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Words from the Wise
Join Words from the Wise with Gary Wise, a retired Navy Command Master Chief, for authentic leadership insights forged in real-world experience. Through engaging discussions and actionable strategies, Gary empowers you to master emotional intelligence, build resilient teams, and unlock your full potential. Tune in for practical advice on delegation, conflict management, and inspiring others, drawn from his over 28 years of service and ongoing leader mentorship headquartered now in Ocala, Florida.
Words from the Wise
The Investigation That Almost Broke Me
Leadership's darkest moments rarely make it into motivational speeches or training manuals. For this former Command Master Chief of Naval Base Guam, what began as a stellar career culminated in a 10-month nightmare that pushed him to the brink.
After successfully navigating COVID-19 challenges as the only operating base in the Pacific—receiving awards and recognition for exceptional leadership—everything changed with new regional leadership and a mandated command climate survey. What followed was an investigation that dragged on without transparency, updates, or resolution for nearly a year, all while he continued performing his duties managing barracks, security forces, and the welfare of hundreds of sailors.
The psychological toll was devastating. "I would never let this happen to one of my sailors," he reflects, revealing how he considered self-harm while trying to understand why no one would advocate for him. Between losing his father, being placed on medication, and facing expanded investigations for increasingly trivial matters, he found himself isolated in a system that seemed designed to break him rather than resolve legitimate concerns.
This raw account exposes the "deep state" of military installations—entrenched civilian employees and senior enlisted who create self-serving ecosystems where politics trumps people. It shows how the JAG Corps can weaponize regulations against individuals rather than seek justice, and how leaders who fail to stand up for their people ultimately fail the entire organization.
Have you witnessed similar leadership failures? Are there systems in your organization that allow extended investigations without accountability? Whether in uniform or civilian leadership, this story challenges us to consider how we protect people from becoming casualties of bureaucratic politics and personal vendettas.
And I know I was born for this. I know I was born for this. Don't care for the critics my words and my physics are for us and they can't stop. They just don't get it. I think they forget I'm not done till I'm on top. I know I was born for this. I know I was born for this. I believe I believe we can write a story.
Gary Wise :Hello everyone, how you doing tonight? It's Gary here Wise Leadership Solutions, words from the wise, and you know I've got the opportunity tonight to film a little bit and I've got something on my heart that I want to share, and so here we go. Uh, I made a video not too long ago when I was back at the classroom about reasons why going CMC, or Command Master Chief, was a challenge for me, and I highlighted some of the issues that came out of when I was leaving the 7th Fleet staff period of time and transitioning to Naval Base Guam. I've been getting a lot of requests for people that's asking me that know my story to tell the rest of my story, if you will, or at least another one of the challenging times that I went through, because for those of us that are in the leadership arena, it's easy for us to always come across like hey, motivators. Everything goes our way and not everyone always hears about or sees the things that we go through that really are hard for us and for our families, and so I'm going to share tonight one of the probably I would say top three most challenging things I ever went through, at least during my time as a command master chief, which was, you know, I became a command master chief in 2016. I became a command master chief in 2016.
Gary Wise :I got to USS Ashland January of 2016 after terminating shore duty early to go into the CMC program and requesting to go to a forward deployed LSD, to an amphib right, which people don't typically request to do. But that's what I asked for, what I wanted to do, but that's what I asked for that I wanted to do. Um, well, while on the amphib on the ashland, did good things, made some very good friends or some connections that I thought were good friends, but unfortunately, we're just unfortunately, people that just like to use people. But it's you know. So goes the world right, I don't mind if you use me, just tell me you're using me, that's all I care. Let a brother know that I, let me be in on it and we're good, okay. Uh, after going through everything on the seven fleet staff which I could put that video in the link, or I'll talk about that one again in the future, because it was a very eye opening experience doing that job up there, working with them and learning that I really quickly that it was not where I wanted to go in.
Gary Wise :My career was in the upper areas of echelons in the Navy, especially as a master chief petty officer, because what I found was there were E-9s in the Navy who actually thought they were like admirals, like they really think that they're like admirals. Swear to God. The command master chief program, especially when you get above, I would say, s3, they have this process where they act like they're going to work to give everybody a fair opportunity, but it's really just petty facts. It's not good, not good, okay and unfortunately, I saw a lot of that from the inside. Plus, unfortunately, I saw some stuff where I was just I couldn't. I couldn't get behind it. Things worked out with Erica had a medical crisis and my family ended up getting the opportunity on a neighbor based Guam which, while there were some frustrations, I felt like God was at work and it really did turn out to be an awesome opportunity, for my family Loved Guam.
