learned:

– Find out if a senior level retirement seminar is available in your area.  The successful implementation of Dan and Chuck’s hard work here at Camp Pendleton has resulted in bases far and wide trying to copy the program.  Also, sign up early as there are only so many seats per class.

– First and foremost, calm down and get yourself organized as you begin your search for a job. It’s easy for me to say calm down, but when you are faced with the prospects of finding a job in today’s market, it’s a daunting task.  Organization will make it a little easier.

– Do your planning in a logical order. Don’t try to do everything at once. You want to make a time-flow chart with all of your tasks laid out. Each entry should have a start and finish date. You can follow the workbook and lay out your projects in logical order. Some of these tasks should be: Resume, Cover Letter (Each one should be personalized but you should have a plan) Reference Page, Networking plan in writing, Practice interviewing skills, Research employment possibilities, put together your interviewing wardrobe, develop ideas for thank you notes, and spend only 15% to 20% of your time contacting employment agencies and headhunters because that is the percentage of jobs that they tend to provide.

– Be comfortable in talking about yourself at an interview. Your interviewer really wants to know two things about you (1) What are your qualifications for the job and (2) based on your qualifications what are your accomplishments.

– Follow-up on all leads!  Networking is where most jobs come from, and one of the follow-ups that you do may be the job that you are actually seeking.

– Job search is the worst job in the world. The sooner you get going on all aspects the sooner you will get a job and a paycheck!

I would like to extend a hearty thank-you to Chuck, as he helped with this post!

Crisis avoided!

Posted by Mike Grice on

Ack!

Again, Ack!

Yesterday was one of those days that starts out just fine and ends up just fine, but the middle of the day felt a little like I swallowed a blender stuck on “liquify”.  (For those keeping track, this is yet another post that is not the 25+ Pre-Retirement post, but I swear that one is coming- I just had to share my gut-wrencher from yesterday first).

It all started in the morning.  My routine is a little different now that I am transitioning than it was when I was gleefully shoving my face into the career grindstone.  Back then I was up at 0500 or so and on the road to work before 0600, draining a cup or two of coffee in the dark as I drove to the base.  After checking emails, I was out running and working out by 0630.  By 0800 I was showered, at my desk, and slaying each beastly problem that reared its ugly head.  Ahhh, the good old days…..

But now I get up a little later (0600 if I am really lucky and can sleep in- after all, a couple of decades of getting up early is a tough habit to break!), I make the kids breakfast, watch a little news, check my personal email, drink a couple of cups of coffee, and then take my kids to school.  I still work out, but now I can do it in the daylight (who knew?) and while wearing my iPod and without a reflective belt, the iPod because it is against orders to wear one while you run on base (we can’t be trusted to not wander into an oncoming tank as we dreamily listen to the latest Avril Lavigne album- annoying, that rule!) and sans reflective belt because I am pretty sure I needn’t rely on a strip of reflective vinyl to warn drivers not to run me over.  Silly rules….

So anyhow, I dropped the kids off at school and happily drove onto base.  I drove past all of the motivated Marines who were out running long distances, clapping their hands, and counting to four in the finest traditions of physical training and started work.  After presenting a brief to my erstwhile boss, I headed over to the hospital to knock out a couple of medical appointments.  On the way, I stopped by the “retirements” section of our Installation Personnel Administration Center (IPAC- another acronym!).  IPAC is where those diligent, yet underloved and undervalued administration types work.  They are responsible for getting us paid, ensuring our orders are correct, and every other arcane bit of administrivia that pertains to our service.  In typical Marine Corps fashion, the office is squirreled away in a byzantine and somewhat decrepit old converted barracks located in a part of camp that I rarely get to.

After scaring a few young Privates First Class with my shiny Lieutenant Colonel’s silver oak leaves (my shiny rank insignia- they gave their best salutes and inwardly prayed that I would just keep walking and not say anything other than “Good Morning” to them), I wended my way up the ladderwell (stairs for you landlubbers) and hit the retirements office.  It was about lunchtime, so there were only a couple of people there instead of the normal half dozen or so.

I saw my smiling retirement counselor and gave him a wave.  “Just stopping by to make sure everything is OK with my retirement request,” said I, “is there anything I need to do?”

