Trading tradition for a tuxedo

Posted by Mike Grice on November 16, 2011

Gentlemen’s Quarterly, the unequalled guide to fashion, suavity, and panache unabashedly states that every man must own a tuxedo. I have had the great fortune to be able to ignore that bit of fashion guidance for decades because of the most dashing collection of uniforms that fill my closet. I am haberdashed to the fullest when it comes to uniforms for every occasion; I can emerge from my dressing room ready equipped for firefight or prepared for a black tie formal. Unfortunately, the spectrum of uniforms don’t transition to the civilian world, and the flexibility of a closet filled with every conceivable martial fashion choice exists only as long as you continue on active service.

I had not really thought much about it, other than to rummage through at my uniforms in search of the civilian clothes that hung amongst them as I get dressed each morning. That is, until November rolled around.

November is a big month for servicemen and servicewomen because it is the month of Veterans Day. The crisp height of autumn finds proud old soldiers marching side by side with their younger counterparts in parades that mark the service of those who have worn the cloth of the nation, and it is the time for all of us to promise to never forget the sacrifice that they have made to ensure our country remains the best on Earth.

For Marines, however, November holds an even greater meaning. November is the month of the birth of our Corps, and each and every Marine who has ever served can tell you what our birthday is. November 10th, 1775 is the date of the founding of the United States Marine Corps, and every year since Marines have celebrated that momentous and distinguished day.

It is a day replete with elegant ceremony, pomp, and circumstance. Marines everywhere, regardless of clime, place, or situation will stop what they are doing and throw a birthday party. They range from white tie formals that rival the cotillions of nineteenth century France to a couple of tired Marines sharing an MRE dessert in a muddy fighting hole between firefights. Whatever the situation, Marines will gather together and perform a simple ceremony to mark the day that we all grow a year older. In this case, the Marine Corps turns a youthfully venerable 236.

Formal events are quite elaborate. They usually start with “preflighting”, which is when Marines and their guests gather before cocktail hour to get a head start on the evening. Preflighting usually goes in someone’s hotel suite, and there you will find a few coolers filled with beer and counters laden with cocktail fixings. After having a cold one or two, it is time to head for the cocktail hour that preceeds the event- time for another drink (for all of the teetotalers out there who are aghast at the thought of drinking before the cocktail hour starts, well, get over it. Marines are known for doing many things well, and drinking is one of them!) There is nothing quite as wonderful as sharing an evening with the ones that you love and the ones you will lay your life down for. It is a truly transcendent experience.

Cocktail hour ends with a bugle call that invites everyone to their tables. Moments later the ceremony begins, and every Marine’s heart quickens to the tap of a drum and the brassy keening of the band. Two at a time an escort of Marines marches onto the scene armed with swords and and a steely gaze, smartly coming to a stop in two facing rows that frame the setting for the ceremony. They are followed by the Guest of Honor and Commanding Officer of the unit hosting the celebration who march to their places at the head of the evening’s parade ground. The nation’s colors, reverently carried by by a guard of Marines, are solemly presented with every pair of eyes in the house is riveted on Old Glory as the national anthem is played.

Following the posting of the colors (which is when the flag is placed in its ceremonial position) a cake is brought forth, escorted by Marines dressed in their distinctive (and unmatched!) dress uniforms. The ceremonial Adjutant draws forth a scroll on which is scribed a directive from General John. A. Lejeune, a legendary commandant of our Corps whose service predates ours by a century or so. Without aid of something as tawdry as a microphone, the Adjutant booms the venerated message out for all to hear:

“On November 10, 1775, a Corps of Marines was created by a resolution of Continental Congress. Since that date many thousand men have borne the name “Marine”. In memory of them it is fitting that we who are Marines should commemorate the birthday of our corps by calling to mind the glories of its long and illustrious history.

The record of our corps is one which will bear comparison with that of the most famous military organizations in the world’s history. During 90 of the 146 years of its existence the Marine Corps has been in action against the Nation’s foes. From the Battle of Trenton to the Argonne, Marines have won foremost honors in war, and in the long eras of tranquility at home, generation after generation of Marines have grown gray in war in both hemispheres and in every corner of the seven seas, that our country and its citizens might enjoy peace and security.

In every battle and skirmish since the birth of our corps, Marines have acquitted themselves with the greatest distinction, winning new honors on each occasion until the term “Marine” has come to signify all that is highest in military efficiency and soldierly virtue.

This high name of distinction and soldierly repute we who are Marines today have received from those who preceded us in the corps. With it we have also received from them the eternal spirit which has animated our corps from generation to generation and has been the distinguishing mark of the Marines in every age. So long as that spirit continues to flourish Marines will be found equal to every emergency in the future as they have been in the past, and the men of our Nation will regard us as worthy successors to the long line of illustrious men who have served as “Soldiers of the Sea” since the founding of the Corps.

JOHN A. LEJEUNE,

Major General Commandant”

The honoring of tradition does not end there. With a flourish borne of tradition and practice, the Adjutant proffers his or her sword to cut the cake. Two slices are produced, and are presented by the Commanding Officer to the Guest of Honor for the evening, and then the second piece is respectfully conferred to the oldest Marine present. In a tasty Marine Crops tradition the oldest Marine then passes the piece of cake to the youngest Marine (having left at least one bite, and with a new fork), who then takes a bite- symbolizing the passing of tradition from the old guard to the new. The birthdates of the oldest are read out as they sample their piece of cake, with the oldest receiving the muted respect that such long service commands and the youngest receiving the howling laughter and applause that accompanies the honor of being younger than the children of many Marines present. The sage meets the prelate, and they share a piece of most excellent cake. Not at all a bad tradition!

With the returning of the plates and cutlery the sequence is reversed. The cake is marched away to the tune of Auld Lang Syne, followed by the color guard after paying respects again to our nation’s flag. The guest of honor and commanding officer follow the flag off of the ceremonial floor, closely accompanied by pairs of escorts. With a rousing rendition of Anchor’s Aweigh (to honor our naval tradition) and the Marine’s Hymn (to honor all Marines and the birth of our Corps) the ceremony draws to a close. All that remains are remarks from the current Commandant of the Marine Corps, the hosting commanding officer, and the guest of honor which are traditionally presented just before dinner is served.