Gary Wise :When I got to Guam, or once I got the orders to go to Guam, I remember I was talking to the fleet master chief, who was my next tier up CMC, when I was in Hawaii with my wife because she was at the hospital going through her medical problems, and he had told me hey, if you want to go to Guam, just make sure you bring a belt right, bring a tool belt, because it's a lot of hard work. And I was just like roger, that man, I'm into it, I'm ready to go to work as soon as I know my wife is cancer free and she's going to be okay. I've never been the problem. The problem was these people who are manipulating the scenes behind the behind the things because they don't like people. That was the problem. Right, just being honest, they can make it out whatever they want to make it out, but they're still doing it to this day.
Gary Wise :I had a brother call me last night still on active duty, still in the freaking cmc community, at the highest levels, and they're still doing the same crap. I mean, come on, bro, y'all are whack. You know, when you retire you don't get higher retirement pay, bro, just so you know. We have, unfortunately, we have the swamp Of that community and they continue to still perpetuate that problem and I hope that the sect Will recognize it's not just the flag officers that probably need to go, but I highly recommend you look at the flag CMC ranks, just saying at least for the Navy. I can't speak for the other branches, but for the Navy it's toxic. Look at Peter. I mean okay.
Gary Wise :Anyway, moving on, so I go to Guam and on the way to Guam, once I find out I get this opportunity, I sit down with every base master chief that I can. I mean it's about three weeks between me being told I'm going to Guam and when I'm getting to Guam, because the CMC that's there is leaving because he's got medical problems and so it's a short fill. But I'm ready to go because I want to get out of 7th Fleet staff, because I love my sailors, love my chiefs, they love me back. But some of those senior leaders and some of those E9s were just freaking toxic. So I sit down with the base master chief at Yokosuka. I call the base master chief in Sasebo. I call the base master chief in Atsugi.
Gary Wise :I talk to the base master chief of Pearl Harbor and I'm trying to get the context of hey guys, what's the biggest challenges you have as a Base Master Chief? I've never worked for under the CNIC construct, which is our Naval Installations Command, and they are all telling me a couple of things. Number one make sure you're working with the senior civilians so that they understand what you can do to help them. All right, so that's Navy exchange, that's housing, that's USO, all these force multipliers Check that makes too much sense, right? The other thing they're telling me is make sure you manage the barracks. I'm going to own the barracks, so check, roger, that.
Gary Wise :And the other thing they tell me is be careful of security department. I'm like what, why do I got to be careful of security department? And they were just like look, security is complicated, it's not a healthy relationship between them and the installation. Pretty much anywhere you go and I'll tell you, the challenge is the manning for security forces is not conducive with the requirements that they have to meet. There's just not typically enough of them to meet the requirements of force protection and readiness 24 hours a day, seven days a week. And so those sailors, in particular those sailors and the civilians that work with them, because typically you're going to see installation security forces is going to have a lot of civilians and sailors. It is a monotonous, challenging job, especially when the majority of the work is going to be at the gate or on the boats in the harbor. But they all said the same thing. They all said the same thing Be careful with security forces. And I'm like all right, cool.
Gary Wise :And what I heard was it's like a big deck on your on aircraft carrier. You got to watch these reactor air department. Those are big departments that have challenges. You go to an amphib it's by engineering and deck right. So on an installation, security forces is your biggest department. So you're going to get the majority of your challenges that come out of security forces. Cool, no problem.
Gary Wise :Oh, and the other thing was was and take care of the tenant command. So what happens is when you're the installation master chief, or when you're the installation commander, my boss you have a responsibility to take care of all the commands that are living on your installation, to make sure that they're getting taken care of. And because we're a forward deployed installation, which Captain Grimes had this philosophy, that we were a forward operating base, which would become a true story on Naval Base Guam during the years I was there as the Master Chief because we would live through COVID and we would become a forward operating base. But he already had that philosophy, because we have I mean, commissary, is at the end of the delivery cycle Navy exchange. At the end of the delivery cycle, guam is out there alone and unafraid, and we don't always have all of the things that we need, and so we have to do a lot of working together to make things happen right. And Captain Grimes understood that and he was going to be my commanding officer when I got there.
Gary Wise :And Guam is much different than, like, say, a Japan installation, because, yes, japan is forward deployed, but the host country of Japan has so much access to so many resources. Guam, you don't have that right. Guam is an American territory. They are reliant upon the American delivery chain, the sustainment chain, and oh, by the way, we're always fending off people from, unfortunately, near peer competitors that want to be in our suit.
Gary Wise :Okay, so when I landed on Guam and I'm meeting with the new CMC, I mean I, my wife, goes from being in surgery, can barely walk we get back to Japan. It's like an eight day turnaround to get packed out and we're landing in Guam and she can again. She can barely walk because of the surgery she's been through. And I'm already out there with the, with the CMC getting the turnover because he's leaving, and I want to hear from him what his challenges are. Right, and he's telling me the same thing managing the barracks. Because my boss is going to be a submariner, and submariners they look to the Cobb as being the one that owns everything when it comes to lodging on board a boat. So for my boss being a Cobb, that's the same thing. Right, I'm being, I'm being his cob, he's a submariner.