Even though it was his lunch hour, he set aside what looked like an algebra textbook (never too late to go back to school!) and cheerily said “I’ll take a look!”  This is why I love working with former Marines (a “former Marine is a civilian who used to be a Marine- retired or not), because he could have just pointed to the “closed for lunch” sign and made me come back later.  Marines help Marines, former or not.

After a little banter, his brow furrowed a bit and he let me know that my request for 95 days of terminal leave had never been approved.

I think that the explosive pressure that instantly filled my head caused the earthquake on the Eastern Seaboard yesterday, even though the epicenter was some 3000 miles away.  My knees nearly buckled and I almost started to feel faint.

Before I continue with the story, let me explain a few of the particulars in the case.  Let’s start with “Terminal Leave”. Terminal Leave is leave (“vacation” in civilian parlance) that is taken at the end of your service and before you officially transition back to civvie street.  We earn 30 days of leave each year, and in cases where you have some left over you can take it at the end of your time in uniform, which in effect gives you time off with pay before you get out.  In my case, I had accrued over 100 days of leave (which is a lot, but thanks to a lot of time in hot, brown, and angry places I had not been able to take all of my vacation for the last five or so years) and I wanted to use up 95 days of it just before my retirement date.  That would give me an opportunity to transition at a leisurely pace and maybe put a dent in the scoll-like “honey-do” list that hangs above my married head like the sword of Damocles.

Well, to get 95 days requires one to ask for a waiver from the Marine Corps headquarters in Quantico, Virginia, and the waiver must be requested in standard Naval format using an arcane system that hearkens from the days of clattering teletypes.  In my case, the timing is critical because my request crosses over the end of the fiscal year (September 30th), and any leave that I had in excess of 75 days would be lost without the waiver.  So, in a nutshell, if the request was not approved I would have to work for about another month before I could go on terminal leave.

That would not go over well at home.  Trust me.

My friendly retirement counselor saw my consternation and asked if I had a copy of the message. Nope.  Did I have an email, perhaps?  Yes!  Taking his generous offer to log into one of their office computers, I pulled up a months-old email from my monitor (the monitor is the Marine who determines your assignments and issues orders that send you to places like Alaska if he doesn’t like you or Hawaii if he does in addition to approving terminal leave waivers from people like me) that said he had no problem with me taking 95 days of terminal leave.  Unfortunately, the email did not have the formal approval, so it wasn’t quite enough.

D’oh!

“Call your monitor,” said my counselor, “he should have the message.”

My head was spinning.  Surely there was a copy of the message!  I asked if he could access it from his computer.  He looked, but it wasn’t there.  Again, he advised me to call my monitor.

Reaching for the phone, I didn’t call my monitor but instead called the administrative shop at my unit.  The request had gone through them months ago, but because it was lunchtime the only one there was the poor low ranking sap who had to sit there and answer idiotic question from knuckleheads like me who call during lunchtime.  After baffling the poor Marine with questions that way outside his lane, the sweat started to break out on my forehead.

A little more insistantly, “sir, call your monitor!”

So I dialed up Quantico and asked for my monitor.  He wasn’t there, but the assistant monitor was.  He had just re-entered his office after being evacuated by the earthquake, but in admirable Marine Corps fashion he immediately got back to work by helping me, a distraught officer on the other coast.  He confirmed that they had never received the request, but he was able to pull up the email where his boss had agreed to my retirement plans.

“Sir,” he said, “If you can get the date-time group of the message I can pull it up and approve it immediately.  You’ll have it tomorrow.”

Ahh, the date-time group of the message.  That is how these messages are tracked.  The date-time group is just that- the date and time that the message was sent by the originator.  Since literally thousands of these messages are sent every day it is the only way to make sure that you have the right one, and without having the date-time group it would be like looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack.  Part of the problem is that the request does not go directly from the originator (me!) to the approver, but instead it has to go through several levels of command (bureaucracy at its finest!) and then it finally arrives on the desk of the person who can approve or deny it.  In my case, the message was lost somewhere between California and Virginia, even though it is an electronic system.  At any rate, I had some sleuthing to do in order to find the information he needed.

I thanked him as well as my counselor, who waved and went back to his algebra homework.  I left the office and headed for my appointments, making calls as I went.  Since it was still lunchtime, they were in vain.  So, off to the hospital I went, and after a couple of hours getting poked and prodded by various medical personnel I was able to resume my quest for the most important message in the Marine Corps (at least in my opinion!).