The best remarks are those that are meaningful, thoughtful, endearing, and brief. Having been to countless balls during my 27 years in uniform I have felt the thrill of excitement that a great and motivating speaker brings to the ceremony as well as the mind numbing drudgery inflicted by those who even with the best of intentions drone ceaselessly on. And on. And on. (The longest in my experience approached the hour and a half mark before departing the podium and allowing us dive into our wilted salads.)

Once the remarks are completed and the guest of honor is presented with a token of appreciation for his or her words of motivation and wisdom the formal ceremony is complete. Marines and guests cheerfully turn to those who share their table and break bread together in a respectful and joyful atmosphere more reminiscent of a wedding than a military event. After dessert (which of course includes the birthday cake!) the bars reopen and the ceremonial parade ground becomes a dance floor, on which the metaphorical rug is cut to shreds in the hours that follow. It is a birthday party, wedding, prom, and Sadie Hawkins dance all rolled into one, Marine Corps Style- and it is the best party you will likely every attend! Just ask Justin Timberlake.

So that brings us back to my personal predicament. November arrived after Halloween just as it always does, and with the approaching 236th birthday of the Marine Corps I was placed on the horns of a dilemma. What ever would I wear? It was a conundrum that I had not faced since high school! Fashion choices…suits or tuxedo? Haircut and uniform (which I could still do)?

The decision was further confounded by circumstance as I was honored to find myself invited to attend the 11th Marine Regiment’s Headquarters Battery Ball as the guest of honor. Yikes! I thought back to all of the balls that I had attended what they meant. I had squired lovely ladies and escorted my bride in my Dress Blue and Evening Dress uniforms, and had broken chunks of ration cake with my fellow Marines in the field and on the decks of amphibious ships. Those birthdays all shared one central theme in my life- that the day of celebration was a mile marker on the autobahn of my career. This ball, however, fell as I left the highway and steered to the offramp, and somehow it didn’t seem right to wear my uniform.

So I followed the advice of Gentlemen’s Quarterly and purchased the evening clothes that I would wear that night, and indeed for every November 10th until they box me up and bury me somewhere at the end of my days. So on this, my 27th consecutive celebration of the birth of the Marine Corps, I trade in the tradition of wearing the cloth of the nation for a new set of clothes. As I depart the ranks serving Marines I join the citizenry of the nation I have defended for so long, and it seems somehow fitting to wear a Tuxedo to mark the occasion.

After all, you can’t wear your uniform forever and everybody likes a sharply dressed man!

Checking out (3): There and back again, or slaying the Supply monster

Posted by Mike Grice on November 12, 2011

In a recent post I introduced you to that most excellent and important document: the checkout sheet. It is a roadmap that leads to life after the service, but you can’t follow it out the gate until every signature is inked in the appropriate spot. The ease with which you get those spots filled varies widely, however. Some are easy, and some are hard, and some are downright painful. Let’s start there first.

In theory completing your checkout sheet should be pretty simple. As I have said before the checkout process goes on pretty much every day at every base and in every service, so you would think that it would be a smooth and streamlined process. For some signatures it is, but for others, well, not so much. Today we’ll take a look at the most difficult stamp to obtain: the one you receive from the supply warehouse after turning in all of your field gear.

For those who don’t know the way that Marines are equipped to train and fight is with a comprehensive set of personal equipment that ranges from a “lightweight” (ha!) kevlar helmet to protect your noggin to steel reinforced combat boots to protect your feet. You have body armor reminiscent of a turtle’s shell that is festooned with pouches to hold everything from a notebook and a pen to hand grenades and ammunition magazines for your rifle. You get a sleeping bag to keep you toasty when it is cold outside and a poncho to keep you dry when it rains. Need a jacket? You get one. Gloves? Here you go. Cup for your coffee? You even get one of those. All told you receive several thousand dollars worth of personal equipment that you will to use when you train and fight, and for the record it is hands down the best equipment that Marines have ever been issued. It is a lot of gear. So much gear, in fact, that by the time you make it through the line you are staggering beneath such a mountain of green, brown, and black accouterments of war that even the mighty titan Atlas would shudder at the heap that you shoulder on the way out of the warehouse.

And when you are done with it the Marine Corps wants it back.

Therein lies the rub. In the typically complex way of the Marine Corps you aren’t actually issued all of the stuff you need at one time or from one place. You receive your basic equipment from a centralize warehouse that issues and recovers the personal stuff that I just wrote about- the items that every Marine needs. That equipment is enough for training and is a good baseline for the fight, but when you deploy it isn’t sufficient. Iraq, for example, tends to be about a billion degrees in the summer and parts of Afghanistan approach arctic temperatures in the winter. In order to equip Marines for the conditions they will live in while deployed to fight they are issued supplemental equipment, but they don’t get it from the central supply warehouse.

That would be too easy.

Instead, each deploying unit is issued a set of specialized combat equipment tailored to where they are going. For my most recent vacation getaway to Afghanistan we were issued cold weather gear too keep us warm in that distant and frigid land. Lots and lots of it. Three full jacket and pants ensembles of varying types (one for rain, one for warmth, one in a fetching white and grey camouflage pattern to make us look like a lumpy snowbank should we need to hide ourselves in the tundra), lined and waterproof boots (comfy AND toasty!), cold weather socks, long underwear, fleece undershirts, gloves, mittens, and my personal favorite- booties to keep our toes snug when we weren’t mucking about the countryside in our boots. By the time we got all of the cold weather gear we were ready for an arctic expedition- all we needed were a few dogsleds, a case or two of Spam, and some snow under our feet. And just like our fighting equipment it is all top notch stuff; not leftovers from the Korean war, which is nice (I say that because many years ago when I was conducting cold weather training we were issued musty old Korean war vintage canvas “cold weather” protective clothing that was anything but.) At any rate, this pile of gear added to your other pile of previously issued gear becomes a mountain of equipment that even our friend Atlas could not independently shoulder.

But we’re not done yet!