Gary Wise :I own all the barracks, thousands of barracks rooms, mind you, because you have all the submarines. You have maybe, maybe a thousand. Right, because they have four submarines out there now. You have all of the deploying rotational forces for the CTF-75 folks in Camp Covington. You have all of the land-based forces that live on the installation, and so I have to manage all of those barracks and make sure that every tenant CMC has their allotted barracks rooms. And oh, by the way, as I'm getting there, they had recently just gotten rid of unit integrity, which was, for me, a disaster Right when I was a CMC of a ship, I wanted unit integrity in my barracks.
Gary Wise :I wanted a whole P way of just my sailors so I could make sure my sailors were taking care of our areas. And it would take me two years to get back to unit integrity, but I did that. I did that. I remember when I first got to Naval Base Guam, one of the first things I did was have a barracks town hall with all the sailors in the barracks, and that first time I had a town hall I would say the theater had about 150 sailors in it. A town hall, I would say the theater had about 150 sailors in it. Three town halls later, no sailors. Because we heard all their concerns. We heard all of the things they wanted to get fixed. We addressed it, we fixed it and I was communicating with the tenant CMCs making sure that the barracks were taken care of. So the barracks, in my opinion, was one of my strongest areas for my time as a command master chief and that's going to come up in today's story because we're going to talk about barracks and some of the challenges there.
Gary Wise :Now, one thing I would like to tell you all is, if you ever live overseas and like in, like Japan or Guam, or even Florida Hill, but let's say Japan and Guam, and you're living in a barracks, that, or or a, a base housing that's a little bit older than some of the newer homes. There is this thing called the air. It's called humidity. Okay, in humidity it happens to where, if you don't have good air movement in certain areas, things might actually start to develop mold. Like my wife, my family, when we were in Japan and Guam, you would get these dehumidifiers and we would run them in our house to pull the water out of the air and we would be dumping the buckets of the water. We used to get these little like tubs of these pellets and what they would do is absorb the water in our closets to help prevent them from becoming mold on our clothing in the closets, because we understood we lived in a humid tropical environment that was not originally designed to have people living on it in the way, in the manner that we were living on it. Right, this is going to matter, uh, for a part of the story in the future. Okay, and so I just want you to understand that that's a context for me and I.
Gary Wise :I lived in Japan from 1997 to 2000,. My first ship. So I was a first ship, first term sailor, seventh fleet right. I was back in Japan again, 2010 to 13, on board the USS George Washington. At that point in time I was a married sailor with a I Washington. At that point in time I was a married sailor. I was a chief to senior chief to master chief, with a spouse living in base housing. I was back to Japan again, 16 to 18 in Sasebo, japan, and then we moved up to Yokosuka, japan, from 18 to 19. And then I was in Guam from 19 to 22 when I retired. So I did a lot of my time in that environment and understanding what it takes to live in that kind of a tropical space.
Gary Wise :Ok, and again, my job was when the sailors came in, they would check into barracks and we would give them barracks rooms from all of the tenant commands. It didn't matter if you were from the tenders, which was like our big ships. It didn't matter if you were a submarine, it didn't matter, it didn't matter. My job is to make sure you had a barracks room, you had lineage, you had everything that you needed and oh, by the way, I had to manage projects in the barracks, updating the barracks, and that was my job. Okay, so that's one thing. Barracks Okay.
Gary Wise :Back to the security forces. Security forces have a tough job. I am not going to give them any shade on that Number one, especially in a place like Guam. You're out there in the heat and the rain and you're doing the gate guard duty. You've got to maintain your presence, you've got to maintain your bearing, you've got to be out on the water managing all these surface contacts, trying to keep the harbor safe and make sure everything is squared away. Oh, by the way, we're American soil, but we have a lot of foreign nationals on our island. Theoretically, that are tourists, okay, but unfortunately you don't know who's a tourist or who's not a tourist.
Gary Wise :So our force protection measures were we were accelerated than other areas and we have a lot of contractors, or GS, as I guess you would call them. You have different levels of government employees who would help offset not having enough American military forces to do the security forces, having enough American military forces to do the security forces. So the security forces are on a rotation where they're very similar to law enforcement in the civilian sector. They work three days and the 12 hour shifts, then they're off two days, work two days and they're off three days, and that was their rotation. So every other weekend or every two weekends is like a three day weekend or whatever it was, and I wish I didn't have to care.