I called my administrative section and finally got connected to a Marine who knew how to work the messaging system.  I explained my dilemma, and after answering a few questions, he announced that he had found it.   Hooray!  He quickly read me the date-time group from the message, and I was back in business.

I emailed the information to the assistant monitor, and sure enough I checked my email this morning and he had done just as he promised- the request was formally approved and all was again right with the world.

Whew!  Good thing, too.  I think my family would have strung me up had I come home with the news that I needed to keep working for another month….

__________

Lessons learned:

– Always, always, always get copies of every piece of paper that pertains to your transition.  In my case, I followed the status of the message up through the chain until I had been assured that it was approved.  I didn’t ask for a copy, and since I didn’t I was unable to provide the proof I needed to fix my problem.

– Follow up repeatedly.  I tracked the message several months ago, but didn’t follow up again until it was nearly too late.  I shudder to think what may have happened if I had not stopped by the administrative office yesterday!

– Listen to the experts.  The counselor had to tell me three times to call my monitor.  If I had just done as he suggested immediately it would have saved me a few hours of angst and heartache.  After all, that’s why they call the experts- they know more about their trade than you do!

Joining the herd

Posted by Mike Grice on

When I left you with the last post I promised that the next missive would be on the 25+ Retirement Seminar.  Well, this isn’t it.  I didn’t exactly lie (not just because that is just a bad idea in general, and I promise that I will be giving you, the constant reader, all the inside scoop on the 25+ later) but I am instead going to write about the new group that I have found myself becoming a part of- a group that I had never overtly intended to join but happily ended up in anyway.

I became a member when I began attending transition seminars.  Not at all unlike the the first couple of days in a high school I started to see the same faces in the seats to my left and right, except now they had grey hair and wrinkles as opposed to the big hair and RayBan Wayfarers that were the rage when I left the hallowed halls of my youthful education. In a surprising departure from our love affair with snappy uniforms with lots of sparkly trinkets the courses are conducted in civilian clothes, so there were none of the trappings that are part and parcel of martial life; no rank insignia or rack of ribbons to show our standing in the pecking order.  Becoming civilians again began with the simple act of dressing like civilians- it made us all equal again, just like we used to be.  We were all of similar age and were similarly dressed in the standard collared shirt and khaki slacks which compose the non-uniform that we all wear when we can’t wear a uniform.  Much as we leave the world as naked as we entered it, my cohorts and I were decamping from the service in the mufti we abandoned to don the cloth of the nation.

Where before I considered myself carnivorous to a fault, I left the pack and fell in with very different crowd.  I affectionately call them (us!) the herd.  It is not a pejorative title in the least, but a descriptive observation of the new strata I found myself in.  When you are on active duty, you are moving at a million miles an hour in about a hundred different directions. Compartmentalized thinking and multitasking are the norm- you almost never have the luxury of just tackling one problem at a time.  As such, when all tend to be in a hurry, may be a bit brusque in our speech, and never have time to sit back and watch the leaves blow in the wind.

Once you drop your papers and announce that you are departing the service your ride on the waves of chaos comes to an end.  You turn over flag to the next guy or gal, hand in your blackberry, and lose your parking spot- but you get your life back!  All of a sudden you can take your kids to school and plan for holidays with the certainty that you won’t be hanging tinsel on a tree made out of an ammunition crate made festive with olive drab paint.  Just as significant as these marvelous changes is your inculcation into a covey of people just like you- recently careworn, stressed out, and career-driven, but now shifting their lives to civilian side of the fence.

No longer part of the rapacious pack, we are all members of the congenial herd.  Regardless of our background- pilot, grunt, artilleryman, mechanic, whatever- we are all now taking the same train to the same destination.  We are all leaving our chosen profession to pursue life on civvie street, and just as the Unsinkable Molly Brown observed as she watched the Titanic sink beneath the waves, we were all in the same boat-first class and steerage passengers all lumped together.  The ride is about to end.  But that’s ok.  There are plenty of other rides out there, and for a change we get to choose which one we want to try.

Back to class, part 1: the Transition Assistance (Management) Program

Posted by Mike Grice on

Transitioning from the military to the civilian world is an inevitable event in the lives of servicemen and women.  It began with George Washington bidding a fond farewell to his militia and regulars at the end of the Revolutionary War and has continued on through a couple of centuries of war and peace.  Decade after decade veterans who have served the flag have hung up their uniforms and integrated back into society- some without missing a beat, but those individuals are rare indeed.  For the rest of us, the road is a little bumpy and has some unexpected turns! Fortunately, somebody up there was looking out for those of us who are easily confused.