You now have your fighting equipment and your environmental clothing, but you need to be issued the tools of the trade- your rifle, pistol (if you rate one), and all of the other bits and pieces that make you into a warfighting machine. Your weapons shoot bullets, and those bullets are loaded into magazines. Ten magazines for your rifle. Three for your pistol. You need Night Vision Goggles to peer into the darkness, and a bracket to mount those goggles to your helmet. Along with a dozen other items, you pick these things up at your unit armory and add them to the growing Everest like mountain of gear that you need to fight.

Enough, you think? Well, not yet!

You still have to draw your unit specific equipment. Every unit has a different mission to accomplish, and as a result each unit has some unique equipment required to do so. My last unit was a fire support and liaison outfit, so we needed special radio headsets, helmets, night vision equipment, thermal targeting sights, ruggedized computers, and other nifty items to ply our trade in combat.

Now you’re finally done! All you need is a flag to plant on top of your equipment mountain and your Edmund Hillary impression will be complete.

So off you go….training, deploying, fighting, coming home, and doing it over and over again. Time passes, and soon enough it is time to start turning all of that stuff back in. The problem is that it all looks the same- some of it is brown, some green, some black- and all of it needs to go back where it came from. Were I more organized that would be no big deal, because I would have been smart enough to take the itemized receipts that the various supply clerks handed and file them away for the day that I would be turning the stuff back in. Well, I’m neither that smart nor that organized. Without a thought of the ramifications down the road I took the receipts from the supply clerks and jammed them into my pockets, where they were either laundered into oblivion or thrown out with the gum wrappers and lint that always seems to aggregate there.

So there I stood, eager to divest myself of the mounds of gear that clogs my garage, but unable to really remember where it all came from. I give it my best shot, and soon enough I have a backpack and a couple of seabags stuffed with all of the equipment I seem to remember receiving at the main supply warehouse. After grunting and straining to get into the car, I zorch over to the Centralized Issue Facility (CIF- another acronym!) where I unload my car and again grunt and strain to get it all over to the checkout counter.

Standing at the entrance to the warehouse is reminiscent of Frodo’s trip into Mount Doom, complete with the unsettling feeling in the pit of your stomach that you are stepping into the great unknown with uncertain outcome. Entering the dark maw of the musty hangar-like building, I saw that it was going to be no quick and easy adventure. Lamentably, between the counter and myself stretches a long line that serpentines back and forth. And back. And forth. Apparently, I am not the only one interested in returning my gear today! I search the faces of those in front of me and see the blank and resigned expression that every Marine knows- the “it’s gonna be a while” look.

Capitulating to the timeless fate of Marines immemorial, I lug my stuff up and join the line. Slowly, inexorably, like a caterpillar the line moves through the twisting lane. A Marine is called to the counter, so he or she reaches down, seizes the straps, loops, and handles and drags the agglomeration up to the counter. The Marine’s departure from the front of the line starts a sine wave of stooping Marines, each grabbing their gear and lunging forward, with the fleeting feeling of progress supplanted by return to resignation as they wait. Painful minutes stretch into infinity, and moments before my last hair turns grey it is my turn. Finally!

Up to the counter I struggle with my jumble of earthtoned equipment. The clerk, a civilian contractor, asks for my ID card and we get down to business. As I have said before, this is not my first rodeo, so I made many of the basic preparations that get Marines into trouble at the supply counter. I had cleaned my equipment (nothing dirty is accepted- it is issued to you clean and you are expected to return it that way) and disassembled it by removing the camoflage cover from my helmet, taking all of the pouches off of my protective vest, and separating the components of my sleeping bag. I tried to keep it organized, with all of the pouches in one pile and clothing in another. So off we went. “Helmet, Medium,” said she, and after she inspected the one I handed her to ensure that it was indeed a medium helmet she moved on to “Cover, Helmet, Medium….”

Dozens of items later my pile had shrunk, but oddly had not completely disappeared. It was smaller to be sure, but still there. Reduced from mountain to foothill, my equipment load had lessened. Fortunately, we weren’t done. “Flashlight, Tactical.” Unfortunately, my tactical flashlight was absent! I rooted through what was left to no avail. “Um, I don’t have it,” said I, hoping for a pass. No such luck! “You can come back when you find it. Jacket, Combat, Desert?” After much fishing through the pile I came up empty handed. My forlorn look was met by her steely gaze and flat reminder that I could bring my errant jacket in with my missing flashlight. I asked about the other stuff, and her steely stare softened. “You didn’t get it here,” said she, “and we don’t want it.” D’oh!

Off I went with a bag of stuff I thought I needed to turn in and a homework assignment to find the stuff I forgot. All things considered, though, it wasn’t nearly as bad as it could have been. I seemed to remember putting the flashlight in the pocket of my jacket, but where the jacket was currently hiding was anybody’s guess. As for the other stuff, well, I had a few other stops to make and I am pretty sure that one of the many clerks who had issued it to me would recognize and reclaim it. All I had to do was make the circuit from the CIF to the armory to my unit supply a few more times and before too long my pile would be gone and the magical stamps would appear on my checkout sheet.

Two trips and a found jacket and flashlight later, my checkout sheet was emblazoned with the stamps of success from the CIF, the armory, and my unit supply. I had bested the supply monster and scribed its mark onto my checkout sheet. Things were looking up!

__________

Lessons Learned:

1. Keep the receipts! You would think I would have learned that ages ago, but I didn’t. I even tried to keep a folder each time I showed up at a new unit to organize all of the pertinent paperwork including receipts for equipment. Needless to say, I failed in the attempt. So, if you are checking in somewhere soon, save your receipts.

2. Do a little research before getting in line. Had I made a few phone calls or emails I could have found the list of gear that I was expected to turn into the CIF. The same goes for the armory and your unit supply. It will also save your back from the strain of lugging extra gear all the way through the line and then back to your car because you brought it to the wrong place.

3. Make sure your equipment is clean and complete. There are a lot of little straps and widgets that can get lost, and you will be buying replacements and cursing up a storm unless you have everything squared away. A few minutes with a scrub brush will save hours of waiting in line.

4. Allocate a lot of time for the process. You will forget or lose something and will be making more than one trip to the turn in counter. In addition, there will be a lot of people like you in line ahead of you. It is not a speedy process. Be forewarned…

Checking Out (2): Hello, Checkout sheet!

Posted by Mike Grice on November 2, 2011

Back to work. Well, back to leaving work for the last time, or at least back to trying to leave work for the last time- and the emphasis is on trying.