Gary Wise :To be honest with you, I wished it was not a problem, but there was always so many challenges coming out of the security forces when it came to personnel and manning, because the minute one of those sailors is not able to arm up and carry a firearm, they're not able to do the job. You're now down down watchstanders, so if they get pregnant, if they get injured, if they're going to mental health, pick a thing right. And the more sailors you lose, the harder it is for you to man up your posts. And then, when you can't man up your posts and you've got like high traffic hours, you've got casualty situations, you've got things you got to worry about, it's a lot of weight to put on those sailors and a lot of the leaders are not always the best communicators as to what's going on around them.
Gary Wise :And so I found out very quickly that there were some challenges in that space, right, and there was also a lot of in the terms of what I will use in the political context deep state, because unfortunately, in the government employee world you have a lot of freaking deep state people and no, they're not all living in Washington DC. You go to any fleet concentration area, any centralized hub of any major military area and you're going to find a bunch of employees that have been doing that job for freaking years Years, matter of fact. They did it before they got out of the military and then they managed to create themselves a job, to transition to that job when they got out of the military. It's one of the things that I personally just I have a sour taste in my mouth for it. That's just. It's why I couldn't get far enough away from those kinds of people, because they're part of the problem. Like you're going to just continue on. It's how I think we ended up with the Navy Community College. Just being honest with y'all, like just being honest. That's how we got that program. I've watched them create cmc jobs for people that didn't need to be there, didn't need a job, just because they're trying to keep their operatives in places so they can continue acting like they're in control of something when really they're not. They're not, it's they just like again, they like to have the power. But I digress.
Gary Wise :You have that same challenge when it comes to every installation. Right, every installation, you're going to have this deep state of government employees who have vested interest in things not changing or things not progressing, and so when you have a commanding officer who maybe is trying to make it better, for example, in my time we were trying to ensure the force protection posture for our installation was such that any of our competitors that looked at our installation would think we're not going to try the United States of America today, because if you look at those gate guards right there, they care. And that went from standardization of uniforms, that went from bearing all watch. There's all kinds of things right, because unfortunately, the sailors thought they should just be wearing whatever kinds of uniform they wanted to wear because it was hot. I get it. I get it and I fought for them to get certain things, but it took time. It took time.
Gary Wise :So security forces was a challenge and I learned that coming in. But again, it comes with the job, it comes with the territory. It's not an abnormal challenge for me in in naval base guam, outside of it being geographically separated from a lot of other people. You only got the numbers of people that you got and, of course, we're at the end of the supply chain, okay, uh. But when I get there at first, I don't. At first the job is just it's kind of tough. I'm not gonna lie to you. I'm like all right, well, I went from being on a ship, then I went from being up with the staff, where they got these million dollar budgets and they're talking about these big things, and now I'm down here on guam and I'm trying to figure out barracks and I've got these people in security that just seem to hate the command. They don't want nothing to do with the command, all they want to do is complain, and that's not the chief's mess that I'm from. So I got to figure out all this stuff.
Gary Wise :Oh, here's the other thing about Guam. You have a region leadership of one installation. So typically, a region in the Navy is going to have multiple installations. Okay, so they're going to have three or four bases, three or four commanding officers, three or four sets of programs, and they're they're legit. A region One does not have that, because you've got a region leadership who's supposed to be theoretically like coalescing the air force and the marine corps and the navy. But one thing you don't if you don't know about buckets of money or colors of money, when it comes to this government funding, there's all different colors of money, okay. So the air force has their own flavor of money, the marine corps has their own flavor of money, the navy has their own flavor of money. So when this region is theoretically navy, they have nothing to say about the other other colors of money from other places. So this is a navy region.
Gary Wise :All of their region, people that are part of their deep state, are only really worried about one thing, which is the navy base, and this was a huge part of the problem, because these people would live up on this hill and they would just throw down things to exacerbate these other people, and they were interchanging back and forth. Well, I'll move up here and get a job, then I move down there and get a job, and not for nothing. I mean, even the Navy was doing it right. I mean my CO was formerly up there on the hill and him and the other CO had swapped roles right For them too. Honestly, I think it was very beneficial because they worked well together. But unfortunately, if you've got skeletons in your closet, they don't go away. If you've got skeletons in your closet, they don't go away. And then for a lot of these civilians that were just hopping from job to job to job to job, it doesn't always leave the best taste in people's mouths, and so there was a lot of this animosity between the people up on the hill and the people at the installation. That's going to come up later as I talk about some of these things.
