Tag Archives: Marine Corps

Terminal Leave Adventures (2): Disney versus the U. S. Navy part deux…

Posted by Mike Grice on

One of the best parts of transition is taking terminal leave.  It is that unique time in your career when you get paid for leaving your job, which is a pretty nice perk.  Being paid your salary and receiving your benefits as you use up your remaining balance of leave (the vacation days that you have earned while serving on active duty) while having absolutely nothing required of you in return is pretty sweet.  The only expectation, I suppose, is to stay out of jail.  So far, so good…

Anyhow, I am still aboard the Disney cruise ship Wonder, and I am typing this at six in the morning as I watch the sun rise over Cabo San Lucas.  My hangover isn’t too bad this morning (although it should be) thanks to the most excellent Americano I got at the Cove Café coffee shop and lounge.  Again, I digress… so back to the differences between this sailing adventure and a deployment aboard a U. S. Navy amphibious ship (“amphib” in milspeak), which needless to say is pretty striking.  For those keeping score, here is where we left off:

Running score:                  Disney:                 4              U. S. Navy:          0

Disney has taken an early lead, and today we will see if they can keep it.  This post picks up by taking a look at the ships themselves and see which one scores best- starting with the living accomodations.  For comparison I will be using the class of amphib on which I have spent the most time: the Wasp class of amphibious assault ships.  Named for the first of her kind to sail, the Wasp and her ilk are also named in acronymical fashion the LHD class, or Landing Helicopter Dock: Landing because it lands Marines ashore in amphibious operations, Helicopter because it has an enormous flight deck that serves as a heliport, and Dock because the Navy needed a third letter to fill out the acronym.  There are currently eight big deck LHDs in the Navy, and I have either sailed or worked aboard half of them, including the Wasp, Essex, Boxer, and Bonhomme Richard.  I have also sailed aboard numerous small deck amphibs of the Landing Ship Dock (LSD) and Landing Platform Dock (LPD) classes, but since most of my time was aboard the Big Decks and because they are the most similar to the Disney Wonder in size I will use the LHDs as the benchmark for comparison.

Speaking of comparisons, here are some particulars for both ships:

 

Wasp Class LHD

Disney Wonder
Displacement 40,650 tons (combat loaded) 83,000
Length 844 feet 964 feet
Beam 106 feet 106 feet
Draft 28 feet (fully loaded) 25.3 feet
Speed 24+ knots 24 knots max
Crew 73 Officers, 1109 Sailors 945
Passengers 1,800 Marines 2400, including kids
Commissioned 1992 1999
Home Port Sasebo, Japan Los Angeles, California
Aircraft Embarked up to 36, including: UH-1N Huey, AH-1W Cobra, CH-53 Super Stallion, CH-46 Sea Knight, MH-60 Seahawk, AV-8B Harrier None
Combat EquipmentAboard (with Marines) A typical loadout can include up to  five M-1 tanks, 25 light armored vehicles, six M-198 howitzers, 68 HMMWVs, ten logistics vehicles, 12 5ton trucks, and a dozen or more amphibious assault vehicles None
Amphibious Craft Three LCACs (Landing Craft, Air Cushioned) or two LCUs (Landing Craft, Utility) None

As you can see, the ships are similar in physical size and capacity to carry people.  The other similarities are that they both float and the crews of both wear white dress uniforms.  Once you get past that, though, things get pretty different…

My last post ended with us stepping aboard.  The dissimilarity between the two types of ships – Navy amphibs and Disney cruisers – became more and more evident with each step that we took.  After being greeted by the enthusiastic Disney staff we were directed to our stateroom by a very nice and polite steward who looked at our boarding cards and kindly pointed us to the lifts (elevators) that would take us to the deck containing our stateroom.  As we strolled along the comfortably soft carpeted decks things were looking up- instead of being inconvenienced by such banal things as stairs we could travel between decks in style by hopping on a lift, just like a hotel ashore!  We quickly hopped aboard the closest lift and within seconds were on the deck (the “deck” being equivalent to the “floor” of a hotel) which contained our room.  By happenstance our lodgings for the week were about twenty feet away from the lift, so the convenience factor for the trip was at a family-pleasing high.