Leaving a job in the civilian world is a significantly different experience than leaving military service. Generally on the outside you can leave your job in one of two manners: happily or unhappily. The happy way of leaving is with an office party with a nicely decorated cake, some kind words, and a thoughtful (but not too expensive) gift from your cubemates to speed you on your way. The unhappy way is finding yourself wedged between two security guards as they hustle you and the dented cardboard box that contains your precious office belongings out the door. In either circumstance you generally get to leave the company with a minimum of fuss and hassle- and it all happens in one day.

Not so fast or easy in the military world. Following the vaunted tradition of making simple things very difficult every departing Marine must run a perplexing gauntlet of clerks, administrators, and senior leaders on his or her way out of the unit. He or she must obtain the mark of consent from a dozen or two different entities before the byzantine process of checking out is complete- marks that range from elaborate signatures that would make a calligrapher swoon to stark and brazen ink from a much-coveted rubber stamp; coveted because without the mark of the stamper you will remain forever in the purgatorial no man’s land inhabited by the lost souls who could not obtain the vital mark on the most important of all documents to the so0n-to-be departing: the checkout sheet.

I have alluded to this most glorious and momentous document in a recent post. It is indeed a glorious bit of vellum because, much like Pirate Captain Jack Sparrow’s map, it holds the key to that which you most strongly desire: your departure. Like a treasure map it divulges the often hidden location of important places that otherwise would remain forever hidden, or at least forever ignored because the only time you really need to go there is when you are checking in or checking out. The vaunted checkout sheet is so crucially important because it is the one and only key to receiving your final orders to the outside- without completing it you can be stuck on hold and denied the ability to leave despite your desire to grow your hair and rediscover the joys of sleeping in during the week.

The checkout sheet is usually provided by the administrative section of the unit you are checking out of. The purpose that it serves is to make sure that you hit all of the wickets on the way out the door- important wickets like turning in thousands of dollars worth of military equipment as well as completing critical paperwork that ensures that you receive the benefits and entitlements that you have earned during your service. So, in and of itself, the checkout sheet is actually a good thing because it ensures that you do everything you are supposed to do before you hit the road. Unfortunately, just because the checkout sheet is important to you that doesn’t mean it is particularly important to anybody else, which is a painful lesson to come to grips with. Your eagerness and urgency to get it completed has little to do with the desire of others to assist you in getting it done, so a word of warning the soon to be departing- make sure you allot ample time to knock it out. A smart guy once told my that a crisis on my part did not correlate to a crisis on his, and that must because I was in a hurry didn’t mean that he was. Important and accurate advice, as we shall see…

What does a checkout sheet look like? It is invariably similar across the spectrum of units and services. It is a sheet of paper that lists all of the agencies, offices, and people that you need to visit in order to depart your unit. More importantly, it has a place for each of them to make their mark- eminently important, because without the proper notation by the functionary behind the counter your visit will be in vain. For those with nimble fingers and an eager pen beware! Don’t think that just forging a random set of initials will let you slide by- that has been tried by many who have gone before you and as a result most places have acquired nifty and unique little rubber stamps (and variously colored ink pads) that must be used on your checkout sheet for it to be deemed authentic. Forge at your own peril, because to be caught will get you in big trouble and result in a trip to purgatory as your transgression is sorted out.

Here is a link to what my own checkout sheet looks like: Checkoutsheet

As you can see it is a colorful document- at least it is now that it is completed. I obtained my checkout sheet from the administrative section of my unit, in this case 1 Marine Expeditionary Force Headquarters Group (try saying that three times fast!) located aboard Camp Pendleton, California. To get your mitts on a checkout sheet you have to be able to show the nineteen year old administrative clerk that you are indeed departing soon, which is actually pretty easy. The major muscle movements of personnel administration are done over a centralized computer system, and since my retirement request had been approved the young Marine only had to check the system to confirm my not-so-imminent departure. He reached behind the counter and pulled out a single piece of paper, and with the efficiency borne of experience he whipped a yellow highlighter over numerous lines of text. “These are the places you need to hit, sir,” he explained, “take it to IPAC (the Installation Personnel Administrative Center- where my friend the retirement counselor works) and they will cut you your final set of orders.” With a cheerful “thanks, and see you around!” to the clerk I left the admin shop with a virginal sheet, ready to be filled with the scribblings and stamps of those who stood between me and my final day on base.

The sheet itself is an innocuous looking bit of poorly Xeroxed paper. It is a copy of a copy that was a copy of a copy, and as a result is a bit faded and tough to read. I filled out my administrative information at the top, stuff like my name, rank, and section (HQ for headquarters, in case anyone didn’t know that) and headed out to get as many signatures and stamps as I could in the shortest time possible.

As usual, it wasn’t that simple. It never is. More on that soon…

Checking out (1): Welcome to Byzantium!

Posted by Mike Grice on October 11, 2011

Hello again, my constant readers. I wasn’t able to post last Friday because I was busy camping with a few dozen Cub Scouts. One thing that transition has given me is the gift of time, and I get to spend more of it with my boys, which is absolutely great! I am a Den Leader for my youngest son’s merry band of eight year olds, and we had some serious Cub Scouting to do all weekend. Enough about that (although the s’mores and hot chocolate were most excellent) and back to talking about transition.

This is the first of several posts about the trials and tribulations of actually leaving active duty.

There is one thing that all military people do routinely, regardless of which branch in which they serve. It is a common practice that crosses the rank gap and has no deference to gender. That thing that we all do is a process known as checking in and checking out. Since I am transitioning I will be spotlighting the checking out bit because it is the final act of the play that has been my career and life for over a quarter century. Before I go into detail about checking out, however, we first have to take a gander at the history of the magical checkin/checkout process.

Just as ying has its yang and every accounting equation must balance, so must checking in marry up with checking out. So what gives? What are checking in and out? Simply put they are mirrored process that you go through whenever you leave one place and report to another. Just as a pilot needs to make his takeoffs equal his landings, Marines have to balance the credits and debits of their career changes by going through the process as they changing units. This is a little different from the corporate sector because the military orders you to new assignments every two or three years or so, and along with those orders usually comes the requirement to pack up the family and move someplace new. I am not going to be talking about the moving of the family part, but instead about the leaving one job and showing up at another part. It can be quite daunting!