Gary Wise :Oh, one other area to highlight as I lay out this story, which was a a hellacious 10, 10 months of my life Um, I, we had a jag, okay, that worked for the installation commander, that jag worked in our building down the hall from my boss and for me, and that jag had a, a paralegal that worked for them. That was military. We had that JAG work directly for my CO. That paralegal worked directly for that JAG, but their commanding officer and leadership was in Yokosuka. They also had other JAGs and paralegals that worked up on the hill for the leadership up there, who also reported to the command over in Yokosuka. Again, they worked for two different people, but they were from the same command. That's going to matter later, and I knew the people in Japan who were responsible for those paralegals in particular because they were enlisted. And I knew the master chief up in Japan because before I had come to Guam I knew her when I was up in Japan. We had worked together. We were relatively good friends.
Gary Wise :Now that friendship does go awry because the second class petty officer at this time she is a paralegal working for the JAG who loves her to death. But she makes a bad choice. Bad choice and I remember she made the bad choice. She got into some trouble. She came to see me and she was always coming to talk to me. We had a really good relationship. She was my paralegal. I was talking to her about everything when it comes to legal things, because typically that's what I would do with my paralegal enlisted folks when I was at the staff, when I was on the ship. I would have an open dialogue with these sailors.
Gary Wise :And when she got in trouble and she came to me, I told her I was like you're cooked, you're cooked. If that had been, if I had been her CMC, if she again, she wasn't mine. She was in my junior enlisted association. She was in my building every day. I cared for her, I cared for her child, I cared for her family. She was going through this trouble. So I care and I know her. But again, I didn't write evals on her, nothing like that. But when she got in trouble I told her. I said you're in deep trouble, I think you should go home because I don't know that I can trust you to continue on as a paralegal and not trust your unfortunately, your ethics Right Like you're making super bad choices. How can you be giving us advice on legal things? For me that was a problem and she took it. She understood.
Gary Wise :And when they removed her from working in the JAGS office, they had her working for me and I had her checking ID cards at the quarterdeck and I cared about the sailor and then, instead of them, in my opinion, just taking care of business, they really went after her and really just drug out this process. And what they screwed up was they overstepped their boundaries. And where I ran afoul with the other master chief was I sided with the sailors when with the sailor when they did that was I sided with the sailors when with the sailor when they did that. Right, I sided with the sailor when they did that because even though I had been direct with the sailor and told the sailor that had been up to me, you'd have been gone a long time ago, I would have pulled, I would have been gone.
Gary Wise :But once they started doing too much and once they crossed the line and then once they got themselves in a deep water cause they were being unfortunately, the JAG Corps is one of my was one of my most biggest frustrations with the United States Navy. When you talk about the weaponization of lawfare in the society, I promise you the Navy is some of the worst at it. Really, I'm just telling you. I promise you the United States, I've seen it from the inside and I've lived it. I'm going to talk about that here in a minute.
Gary Wise :But in the Jags, their job, at least in their mind, is to give their officers, their leaders, the best advice possible in which to wage war on their sailors or on their people, using the legal code. My job as a command master chief is to temper that with freaking. That's not how we treat our sailors right and that's what I would do whoa, whoa, whoa. That's not why we're gonna do it. That's not how we're gonna do it. That's crap. But if you don't get that which is where some of these corrupt e9s come into play, because they really they think that they're freaking e10s, or they think that they're freaking E-10s, or they think that they're really somebody special and they think that they're freaking like above the law. You got problems right.
Gary Wise :And so when this second class petty officer runs afoul with her command up in Yokosuka, and now they're drawing out this process and going down the whole court martial route and they're just doing way, way, way more than they had to do. She was guilty, she admitted her guilt, she was willing to freaking take the punishment and move on with her life. But eight months later now y'all are doing way too much and they messed up. Guess what? You know this point. I'm going to support the sailor. She's done everything she was supposed to do. She did everything y'all said to do. Y'all keep dragging this out. Either kick her out of the freaking Navy or let her go. She's got a child, she's got a family, she's got things to do. And when the sailor told the master chief up north that I was supporting her, then she got mad and we had this conversation. That's going to matter because later on in the conversation OK, just put that in there.
Gary Wise :Now get to Naval Base 1, figure it all out. It's boring but it's fun. Right, it's boring but it's fun, it's not that crazy. And then COVID comes. Covid comes and it goes wild. Right, we are the only operating base in the whole freaking Pacific for ships to get liberty, for ships to come in and get taken care of. We are a federally subsidized island so all the federal rules apply for COVID. So all of our families are locked down. Schools are closed down. I'm taking care of families on the installation. I'm taking care of sailors off of an aircraft carrier that is getting freaking cleaned up from COVID. On board a ship. We're taking care of ships that are coming into port.
Gary Wise :We're working with the region commander, who at that point in time, was a phenomenal human being. I love this man and lisa I had her on a previous uh conversation. She was the master chief up there love her to death. We're working together and what they're doing is letting us do our job, because my boss is. He's solid and he doesn't need you to manage him. He's got this right and the best thing you could do is manage above us and keep those things off of us when we figure all these things out and we do a pretty decent job during COVID. I mean, I'm very proud of my team and we can talk more about that at another time.