The Navy, however, is not so convenient.  Big deck amphibs have elevators, too, but they are reserved for moving aircraft between the hangar deck (where maintenance on the various aircraft is conducted) to the flight deck (where the the helicopters and attack jets take off and land).  For Marines and Sailors there are no such conveniences- instead you get to lug your gear up and down the maze of hard steel-decked passageways and ladderwells that stand between the brow of the ship and your stateroom or berthing area.  There are no kindly stewards to help you along the way, either.  My experience as a Marine aboard a Navy vessel is one of arrogant indifference- the sailors generally look upon Marines as a necessary evil that must be endured while they ply their trade of sailing the seven seas.  Despite the useleness of amphibious vessels without Marines aboard to storm hostile shores, our Navy brethren in the gator fleet continue to view us with disdain, much like an older brother looks at his annoying but inescapable younger sibling that never seems to be able to leave him alone.  Anyhow, the trip from the brow to your living space is a convoluted and confusing one to say the least.  Where cruise ships have ample space to move about in the passageways, Navy ships are unbelievably constricted, and Sailors revel in the opportunity to prove their inherent superiority by giving you the wrong directions to your destination that usually find you crawling through the bilges to the sailor’s explosive squeals of girlish glee.  Unlike the broad and open hallways of the Wonder the tight passages of the LHDs often make it difficult for two people to pass each other- especially when one of them is loaded up like a mule loaded for an expedition to the high sierras.  After grunting and groaning and struggling for what seems to be an eternity as you drag your stuff through tight hatches and narrow watertight doors you find your living space aboard the ship.  Needless to say, the point for finding your room goes to Disney.

Running score:                  Disney:                 5              U. S. Navy:          0

Back to the Wonder.  My cheerful family (really- still cheerful!) burst into our room and instantly felt at home.  It had all of the amenities of a nice hotel room, along with some you don’t get when you vacation in the Midwest.  We had a bed, a desk, and a couch- pretty standard.  The couch, however, magically transmogrified into a kidilicious bunk bed that enthralled our boys every night they got to sleep in it.  There was a closet with room for our clothes, the obligatory set of life jackets, a safe, a television, and an inroom shower and bathroom suite.  The total space was a third the size of a one car garage, but it was intelligently laid out and had more than enough space for us to spend our time at sea.  A big circular window (reminiscent of a gigantic porthole) looked out onto the beconing waters of the Pacific Ocean and the refrigerator begged to chill our bottles of wine.  So far so good!

On the LHD, however, things are a bit different.  The best part of finally reaching your living space is that it is all yours- the sailors live in a different part of the ship entirely and the Marine spaces are all dedicated to Marines.  The worst part, however, is that you get to spend the next six or so months with anywhere from three to fifteen of your closest friends…but that is the price of a free cruise, I suppose.  The Navy is one place where the differences between ranks are probably the most pronounced of all the services, and that affectation for privilege is personified by the amount of space afforded to the officers and men who serve aboard naval vessels.  During my last deployment aboard a big deck I lived in a stateroom built for four officers that was about half the size of our room on the Wonder – and there was no porthole to look out of and the head was down the hall.  Using the stateroom on the cruise ship as a comparison, there would be two senior officers, six to eight junior officers, and anywhere from twelve to sixteen junior enlisted Marines living in the same square footage.  When I sailed aboard the USS Austin (LPD-4, long since auctioned off to some South American Navy) I bunked with no less than twenty-six other Marines in a space only a third again larger than my room on the Wonder.  Needless to say, Navy ships are built for combat and not for comfort, and it shows…..the point for living spaces goes clearly to the Wonder.

Running score:                  Disney:                 6              U. S. Navy:          0

My Navy and Marine friends are by now pounding on their keyboards and cursing my very name for taking such a biased view of naval versus cruise sailing.  Before they start putting land mines under my welcome mat, however, I must give some credit where it is certainly due.  The Wonder is a cruise ship, and as such is designed for the comfort of its passengers.  Amphibs are designed to take thousands of fanatical Marines to distant shores where they will churn the surf with blood as they assault enemy held beaches.  In that regard, Marines are allowed to bring a lot of cool stuff onto the ship.  As you read earlier in this post, a typical Marine deployment brings with it things like howitzers (big cannons that shoot steel projectiles 30,000 meters into enemy territory), tanks (M1A1 Abrams Main Battle Tanks- among the best in the world), helicopters (Cobra and Hueys with guns, missiles, and rockets as well as Sea Knights and Super Stallions to carry personnel and equipment), and Harrier attack jets.  The 1,800 Marines on board each get to bring their own issued weapons, so there are rifles, pistols, machine guns, rocket launchers, and mortars by the truckload secured in armories around the ship.  For the sheer testosterone-laden coolness factor the U. S. Navy gets bonus points for embarking the most macho cargo of any ship on the water.  They get two points- one for having the tanks, howitzers, and other studly tools of land warfare stowed below decks and another for bringing their own air force with them everywhere they go.  Go Navy/Marine Corps!