Once you join the military your ride on the hamster wheel begins. For Marines it starts with your first true checkin, which is an introduction to the yellow footprints at one of the Marine Corps Recruit Depots or at Officer Candidate School. Some period of time after checking into happy land of Drill Instructors you are afforded the opportunity to depart from their fatherly or motherly mentorship- either as a gleefully motivated graduate, ready to take on the world with little more than a K-Bar fighting knife and an invincible attitude, or as a washout who could not withstand the rigors necessary to become a Marine. Either way, you will go through the process of checking out and moving on to your next duty station or going home.

Assuming that you earned the coveted Eagle, Globe, and Anchor you will take a little well earned leave (vacation for my non-military friends) and then head out for your first duty station. This is invariably the place where you will learn about your Military Occupational Specialty (MOS), which is milspeak for the job you will be doing in uniform. Upon arrival you will put on your snappy Service Alpha uniform (the equivalent to business formal- coat and tie, but festooned with ribbons and badges!) and report in to the base reception center. From there you will be directed to your unit, and when you get there you will start the formal process of checking in. It is a lot like the movies; there is generally a grumpy corporal or sergeant who disdainfully guides you to your barracks and tells you where the chowhall is, and where and when to report in the morning. That is when the fun begins!

Although you are at your new assignment to learn about your job (or to actually perform your duties when you go to your operational unit) you can’t get started until you go through the byzantine bureaucratic process known as “Checking In”. It is part harassment package, part Easter Egg hunt, and part searching for pirate treasure. You have to sign for your room, which means you need to find the Marine in charge of the keys. You need linen, so off to the barracks manager to sign for some. You need your field equipment (helmet, flak jacket, sleeping bag, backpack- that kind of stuff) so you need to go to the consolidated supply warehouse….the list seems endless. The best part is that you are usually on your own to do it, but with the expectation that it will be done yesterday.

When you leave the process is reversed. You have to turn in your equipment (and it had better be clean!!), you need to return your linen, return your barracks key….again, the list is long and painful. And again the expectation is that you can somehow find Marty McFly and borrow the Delorean for a trip back in time to knock it all out. Once you get it done, however, it is time to climb the next rung on the Marine Corps ladder by heading for your next unit. Guess what happens when you get there? You got it- you check in! Welcome back to the hamster wheel…

The cycle of checking in and out is a thread that runs through a Marine’s entire career. It many ways it is a signpost along the career highway, with the hopes and challenges of arriving someplace new following the satisfying departure from a rewarding and dynamic posting. Each stop along the way is an adventure all its own. Like Forrest Gump’s fabled box of chocolates, you may not know just what you are going to get when you arrive but it will be something tasty nonetheless.

So how do you survive such a disconcerting process? As I said, military types have been doing this for centuries, so you would think that they have the process down to a science- after all, hundreds of thousands of Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines check in and out every year. You would think it would be easy, but also in typical military fashion, that which seems so simple is of course made difficult. You can’t do everything in one place. You can’t do everything with one person. Each thing you need done is in a different part of the base, or in a different building, or maybe on a different base. Some places have hours of operation that are convenient to everyone who works there but are terrible for you, or they have only one person responsible for their task and he or she always seems to be on break.

Fortunately, each and every unit has something that will help out. Just as the pirate Jack Sparrow has his map to follow, the first thing that every Marine is given when the show up (or get ready to move on) is a priceless piece of paper- the vaunted Checkin/Checkout sheet. With it all becomes clear, and the road ahead becomes less bumpy. In the vernacular of the Marine Corps, it is a good piece of gear, and I’ll introduce you to that wondrous bit of parchment in my next post…

Completing the arc

Posted by Mike Grice on October 1, 2011

Stories have arcs. Good stories do, anyway. Looking at my career as a story, it certainly seems to fits the mold.

The arc started when I was in high school. I really wanted to join the military, and after watching every war movie ever made and talking to recruiter after recruiter, I made my decision and committed to the Marine Corps. At the ripe old age of 17 (and with my mother signing the consent form!) I raised my right hand and swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States, and with that pledge I began my new life.

I didn’t immediately ship out for bootcamp, however. I was still in my senior year of high school, so I spent six months or so in the Delayed Entry Program, which meant that I had signed on the dotted line and was waiting until graduation for my very first set of orders sending me off to recruit training. The arc started with me raising my hand, and was very slowly rising in anticipation of the big day when I would be introduced to my newest and bestest friends in the world- my Drill Instructors.

Time passed and the big day arrived. It was June 24th, 1985, and my recruiter picked me up for my ride to the airport. It was early and dark that Monday morning, and I was trepidatious, to say the least. With a lump in my throat, I hugged my mom goodbye and headed off in pursuit of my destiny, I suppose, or at least for a shot at seeing if I had what it took to become a United States Marine.

After a plane ride to San Diego and a bus ride to the Marine Corps Recruit Depot I learned that I had made the biggest mistake of my life, or so it seemed at the time. My first indication that things were changing was watching the gate guards spit on the bus when we entered the base- not an omen of happy times ahead. I won’t bore you with the details, but the next 13 weeks or so weren’t much better. I did graduate that September (0n Friday the 13th, no less), so the arc of my story rose like a rocket- I was on my way!

I went to my Military Occupation Specialty school (if you are curious, I was an 0844 Field Artillery Fire Controlman, which means I was the guy who calculated the information that was used by cannoneers to point their guns and hit targets miles away- pretty interesting stuff, especially considering that back then because we used paper charts and sliderules to compute the firing data) and upon graduation joined my reserve unit. I was there for a long time as I worked my way through college. Ultimately, I decided that I liked this Marine Corps thing and raised my right hand again- this time to commit myself to the arduous and rigorous opportunity presented by Officer Candidate School.