Gary Wise :But from the period of time that COVID starts till COVID ends, we are freaking running an operation to best support the Pacific fleet. Okay, and we're doing a. We're doing a very good job security. They are completely in a bubble in their own world, doing whatever they're going to do to take care of the post, because we don't got time to micromanage that right now, because we've got to do all these other things, and so they're actually very happy at that time, because they're not having to deal with any of the concerns that we had with on them beforehand. And no one's coming to the base anyway. Right, there's like no traffic on the whole installation because no one's coming to work. Everything's secured, nothing's happening, gates are closed. There's no reason to worry about it because no one is working. Right, it's freaking shut down. Now we come through COVID and now we're trying to come out of COVID and we have to learn how to do this again in a world post-COVID. But oh, by the way, we're being held to all these other additional regulations that they gave to us to support Guam due to a potential for there being COVID still. Again, guam holds on onto it to the very end. So we're managing airport runs, we're managing all the rules, all the regulations till the very, very, very end of COVID.
Gary Wise :Even after everyone else has taken all their baseballs and footballs and basketballs and gone home, naval Base Guam is still trying to figure it out and you know, the only reason I was able to keep it going was because all the people that denied the COVID vaccination got sent to work for me. That was the only reason I was able to keep it going. But what was crazy is like, but none of them were vaccinated, so they weren't. They weren't able to do work theoretically because they weren't vaccinated, so I would have them doing things that would not put them at risk while they were going to their. It was just a, it was, it was, it was a lot okay, and I remember we had done, uh, a couple things happened at the end of covid, just as I get the story going.
Gary Wise :The boss on the hill left. We got a new guy in who did not. The storyline that I got that I'd heard was he was not. He wanted to do better than the previous guy, right, he wanted the last guy had done all of COVID, all these things, was loved by the island, was loved by the community. And so here comes this new guy and he wants to be better than that. So that was one, right. So that was the data points we were getting down down below. So he wanted to say, oh, things are not as good as everybody thought they were. They didn't do as good of a job as they thought they did, and I've got problems. That was one. Another thing was there was a new Jag that came in up on the hill who also had that energy, right, oh, it wasn't that good, they didn't do that good, we could do better.
Gary Wise :And so there was a lot of coming out of COVID. You got fresh energy, fresh ideas and, of course, their lens was oh well, they're behind on a whole bunch of things and, by the way, their COVID thing was not that hard, it wasn't that big of a deal, and they're not that good. And that was directed right at us, because we're their only place to vent on, because we're their only people that will listen to them. Nobody else will listen to them. The Marines don't care, the Air Force don't care. So we get all their attention. Right, just put that on your pipe and let you smoke on that for a little bit. So we get all their attention.
Gary Wise :Lisa, my girl, she had gotten pulled out to go to another position. And you know what's funny is they. The boss had come down and asked me in front of my boss hey, they're taking her, would you come be my guy? And I was like I don't want it, I will come help you, but that's not really what I want to do, right? But I said whatever. But of course he lost that fight because you got these E10s out there that think they're the ones that are the masters of the universe oh, gary can't go there, because we think Gary needs to go somewhere else. And that was where Gary was saying well, who are you guys to say where I'm going to go next? I'm already thinking about the door, bro, just being honest with you, you guys don't care for what's my family's and my family's best interests, and you still don't.
Gary Wise :As I talk to my friends that are out there in the fleet, you E-10s that are out there pretending that y'all are running things. Y'all are really killing the freaking community. It's horrible. Y'all are really killing the freaking community. Just, it's horrible, anyway, and so, but that job opportunity comes. He talks Me and my captain talk about it. I'm ambivalent, whatever, not a big deal to me. So.
Gary Wise :But the new boss comes in and he's sending down waves of energy that he's not happy with certain things. And look, I will tell you for me, me and the Bosun we just got awarded like meritorious service medals. My captain got this freaking badass award from like another country he flies to like Europe to get an award. Like we're getting all these rave recognition from all over the Navy all over the world. But we got this new leader up there on the Hill who just not happy. Okay, check, roger, that, whatever man, my boss is getting ready to retire and change over command. And this is where I'm picking up the story I had to set the table for y'all. Oh, one other piece to set the story the person who's relieving my boss is another post-tour major commander who's coming from another command on the island. Okay, so, he's not new to the community, he's not new to the island and, as a matter of fact, he did a lot of great things during COVID with his ship and his crew.