Running score:                  Disney:                 6              U. S. Navy:          2

The Navy is coming back, and although the score is a four point spread the U. S. Navy doesn’t go down quietly….  Next, we’ll take a look at life underway and see how things shake out…

Terminal Leave Adventures (1): How a Disney Cruise is completely unlike an Amphibious Deployment

Posted by Mike Grice on

I know I promised another post or two on the joys of checking out, but before I introduce you to the most precious of all military documents (the checkout sheet) I must first drag you along on my first vacation since going on terminal leave. Terminal leave (“terminal” in milspeak) you may recall from previous postings is when you use up your remaining vacation time (leave) before your end of active service (EAS). It is, in effect, getting paid to do nothing. Or for going on vacation. I have done a little bit of nothing on terminal, which is nice, and am now headed off for a family vacation. Of terminal leave so far I am a fan!

My current phase of doing nothing includes taking the family on a Disney cruise. We live in San Diego and the Disney corporation was kind enough to park one of their most excellent cruise ships – the Disney Wonder – in Los Angeles for a couple of years. For the record and in the interest of full disclosure, I absolutely love pretty much everything Disney. I love the parks, the movies, and how they have managed to create a magical world that every kid (and some adults like me) loves, even though as they approach their teenage years they will deny it. If I could work at Disney it would be a dream come true! Hmm…maybe a career change that involves working for a mouse….but I digress.

I have spent no small amount of time aboard United States Navy vessels. Big ones, like the nuclear aircraft carrier Dwight D. Eisenhower, little amphibious landing craft, and pretty much everything in between. The bulk of my time at sea and in port has been aboard the various ships of the Navy’s Amphibious Fleet, which is affectionately known as the “Gator Navy”. There are several different classifications of ships in the gator navy, but they can all be broken down into two basic categories- Big Decks and Small Decks. Big Decks are the size and shape of World War II aircraft carriers- huge flat flight decks that hold dozens of helicopters and attack jets as well as a huge well deck below that holds amphibious vehicles and small boats. And well over a thousand Marines in addition to the Navy crew. Small Decks are just that- smaller ships with smaller flight decks capable of holding a few helicopters. They also have well decks and storage spaces for amphibious tractors and boats, and berthing for hundreds of Marines.

This is the first time, however, that I will be getting underway on a no-kidding cruise ship. I have been on plenty of day excursions in Hawaii and Alaska, but never have I or my family boarded a ginormous seagoing hotel. So for the next few posts I am going to write about the differences between deploying with the United States Navy’s gator fleet and shipping out on a ship from Mickey’s armada. In addition to comparing and contrasting the differences, I am going to keep score and by the time we’re done you will be able to make an informed decision as to what you would like to do with a week of your life- join the Navy or cruise with Disney. Pick the winner and place your bets now!

Today’s communiqué is all about the first part of any shipboard trip- getting on board. I have to start with a few blinding flashes of the obvious (BFOs- a classic TLA or Three Letter Acronym), the first of which is that the biggest difference between the two is that you get to take your family with you on a cruise and you get to take everyone you work with on a deployment. Each has its pros and cons depending on your situation- if you are single, then a cruise with Mickey and crew probably isn’t your bag. If your family drives you nuts, then a deployment may not be such a bad gig. At any rate it all comes out in the wash.

Back to today’s theme, which is a side by side comparison of the boarding process. Boarding a ship is a little different from any other form of transportation. When you board a plane, for example, you go to the airport, check your bags, and run the gauntlet of security to make it to your plane. Once you get to your gate, a few hapless gate agents line you up and herd you onto the plane. Once aboard, you hope for space to shove your bag and wedge yourself into your seat. Only then does your trip really start. Boarding a ship, however, is a horse of a completely different color.

The actual process of getting onto a seagoing vessel is the same whether you are boarding a cruise ship or an aircraft carrier. The difference is in the details. Let’s take a look at just what those differing details are…..