Enter the Transition Assistance Program, or TAP (sometimes labelled “TAMP”, for Transition Assistance Management Program).  TAP/TAMP, universally referred to by military types as “tapandtamp”, is a mandated and required training workshop that everyone in the military must attend prior to hanging it all up.  The program began in 1989 as a joint initiative between the Veterans Administration (VA), the Department of Defense (DOD), and the Department of Labor (DOL), and was designed to provide separating servicemembers with employment and job training assistance as well counseling on VA benefits and services.  It came about because prior to 1989 there was no coordinated or consistent curriculum to aid those on their way out the door; every base and service had its own version of what to do, ranging from formalized classes and aggressive job placement to nothing more than a hearty handshake and a slap on the back as you walked out the gate.  Needless to say, the creation of the program back in 1989 was a great idea, and it has been helping military types become educated veterans ever since – including the one writing this post!

After meeting with my retirement counselor I began coordinating with the base Transition office.  I picked up the phone and called the number listed on the first page of my transition checklist, and was very pleasantly surprised to find yet another retired Marine on the other end of the phone who was thrilled that I had rung him up.  He quickly put my mind at ease with his affable manner and earnest desire to help me out.  After chatting for a few minutes, he asked about my circumstance (“what rank are you?  Oh, that’s great, sir!  Retiring?  How many years in?  When is your last day?”) and by the end of our conversation I had reservations at both the Pre-Retirement TAP/TAMP and the 25+ Pre-Retirement seminars.  It was truly a joy to talk to this guy, who I had figured for a long retired guy who just loved being around Marines.

As it turned out, I was right.  Not long after our conversation I stopped by his office, a tiny room on the third deck (floor for non-Naval types) and met him in person.  An surprisingly spritely octogenarian, he fairly leaped from behind his desk in order to shake hands and introduce himself.  With a broad grin, he confirmed my enrollment in the transition courses.  As I looked around his cramped office, I saw pictures of a much younger man in vintage Marine Corps uniforms.  Too modest to talk about himself too much, we parted company.  I later learned that he had enlisted in the Marine Corps during the Second World War and crossed the beach at Iwo Jima with a rifle in his hand, which to all Marines places him into nearly God-like status.  As if that weren’t enough, he went on to fight in Korea and Vietnam and ultimately ended up retiring as a Sergeant Major.  And now he spent his days helping people like me, who were likely unborn when he retired, transition from the service.  Thank God for men such as him!

But I digress. At any rate, the schedule of events during the seminar is very similar whether you take it in Okinawa, Germany, or California.  More of a symposium or a workshop than a seminar, it is a series of lectures, classes, and briefings presented by knowledgeable representatives on a wide variety of topics ranging from medical evaluations to taxation considerations.  The following is a list of presentations that I found to be very useful as I attended the Pre-Retirement TAP/TAMP seminar at Camp Pendleton, California:

– Welcome/Introduction: this was just like the beginning of any workshop you attend.  They hand out a schedule and promise not to keep you late, which is a standard fabrication for almost any required class.  I was pleasantly surprised to find that these guys could actually keep to a schedule, and we got out on time!  They had this down to a science, and each brief was efficiently and professionally done in the time allotted.  In addition, they provided a broad overview of the transition services center and what they could do for the attendees, which turns out to be a great deal.

– TRICARE brief.  This is a very important brief for retirees, because it details the options for medical care after transition.  In a nutshell, healthcare is free for active duty personnel and there are several different programs for families.  Once you take off your uniform, however, you have to decide which medical insurance plan is best for you.

– Dental brief.  This was pretty quick and to the point.  Just as with medical care, dental work is free for the servicemember and there are pretty good plans for families.  As you transition, though, they options are less good, so you will have to choose which one you would like.