In a serious case of deja vu a different recruiter picked me up before different dawn, and I was just as nervous as I had been riding the airport years earlier. After a very familiar plane ride and introduction to a new set of newest and bestest friends I found myself on the miserable hamster wheel that is Officer Candidate School. I again wondered what I had gotten myself into and wondered just how I could get out of it. Fortunately, I knuckled down and endured along with my fellow candidates. It wasn’t any fun! It was much more difficult than recruit training, but that is OK. It should be, because as Thucydides, the revered ancient Greek scholar observed, “he who graduates the harshest school, succeeds.” If pain and exhaustion are metrics of the severity of the school, then I was indeed successful! A bit more gaunt and a lot more physically fit after an incredible ten week long experience I graduated and traded my Staff Sergeant’s chevrons for the gold bars of a second lieutenant. Very exciting!

My arc continued to rise as I had the time of my life. Leading Marines, learning about my profession (I chose to become an Artillery Officer because I liked my time as an enlisted gunner so much), and seeing the world was a fantastic and wonderful experience. There were parts that were miserable, but they were far outweighed by the sheer joy of the dynamic and exciting career that I was fortunate to pursue.

That arc continued to rise through peacetime deployments all over the country and overseas, fighting in a couple of wars, divorcing, remarrying, having kids, leading Marines, and commanding numerous units and organizations. I had joined a true brotherhood of like minded souls who were all headed in the same direction, with the same goals, aspirations, ideals, and frames of mind. Despite a few very bad days, my arc rose higher and higher as I pursued the career that I truly loved.

As I have written before, however, all good (and great!) things come to an end. After nearly three decades in uniform it became time to leave. My arc, which had been rising steadily higher and higher plummeted like the proverbial man in the barrel trying his luck over Niagara falls. My arc doesn’t look like nice symmetric bell curve, but instead is more like the first part of a rollercoaster- moving up slowly, then more steeply, then reaching a precipice before plummeting back down to where it started.

Don’t get me wrong. I am not complaining because it was my choice to change the vector of my arc. The ride down from the peak was disconcerting, but I have learned that life is a lot more like a rollercoaster than I had thought. My ride down the coaster did not end in a disastrous crash of smashed cars, but instead rocketed in a new direction and is now set to rise up a completely new, exciting, and different arc. It hasn’t quite started yet because just I spent months waiting to ship out to recruit training after signing my contract I now have some time after my last day at work as a Marine before my terminal leave expires, which is when I will fully rejoin the world I came from. As a wise man once said about transition, the next adventure awaits, and I am looking forward to finding the next rising arc that will take me into the exciting future that lies ahead. The good news is that my hair is getting long enough to stream in the wind as the rollercoaster picks up speed…

Back to class, part 3: the Ruehlin Associates Career Transition Seminar

Posted by Mike Grice on September 26, 2011

Here we go for a third time- back into the interesting realm of transition training and education. As the title indicates this is the third post that specifically address the classes, symposia, and seminars that I attended as part of the formal transition process.

Today’s post is about the Ruehlin Associates Career Transition Seminar (called just “Ruehlin” for short) which I was very fortunate to be able to attend. The reason that I say that I was fortunate to attend is because enrollment is limited to around 15 participants (with spouses encouraged to attend), and the target audience is the most senior of the courses that I attended. Not strictly limited to military people, it is also designed for senior government employees from the civil service who are retiring. Their target audience, as shown on their website, is centered on that select group of senior people:

‘Many activities offer the seminar to senior officers (O-5 and above), senior enlisted (E-8 and above) and senior civil service (GS-14 and above) who are within a year or two of retirement, or who are on a known countdown. Nearly everyone who attends the course says, “Should have had this five years ago!” That might be too early, but the point is valid…people make gross errors and waste a lot of time because they miss opportunities or find that they have been “shopping in the wrong mall.” We believe 12 to 18 months out is a good target.’

The blurb on their website was on the money. I wish that I had been able to attend the course at least a year earlier than the short seven months remaining to my separation date. Even though I attended the session relatively late in the proposed timeline it was still worth every minute that I spent in the course. The Ruehlin course is a little different from the TAP/TAMP and 25+ Pre-Retirement courses, however. The course is not offered through the base education or career center, but instead is a special opportunity offered by larger units and commands. It is not a government or military symposium, but instead a private enterprise that specializes on assisting with the transition of senior military and civilian government servants. In short, it is a professional course put on by a top-notch company that specializes in transitioning senior people. It is a job that Ruehlin and Associates are very good at.

My personal opportunity to participate in the seminar came up as I made my plans to depart the service known. I had heard about many of the educational opportunities available during transition, but the Ruehlin was a new one to me. I had heard about it, but in typical hard charger fashion I didn’t pay any attention and as a result was ignorant of the great opportunity that the course presented. At any rate, I made it onto an email list of interested parties (i.e., those on the way out or those smart enough to ask if they could get on the list well ahead of their retirement date) and was soon assured a spot at the table for the next course. Since it is only offered a couple of times per year in my command I considered myself very fortunate to have made the list. As I would learn, my good fortune was truly immense- as with the other courses I learned lessons that paid off immediately in addition to those that I will be putting to use for the rest of my life.

The focus of the Ruehlin course is identical to all of the other courses in one regard; that being that it is designed to prepare people like me who are leaving the service for life after we hang up our uniforms. Ruehlin is very different, however, in its fine tuned focus and rigorous execution. Where TAP/TAMP focused on the mechanics of transition and the 25+ centered on what the business world is like, Ruehlin pinpoints the process of getting a job. The other two courses did fantastic work on more of a macro level, which dovetails nicely with Ruehlin’s laser-tight emphasis on the employment process.

Soon after I was selected to attend the course a plain brown envelope arrived in my mailbox. A little puzzled, I opened it up and out fell a green booklet and a letter. The letter was an introduction and welcome aboard for the upcoming session, and the book was a little homework exercise that proclaimed in bold capital letters:

CAREER PLANNING

and

MANAGEMENT

That got my attention. Very authoritative! So did the last bit at at the bottom of the page:

**IMPORTANT**

PLEASE READ THE ENTIRE PACKET AND COMPLETE ALL

OF THE QUESTIONS PRIOR TO ATTENDING THE SEMINAR

What I found inside was a series of assignments unlike any I had seen in a long time. There were about a dozen sections in the book and each contained a worksheet of sorts. They weren’t like calculus word problems or anything really difficult, but instead were simple exercises designed to pull a little bit of information from the respondent (me!) about him or her self. They all had a common theme, though, which quickly became evident. One section focused on my career- not just what I had been doing in the military, but what would I like to do next? Another section delved into education, and another looked at organizations and affiliations that I may be partial to. It also had a memo for the spouse, which was not just a nice touch. It brought into distinct focus that transition is not a solitary activity; everything that I would do from now on would be inextricably linked to my spouse. A great and sometimes forgotten point. So, with a little trepidation and a couple of sharp pencils, I sat down to fill out the blanks and learn a little about myself.