The first part is getting to the pier. Ships, unlike airplanes, require huge bodies of water to sail in. As such, you need to get to where the ship is so that you can climb aboard and begin your cruise. In the military, the trip to the ship usually begins hours and hours before you actually embark. In typical martial fashion, everyone must meet at their place of work, draw their equipment from the armory and have their equipment inspected, piled up, unpiled, reinspected, and then loaded onto a big truck for the trip to the pier. Only after several pointless and unpleasant hours of milling about do you get to board the bus for the ride down to meet the ship. After answering “here!” to countless rollcalls, your bus rolls down the road at a blistering speed of 55 miles an hour and you are on your way.

For a pleasure cruise it is a little different. We got up, packed our bags, got into our car, and drove to the pier. Coffee and snacks in hand, there were smiling faces all around as we sped towards our vacation, well mostly smiles, except when the kids were fighting…which works out to be about 50% of the time. At any rate, we drove straight to the pier and parked our car. It took less than three hours, over half of which was on the highway. Time difference between the two: about 12 hours. The first point goes to Disney.

Running score: Disney: 1 U. S. Navy: 0

Okay, so the first part of the journey is over. As some famous Chinese philosopher once said, even a journey of 10,000 miles begins with a single step. Our first step brought us to the pier, and now we need to look at the steps that will take us aboard the ship. The Marine bus arrives at the pier, and Marines step off the bus. The pier is almost industrial in it character- lots of machinery about, and all of it looks uniformly drab. “Battleship Grey” is the color of the ships, and even the equipment is either painted the same drab color or is so grimy that it blends into the monotonously dull background. Ropes and equipment are scattered about, and as you try not to break your ankle by tripping over it there is a Marine, usually a Gunnery Sergeant, howling for you to line up and get counted. This goes on for about an hour, after which the Gunny happily reports that all of the Marines are present. I have always found the whole process odd, though, because unless someone mysteriously vaporized while the bus was on the road the same number of people should get off of it as got on. That concept, however, flies in the face of hundreds of years of tradition, so the repetitive counting continues.

At the cruise terminal things are a little different. I parked the car in the lot (after being directed there by a very cheerful and helpful lady at the security gate) and within seconds there was a passenger shuttle pulling up behind us. I had barely started unloading bags from the car when the driver was taking them from me and loading them aboard. Within a minute or two, we were riding to the terminal, bags in hand and smiles back on our faces. Time difference: 58 minutes, and I didn’t even have to take rollcall. Point to Disney.

Running score: Disney: 2 U. S. Navy: 0

Back to the Navy pier. After being successfully counted, Marines head over to the truck that contains their baggage. When you deploy you tend to take a lot of stuff- usually a seabag (duffel bag to landlubbers), a parachute bag (even though you don’t have a parachute; it is stuffed with other things), an enormous backpack, and a gym bag or two. With the exception of your gym bag all of those items of luggage are jammed in the back of a truck that you helped load back at your unit parking lot. In true coolie fashion, you all line up and a few intrepid souls climb aboard the truck to unload your gear. Bags and packs are soon flying out of the truck and make their way down the chain of Marines where it is piled up for distribution. After an hour or so of hearing Marines call out luggage locations to each other – “Smith- seabag! Jones- pack!”- you have gathered your tiny mountain of personal equipment into a mound. The best part is that you get to lug the stuff aboard yourself. Good thing you are in shape…

At the Disney pier our cheerful driver pulled up to the curb and helped offload our luggage. Another cheerful soul, a porter this time, took our luggage and loaded it on a cart. At the cost of a five dollar tip our family’s gear was wheeled off to the ship, where the staff would deliver it to our room that afternoon. We shouldered our carryon bags (a total of three between the four of us) and headed for the terminal. Time saved: an hour. Backs not strained: four. Joy at not lugging it all ourselves: priceless! Point Disney.