– Survivor Benefit Plan (SBP).  As a retiree you will receive a pension.  Depending on when you entered the service you are eligible for one of three plans- in my case my pension is based on my length of service and average monthly salary over the last 36 months of active duty.  The length of service determines the percentage of the 36 month average salary you will receive for the rest of your life.  Getting a pension is a pretty big deal, particularly now as there are very few companies that such a great retirement plan.  401Ks are nice, but require a lot of management and are subject to the whims of the stock market.  A pension check just shows up once a month, well at least as long as the Federal Government is around.  I think that will be a while, but again I digress!  The pension check only arrives as long as the retiree is alive- once he or she kicks the bucket the pension terminates.  In order to protect the family, however, the SBP allows for up to 55% of the pension benefit to transfer to the spouse (and in some cases, the children) after the passing of the retiree.  Like TRICARE, there is a lot to it, and I will dedicate a post to insurance considerations (TRICARE, Dental, and SBP) in the future.

– Federal Veteran’s Affairs.  There were several components to the VA brief, all of which were relevant and important.  First there was on overview of benefits, such as loan guarantees, burial plots, and the like.  The most significant brief covered the medical evaluation process which results in the determination if you have a service connected disability.  Being considered disabled opens the door to other benefits, many of which are pretty amazing, one example being the California University System, which will allow the children of disabled veterans to attend college tuition-free.  Whilst images of disability meaning life in a wheelchair, I learned that is not the case.  As with insurance, this will be a post of its own in the future because it is a pretty complicated process, and it is easy to screw it up and deny yourself benefits later in life.  Another critically important VA brief covered GI Bill benefits, which these days are fantastic.  In a nutshell, the VA will pay for school at the state school rate and also pay you a housing allowance while you go to school, but you have to jump through a few hoops to take advantage of it.  Fortunately, there are VA offices and administrators whose job it is to help, and I have found them to be helpful indeed!

– State Veteran’s Affairs.  Like the federal VA program, each state has benefits for veterans.  California’s are largely based on the level of disability (such as the California college education opportunity listed above), but not all of them are.  Benefits range from free license plates if you are 100% disabled to free access to state parks just for being a veteran.  Great stuff!

– Joint Education Center (JEC).  The presenter from the JEC (woohoo!  more acronyms!) also addressed the GI Bill, but also went into much greater detail on the various education programs available for veterans.  For example, many of the schools and jobs that servicemembers have attended and held during their careers may be eligible for college credit, and the JEC can assist with the evaluation process.  It also provides counseling and help with applying for trade schools, college, or apprenticeships.

-Disbursing and Travel.  This brief covered how you will be paid as a retiree.   As an active servicemember you receive a paycheck twice a month, on the first and fifteenth of the month.  As a retiree, that changes to once a month on the first, so budgeting is a little more important.  They also disclose what you will be paid for and what you won’t, which is significantly different from being on active duty.  While serving, your paycheck includes a housing allowance (as long as you live off base), an allowance for meals, various bonuses and special duty payments (for example, reenlistment bonuses or extra pay for pilots and parachutists), and a uniform replacement allowance for enlisted members.  When you retire all of those extra payments go away, and you pretty much just rate your pension.  I don’t jump out of airplanes or fly them, so I won’t miss that money because I never received it.  I will miss the housing and food allowances, though!

– Household Effects/Transportation.  This brief is important for those who will be retiring someplace other than their last duty station. Pretty much everyone wants to retire to Aruba, but the realities of life generally bring that dream to a tragic end.  Generally speaking, people retire to one of three places: where they are, where they are from, or someplace completely new.  Transportation to the first choice is easy because there are no benefits.  You just go home.  The second choice is pretty simple as well.  If you want to go back to your Home of Record (where you enlisted from), the government will pay to ship your household goods as well as pay for you and your family to travel to your new (old) home.  In the third case, it is a little more complicated.  The travel experts figure out how much it would cost to move you to your Home of Record and will apply that amount to the cost of moving you and your stuff.  So, if you still want to move to Aruba and you enlisted from Iowa, you will have to make up the difference on your own.

– Financial Readiness.  This brief covers the financial ramifications of retirement as well as strategies for the future.  Since we are eligible for a pension, most of us have not really paid much attention to the variety of other opportunities out there beyond a Individual Retirement Account and maybe the Thrift Savings Plan, which is a nonmatching 401K type vehicle.  The presenter showed us various investment strategies and a peek into what types of compensation exists on the outside world.

– Marine Corps Community Services (MCCS).  This brief covered the opportunities that exist with MCCS, which is a broad umbrella organization that includes things ranging from portions of the Marine Corps Exchange (like our base shopping mall) to recreational services such as sports equipment rental.  Access to some programs change when you retire, which they covered in the presentation.  There are also a lot of job opportunities with MCCS, which the addressed as well.