Gary Wise :The challenge wasn't so much him as it was going to be his. My concern was his spouse, because his spouse during COVID was a leader of a large community of spouses for that deployed command who was gone and there had been some times where her and like my ombudsman or other leaders in the community, had run af foul, to where me and the command master chief for his command had had some very direct conversations about please keep her out of this lane. Let me know the concerns, send it back through the command chain of command and we'll figure it out. But we don't need spouses arguing over social media or like trying to get people energized while we're trying to fight this freaking pandemic. Right, to get the sense of where I'm coming from on that. And so I was concerned that now this gentleman was going to become my new commanding officer and I had basically shut down problems that his spouse had been causing in other areas of my command during that period of time. Right, not for nothing. I didn't want, I don't want to care, I don't want to care, I don't want to care. But when captain says, master chief, make that problem go away, I'm gonna call that cmc up. I say make that problem go away, bro, simple right. But now he's going to be my new ceo and so, as changing command is coming, I'm just thinking to myself like man I got a year left at this command. I'm worried that there's going to be some problems with this new boss and his wife's going to hate me because I had gone against her, the court of public opinion because that's my job. My job was to hold down the community and not let. I mean, unfortunately, if you've ever been overseas in a forward deployed place like Guam, it can get crazy out there in housing. Just being honest, it can be nuts, right, and especially with social media. And so I was worried about that.
Gary Wise :Coming into 21, if you remember, the president and the secretary of defense mandates that all of the Department of Defense dudes, caucasian dudes that were being extremists, right. But there was a mandated command climate survey that everybody had to do. Now ours, we had done our previous one during covid. Guess what Fine, no issues, right, nothing more than the average bear. And so I'm like, captain, we got to do this command climate survey, but you're changing command in july. Do we do it now or do we do it in july? I mean, I don't want to do two of them back to back, what do you think? And he's like mass chief. They said to do it. We're doing it. Now give me a plan, roger, that me and the xo put together a plan and we do the command climate survey.
Gary Wise :Oh, by the way, remember, region of one. Well, they got a command climate specialist who has one installation. So all he's got to do is all worry about MBG, right, what's that guy do for a job? Nothing but make my life. Anyway, we got that guy You've got. I mean, right, we're their only installation. So, anyway, we go into, we do the survey.
Gary Wise :Oh, I get one of my sailors comes to me. She is the assistant command managed equal opportunity person. She is my command career counselor. And she comes to my office and she says Master Chief, I want to give you a heads up. There are sailors that are trying to get people to come after you on this survey. I said, okay, well, I mean whatever, what can I do about that? I appreciate the heads up. Thank you very much. You know what I do with that information. I go talk to the captain, I go talk to the XO, I go talk to the JAG and I go talk to the. I talk to the region master chief, who's now up on the hill. Hey bro, what do I do about that? What do you think? Oh, don't worry about it, gary. Blah, blah, blah. Okay, talk to everybody. Whatever, what are you going to do? Right, and I'm like I talkedee, they're really coming up with something. What are they coming up with? What can they have a problem with? They had one E6.
Gary Wise :My mom died in 2019, right before I went to MBG. My mom passed away and I had a first-class petty officer who was checking in with me one time and she wouldn't make eye contact, she wouldn't look at me and she kept looking at the ground and I told her. I said you know, hey, first class petty officer, you're, you're, you're, you're reminding me of my mom, and I would like you to not put yourself in a position where people may not recognize your abilities because you're not communicating, you're not looking at people when they're talking to you. I would like for you to try to work on that, as you're going to be at this command Right, I mean her leadership's in the room. We're doing this CDB, right Career Development Board. Well, all she took from that was I said she looks like her mom, my mom, even though they look nothing alike physically right at all. And my mom, even though my they look nothing alike physically right at all and my mom had just died. So I wouldn't just use my mom and just compare this person to my mom for no reason right.
Gary Wise :I actually cared about the sailor. I was trying to get across her and I was like that's the thing, like that's a what that was like a year ago. Why is that a problem? I don't know, master Chief, but that's one. I had another one. So remember the legal men, or the paralegal right, the one, the second class petty officer, was gone.
Gary Wise :Now we had a new E6 over there and we had a new JAG who? The new JAG and I we got along pretty good. She was a female and the previous Jag was a male not that it matters to me, but female Jag and she's always coming down talking to me because her new paralegal, her new first class, is, because it's concerning for her. She got some concerns because she's not, she doesn't carry herself as the stereotypical paralegal, first-class petty officers would carry themselves right. So she's always coming to talk to me about her concerns and I'm just, I don't know this sailor. I never got to know this sailor because after the change up and after the previous problem, the master chief, I think, had her never really working with me, which I don't really care on, whatever Right, but I have nothing to do with the sailor. But the sailor is a part of my first class petty association, for whatever that's worth. They didn't do anything, so whatever she was in that group. But the JAG was always coming to see me about concerns she had about this sailor and in particular concerns about the sailor on Liberty, and I would listen and I'd give her my advice.