Not long after completing my exercise with the green book it was time to go to class. It began at 0730 on Monday morning, and was scheduled through Friday. The dress code was listed as Business Casual, which may as well have been top hats and tails for all I knew. After a quick search on the internet, I found that the expectation was a collared shirt and slacks with jacket and tie optional. Sweet! Not a problem, since I had all of those things. Thanks to my friends from the 25+ Pre-Retirement seminar, they even matched. A sharp dressed man indeed!

I arrived at the class which was being held at conference room on base. I stepped into what I supposed to be a business meeting of short-haired professionals approaching middle age; everyone seemed to be in their forties. We all were dressed pretty similarly in the uniform yet non-uniformity of “business casual”, with business suits, sports coats, and button down collared shirts as far as the eye could see. There was a lady with us as well, and she was as smartly dressed as the men. I saw a few faces that looked familiar, and we chatted a bit as we waited for the class to start.

Promptly at 0730 a thoroughly professional gentleman closed the door and we began our shared journey through the seminar. He was our facilitator, and like us had completed a full career in the military, retiring as a Navy Captain (which in the Navy is the senior paygrade of O-6, whereas in the Army and Marine Corps a captain is a much more junior O-3) after about three decades of service. He shared that he worked in a large corporation in an industry that was related to his military background, but that he found transition to be a bit daunting. He joined Ruehlin and Associates in the mid 1990’s, and had been leading seminars actively since then. He was very experienced and a thoroughly smooth and professional facilitator. He was aided in the course by a very good powerpoint slide package that he very professionally and smoothly presented. In addition, he handed each of a large red book titled What’s Next? This would be our notebook, hymnal, and Rosetta Stone all rolled into one; it was a comprehensive, well written, and very useful book that took the information presented in the daily seminar to the next level. In fact, it is such a useful reference that I still keep it on my desk at home and refer to it often as I work on my resume or pursue job opportunities.

One of the first things he shared was John Ruehlin’s story. He retired from the navy as a Rear Admiral, which is no small feat! What he found upon retirement, however, was that the lofty office of admiralship did not seamlessly transfer to civilian employment. Despite his impressive accomplishments and mountains of experience he had garnered through his successful career he couldn’t find a job. He was unprepared to enter the private sector, and went through a very humbling period of months and months as the impact of transition fully settled in. After many months of failing to find a job, he had a chance encounter with with a fellow beach-goer while he was attending a cocktail party. They chatted, and the result of the conversation was a phone number that John could call- his new found friend knew somebody who was looking for somebody like John. After mulling it for a while, John followed up and called the number he received from his beach encounter, and as a result ended up in a very senior position with a multi-billion dollar bank.

The story is important, because it frames the the entire course. John Ruehlin learned several things in his troubled transition, and those things became the central themes that we would be learning about and focusing on for the week:

– First and foremost nobody in the private sector really cares what you did in the military. They care about what you can do for them in the business world.

– Transition is just that- it is transition from one phase of life to the other. To be successful at it you must be fully prepared to move on.

– Getting a job or starting a new career takes a lot of work, and the best way to be successful is to treat it that way.

The course did an exceptional job of addressing each of those themes. They were not presented as blocks of instruction, but instead where more like strands of a rope that were woven together through the weeklong course. Each of the themes deserves a much more detailed explanation, so here goes….

– First and foremost nobody in the private sector really cares what you did in the military. They care about what you can do for them in the business world. That seems like a pretty brash statement, but it is true. While in uniform we are all in a very homogeneous environment where we are surrounded by people just like us. In the civilian world, that is simply not the case. Civvie street can be broadly broken down into two groups of people: social people and corporate people. Social people are friends, acquaintances, or pretty much anyone you meet outside a work context, while corporate people are those who can either offer you a job or know someone who can. Social people will be interested in your service and will love to hear your sea stories, but corporate people are listening through different ears. Corporate people want to know two things about you- can you make them money or can your save them money? If the answer to one or both of those questions is yes, then there is job with them in your future. If not, then you are just another military dude or dudette with a bunch of stories to tell.

The problem is that you really can’t tell the two groups apart most of the time. So what do you do? Stop telling sea stories? No, because that has been your life for decades. What we learned to do was to leverage our experiences and desires into any conversation with the goal of connecting with the corporate people. This is known as networking, and networking is the most likely way that you will get a job! Research shows that well over 75% of jobs are found interpersonal contacts, and that a tiny proportion are found in the classified ads in the newspaper. Networking was a central and constant theme throughout the course, and it proved to be very effectively taught.

We worked on our ability to network through a series of academic exercises and roleplaying, we developed short sales-type pitches that we could use when when the opportunity presented itself. Up to this point, most of us responded to the question “What are you going to do when you get out?” with “Get a real job…” While that sounds witty, we learned that it was probably the dumbest thing we could say- it instantly discounted us as viable employees to corporate people, and that was certainly no way to get a job! To overcome this, we crafted a “thirty second sound bite”, which is referred to as an “elevator introduction”, and it is intended to be used when you have a brief amount of time, for example the interval it takes an elevator to move between floors, to introduce yourself, present your credentials, and articulate what line of work you would like to go into. A more in-depth version is the “two-minute opener”, which expands on the three components of the elevator introduction. This one is used at job interviews when you are asked about yourself or when you have a conversation with someone and they would like to know more about you.