– The Psychological Factors of Retirement.  This covered the “softer” side of transition, the side that doesn’t have a rigid checklist to follow or series of classes to attend.  This class really addressed what happens after your last day in uniform- the feelings of loneliness, uselessness, confusion, and in many cases, happiness and joy.  We military types are not the most introspective and emotional folks out there, so this class was a real eye opener.

– Relocation and Retired Activities.  There are a lot of resources out there that you can utilize as you transition and once you become a valued veteran, and the Relocation and Retired Activities office is the place go to access them.  It is really a resource designed for those who are staying in the area because it is a link to the local community.

– Medical records brief and review.  This is one of the most important parts of the symposium!  After an hourlong brief that covered the nuts and bolts of how you are medically evaluated by the Veterans Administration, you are afforded the opportunity to have your medical record evaluated by a true expert on such things (in my case, it was a great guy from the Disabled American Veterans, or DAV).  It is very important that you bring your entire medical record on this day, because the class and succeeding evaluation of your record will provide you insights about which you had no idea.  This is a pre-inspection of your records, but what it does is allows you to follow up with your military medical provider on any physical maladies or problems that require attention before you retire or get out.  This is a big deal because access to medical care is easy while you still wear a uniform, but not so much when you take it off for the last time.  In addition, you will leave the screening with a list of recurrent medical problems that will later determine your medical disability percentage, and with that percentage the possibility of greater monetary compensation.  I will write a lot more on the medical side of transition in future posts.  Don’t miss this day at TAP/TAMP, and DON’T FORGET YOUR MEDICAL RECORD!!

– Job Hunting and Prospecting.  This is a class that could have been a seminar all by itself.  You are introduced to the realities of finding a job on the outside (not impossible, but not necessarily easy, either) along with the importance of networking.  I will leave it at that because the next two seminars focus on this part a great deal.

– Writing a resume, cover letter, etc.  This class was accompanied by a couple of nifty workbooks which helped you write a resume that actually might help get a job, as opposed to the horrible ones that you tend to write without help.  I say that from experience, because I brought with me a resume that I thought was pretty good but was in all actuality total garbage.  You spend a lot of time (a whole day out of the four day package) learning about business documents and how to write them.  In addition, you learn how to interview and how to sell yourself.  Marines tend to be pretty humble, believe it or not, and it is difficult to get them (and me!) to talk about their accomplishments and the great things that they have done during their careers.  Lastly, the fine art of salary negotiation (!) is covered- something that is completely foreign to Marines who have been paid based on time in service and rank for their entire careers.

All things considered, the TAP/TAMP workshop was a tremendous wake up call for all of us who have attended it.  It is indeed required (and you get a neat stamp on your check out sheet that boldly proclaims TAMP COMPLETE on the last day), but despite the negative connotation of all required classes, it was truly invaluable.  I learned more about the rest of my life in that class than in any single period of instruction that I had ever attended.  Well done!

In my next posts I will cover the  25+ Pre-Retirement and Ruehlin seminars- both fantastic courses with a different spin on transition.

__________

Lessons learned:

– Start early!  You are eligible to attend TAP/TAMP up to two years before you get out, and if you do you will be a lot better off than those of us who waited until it was nearly too late.  The insights you receive are fantastic, but more importantly the class details what you need to do to successfully complete the transition process.

– Make sure to get the whole week off for the course.  Even though it is required, there are often times when you “absolutely” have to get back to work and miss a brief or two.  Believe it or not, you aren’t that important.  After all, you’re getting out!  Let some hard charger run your shop for a while so you can devote the time and energy needed to make the best of the whole course.

– Bring your medical record!  If you don’t you will miss out on a great opportunity to prepare for the medical side of transition, including making the best of your disability evaluations.

– Take lots of notes.  You will be provided a pile of handouts and workbooks and the like, but if you don’t take notes they end up being pretty useless.  A good idea is to write the name of the presenter and their contact information (phone number, office location, and email address) in the corner of the handouts that they provide.  This will make it easy to call on them later when you have a question- and I guarantee that you will!

– This post is a broad brush of TAP/TAMP, and I will be writing in much greater detail about several topics in the future.  Just some of the future posts will include the medical evaluation process, insurance selection, resume writing, job hunting, interviewing, administration, and more.  Keep reading!