Running score: Disney: 3 U. S. Navy: 0

Off to board the ship. In military parlance it is known as “crossing the brow”. I am not exactly sure why, but that is what they call it. At any rate, you grab all of your gear and do you best Sherpa imitation as you stagger beneath your private mountain of militaria. In the egalitarian fashion peculiar to the American military each Marine is expected to tote his load aboard- no lackeys or porters about to take it aboard. Up the ladder (navy-speak for stairs) you go, grunting and struggling to carry as much of your gear up the steep series of ramps and stairs. As you reach the top of the gangplank (which is no small feat, because the gangplank to the ship is dozens of feet off the ground) you must unceremoniously dump your load and request permission to come aboard from the first Sailor that you see: the bemused and usually arrogant sailor known as the Officer of the Deck, or OOD. Much to his unbridled glee he watches you divest yourself of your seabag, pack, parachute bag, and whatever else you are carrying in order to perform the obligatory boarding dance. With a groan and the weighty thump of military luggage hitting the steel deck you begin the age old nautical tradition. As the “guest” coming aboard the Captain’s ship you are expected to come to the position of attention, turn to face the national ensign (the ensign is the nation’s flag that flies from the yardarm jutting from the back of the ship), salute, and then face the OOD, salute again, and formally request permission to come aboard. The OOD returns your salute, grants your request, and chuckles as you reassume you pack mule impersonation and stagger past him and on to the ship. His tittering ceases only as the next poor Marine arrives before him, his presence announced by the crash of olive drab luggage slamming into the deckplates.

Again, Disney presents a completely different experience. Instead of a cluttered and dingy Navy pier, we passed through a pair of open doors into the cool air conditioned interior of a cruise passenger terminal. Not two feet from the door was a pleasant young lady who asked to see our travel documents. With a smile she pointed us to the escalator (!) that would bring us to the boarding processing center. As we emerged from the top of the lift we saw travellers similar to ourselves queued up at a couple of long counters. Several very nice and attentive staffmembers asked us if we had completed our travel documents (“not all of them….” “Well, please let me help!”) and after taking a few minutes to complete our boarding process, we went through security and headed for the ship. The security line was pretty much like the one at the airport- a metal detector for people and an x-ray machine for carryons. The good news, however, was that liquids are allowed on board. This is pretty important, because we had three bottles of wine in our carryons- three bottles which would have landed me in the ship’s brig had I attempted to take them aboard a Navy ship! We made it through security (without removing our belts and shoes!) we were greeted by several cheery gentlemen wearing big white Mickey Mouse hands. They waved us forward (hard to mistake that gesture with such impressive four fingered mitts!) and asked each of my sons to give them “four”. Laughing as they did so, my kids were eating it up. So were their parents! We presented our boarding cards, and with a happy “Welcome Aboard!” we walked out towards the ship. A pair of photographers snapped a family vacation shot (“Smile! You can pick up your pictures onboard!”) and we were finally about to climb aboard the Disney Wonder. Fortunately, the escalator had brought us up to the level of the gangplank, so we didn’t have a single stair to climb. We walked along the covered gangplank (no beating sun or rain would sully our approach…) until we crossed over to the ship itself. Two lovely twentysomething girls in immaculate white uniforms enthusiastically welcomed us to the ship asked us our name. “The Grices,” said my oldest son. Lifting a microphone to her lips, the lovely young lady announced our arrival. “Please welcome the Grice Family to the Disney Wonder!”, and as we stepped onto the luxurious carpet we were greeted by the applause of a waiting receiving line of the ship’s officers and crew. And I didn’t even have to ask permission to come aboard. No question- another point for Disney!

Running score: Disney: 4 U. S. Navy: 0

Well, the Disney Cruise Line has a pretty impressive lead so far, and we just got aboard the ship. Will the Navy catch up in the days ahead? Will Disney falter? Only those intrepid enough to keep reading will find out…….

Checking out (1): Welcome to Byzantium!

Posted by Mike Grice on

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

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

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!

Death as a way of life

Posted by Mike Grice on

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Not today, maybe not tomorrow, but someday.

Someday….

Reflections

Posted by Mike Grice on

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“What are they doing?”

“What kind of guns do they have?”

“Are they your friends?”

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

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

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

Semper Fidelis!

9/11

Posted by Mike Grice on

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

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

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

As we all know, that has changed.

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

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

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

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

“Who is doing what again?”

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

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

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

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

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

And it was.

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

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

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

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

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

(Almost!) my last haircut

Posted by Mike Grice on

So there I was…..

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

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

ATTENTION CUSTOMERS:

According to MCO P1020.34G, both

Males and Females must be within

grooming regulations and appropriate

Civilian attire or Uniform of the Day

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

__________

Lessons learned:

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

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

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

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

The other side of transition

Posted by Mike Grice on

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Great!  Good for you.  Where?”

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

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

or…..

“I dunno.”

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

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

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