– Transition is just that- it is transition from one phase of life to the other. To be successful at it you must be fully prepared to move on. This is a bit more philosophical, but it is critically important. Our facilitator told us anecdote after anecdote about people who were just like us that had a miserable time because they never could fully transition. Examples are the hard charger who cannot let go of the lingo; dropping the “F” bomb in every other sentence at a job interview is a guaranteed way to remain unemployed. Another is refusing to embrace little things like fashion by wearing horribly outdated or inappropriate attire to an interview or networking opportunity. You don’t have to look like you stepped out of GQ or Glamour, but you shouldn’t wear the polyester leisure suit you wore to your senior prom either. One of the most common problem, however, is clinging to the past. Your career was a great one, but you will be hired for what you can do in the future for the company, not what you did in the military. The course does a remarkable job of putting your career into a context that it can be a positive and integral part of building your future career instead of having it be the anchor that keeps you from moving forward.

– Getting a job or starting a new career takes a lot of work, and the best way to be successful is to treat it that way. In the first morning of class we were all introduced to our newest job title: each and every one of us became the Director of Marketing for the company that was ourselves. We learned that in order to get a job or start a new career we needed to be able to let the world know we were available and potential assets to businesses, and that nobody besides ourselves was going to make that happen. Ruehlin has an incredibly organized and effective program to teach us how to accomplish this in a few short days, and I what I learned fundamentally changed how I viewed life after the Marine Corps. We learned to critically assess ourselves in order to learn what our strengths and weaknesses are. Based on those, we analyzed what we would be good at, and more importantly, what we wanted to do (that was an epiphany for me- I was so used to doing the same line of work that I had never seriously considered anything else!) in the future. We learned the ins and outs of building a network, including little things like what our business card should look like (don’t hand out your old military card!), the aforementioned introductions, and tips such as what to do when somebody give you their business card (write down a little about them so that you will remember who they are and why they gave you the card).

The meat of the course was spent on resumes. We learned how terrible ours were (and mine was really bad!) and how to write effective ones that would result in a job offer. We learned how to write the many types of business correspondence, such as cover letters, thank you notes, references, and responses to job offers as well. We learned how to write the three basic types of resumes – chronological, functional, and combination – but focused mainly on the combination style (I will be posting extensively in the future about resumes- don’t worry!) Writing a good resume is a lot harder than I had thought. It requires a lot of introspection, a lot of research, and a lot of analysis. Anybody can write a love letter to themselves that says how great they are, but that won’t land them a job.

We also spent no small amount of time on the the mechanics of getting hired. Resumes will get you an audition, but it’s your performance gets you a spot in the band. We learned about the etiquette of the interview (be early, but not too early; smell nice, but not like a gigolo on the prowl; dress like you want to get a job- professionally, not like a surfer dude fresh off some tasty waves) and the importance of the little things, like sending a thank-you note to show appreciation to the interviewer for his or her time. It helps to do some research on the company that you are interviewing with, too. If you can show your interviewer that you know more about his company than he does good things will happen.

The course was not just lectures and powerpoint presentations, either. The facilitator took us through a series of practical exercises where we practiced our elevator pitches and how to interview, and he capped the week off with an hourlong one-on-one session with each participant. He had the same offer for each of us- an hour of his time to talk about anything we wanted. In my case, he scrutinized my resume (which had greatly improved thanks to his instruction and mentorship) and we talked about my future. He pointed out something which I had not really considered- why even go back to work at all? I had an opportunity to pursue higher education, so why not pursue it? After all, I was going to be receiving a pension, which wasn’t enough to live on forever, but the GI Bill and other benefits offer some fantastic opportunities outside the traditional career path. His candor and professionalism made quite an impression, and thanks to him I was able to look at my future from a different perspective.

I have been truly fortunate to be able to participate in three different transition courses, and each provided a different perspective on the same important subject. Ruehlin’s seminar taught us in great detail how to go out and get a job, which is a skill that every one of us in the class needed to learn. More importantly, though, the course demystified the job search process and provided us with the tools to go out into the next great adventure. In the words of Colonel Mike Frazier, another recent graduate:

“[T]he Ruehlin course was like the end of the Wizard of Oz movie–it pulled back the curtain on retirement. Now it’s not a mysterious scary thing–it’s just a short fat guy pulling levers–or more accurately, an old bald guy getting organized to do a bunch of planning and networking–which like all field grades, I’m pretty good at doing. It’s still a challenge, but now I know what I need to do and am much better prepared to attack post-USMC life vice my previous level of uncertainty…”

Well said. And right on the money!

Lessons learned-

– The Ruehlin course is not offered everywhere, nor is it offered by all commands. You may have to do some sleuthing around to find where it is being offered, but if you can find it the course is absolutely worth the time and effort.

– This course is complimentary to the TAP/TAMP and 25+ Pre-Retirement courses. Although they all teach the same basic subject, their differing perspectives and areas of focus make each one incredibly valuable. You cannot take advantage of enough educational opportunities, and the Ruehlin seminar is a certainly a great one. It is not the only one, however, so make sure to take it in conjunction with as many other programs as possible.

– The focus of the course is on landing a job, more specifically landing a job while you are still on active duty. They introduce the concept of the “Hot Window” for employment, which is a few months before your last day in the service. It is the hot window because employers are not looking to fill positions much farther out than that, and the closer you get to your last government paycheck the more desperate you are likely to become. To land a job interview and a follow on job offer in that window requires a lot of work, and the course shows you how to do it.

– Successful transition requires a lot more than taking off one set of clothes and putting on another. There is a significant change in perspective required as well, not to mention a ton of work. Many separating military people take the first job that they are offered, and in many cases it proves to be disastrous, or at least unsatisfying and unfulfilling. You have a golden opportunity as you prepare to leave active duty- you can actively prepare for your next career while being supported to do so by your current line of work. It isn’t the same in the corporate sector- job hunting on the clock at a civilian company would likely get you fired. You are crazy if you don’t take advantage of all the opportunities available to you, including the excellent Ruehlin seminar!

Reflections

Posted by Mike Grice on September 19, 2011

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!

I paid up front

Posted by Mike Grice on September 8, 2011

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 September 2, 2011

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 August 30, 2011

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.

Orders to Nowhere…

A career Marine's transition back to the other side

Tag Archives: active duty

Trading tradition for a tuxedo

Checking out (3): There and back again, or slaying the Supply monster

Checking Out (2): Hello, Checkout sheet!

Checking out (1): Welcome to Byzantium!

Completing the arc

Back to class, part 3: the Ruehlin Associates Career Transition Seminar

Reflections

I paid up front

(Almost!) my last haircut

The other side of transition

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