Gary Wise :But I try to stay out of it, ok. So one day I'm coming into the building and I see this first class petty officer way down the street in uniform, no cover on, with the brightest hair, like in the world. I mean, it is bright, bright and she's unfortunately this sailor is known for wearing hair that's not always, I would say, appropriate in regulations, just distracts, okay. But I'm just like I see it, I'm just like Lord, I don't want to. I don't want no problems. I got a year left in the Navy. I don't want no problems. I got a year left in the Navy. I'm trying to figure out my life and whatever, right.
Gary Wise :So then here comes to my office, the JAG comes to my office. Master Chief, did you see what your name's here? I did, chief, what do you think? I'm like what? You're a JAG. You tell me what do you think? Oh, what? You're a jag. You tell me what do you think? Oh, mass chief, I don't know.
Gary Wise :Senior chief comes in. Hey, gary, did you see so-and-so's hair? Yeah, I saw it. Did you see it? Yeah, well, did you say something to her? No, bro, but you know what I'm saying. Like I don't know. Do you think that's right? Do you think I don't know? Bro, like I don't want to be the one that has to worry about this sailor's freaking hair color, bro, like, come on, another chief comes through, comes walking through the back door, because in my office the chief's all new. If my front door was closed, the back door meant the mess was open. So my chief comes walking in the back. Hey, gary, man, you seen that freaking first class's hair? I'm like, bro, okay, that's it. Three data points. I'm going to walk down the hall and I'm going to talk to the sailor. So I walk down the hall, say, hey, paralegal E6, question for you.
Gary Wise :A lot of people are recognizing your new hair color and they're wondering if you think it's in regulations or not. You're a paralegal E6. What do you think? Because if it was me and I had a jacked up haircut and people were talking about my jacked up haircut, I would want to know if people thought I had a jacked up haircut and so I'm just coming to you because no one else seems to want to talk to you about it directly and I get to be the one.
Gary Wise :And she's like well, master Chief, this is a natural hair color. I've never seen a hair color that color in my life. But OK, I'll buy. Here's what I would like for you to do Please contact your Master Chief up in your Yakuska, talk with her and whatever y'all come to, I'm good. Oh, by the way, I need you to wear your cover when you walk into the office in the morning. Okay, cause you didn't wear your cover this morning. I need you to do that. I know you don't want to mess your hair up, but I need you to wear your cover and I need you to make sure that you understand that your hair color needs to not detract from the appearance of the uniform. I'll just leave it at that, okay.
Gary Wise :So then I walk back down to my office and I get on the freaking email and I email her master chief in Yokosuka and I say, mc, I just went down the P way, had a conversation with your sailor. Her hair color is a color that I've never seen before. Just telling you, I don't believe it to be in accordance with the regulations, but I will leave this between you and her. Let me know what you want to do. I'm just bringing it to you because I would want to know if somebody again, she's not just anybody Her job is to advise us on legal things, so she needs to be all the way right, in my opinion. And if she's going to walk this line of like justice, social justice warrior, I don't know that she's the one for the job, at least from my boss, right?
Gary Wise :I get an email back later on that day from the master chief hey, mc, she's going to fix her hair period. Boom, okay, good, done, whatever. Okay, so flash forward. Back to here we are, I don't know, months later going through this command climate survey. This sailor's not even in my command, she's not even a part of naval base squam's uic and she's in my command climate survey talking about I'm having racist prejudice views or whatever it is, because her hair color okay. So that's one, two and I'm just hearing this. I'm like, all right, you know what. Let's see how it all plays out. Trust in the process. This is not my first rodeo. I've done these multiple times. I understand that there's more to it than just everyone does a survey. Thank you for the intel. Good.
Gary Wise :So about April 21, I get a phone call and we're in the middle of wrapping up the survey, or actually we're waiting for the results to come back and I get a phone call that my dad has just been put in hospice care and they didn't know how much longer he had to live. So I go to the captain like, sir, I don't really know what to tell you. We're coming out of COVID, we got this command climate survey going on, but until we get the results back, I don't really know what to do. Your change of command is in July, but this is my dad. My mom died in 2019. And what do you think? And he was like mass chief got to go, you got to go. So I went home, literally went home the first night. My dad walked out to the front room the next night we put them in a hospital bed and is in his bedroom. But the third night, me and my aunt and my uncle were doing 24 hours a day care until my dad passes away. Okay, as soon as my dad passes away, I'm on a flight back to Guam, right? So I'm not even gone a week, right, get back to Guam after the funeral and all that.
Gary Wise :And the command climate survey results are back and I'm like, okay, well, let's get it cracking, let's call the team in and let's go through it. And I'm like, okay, let's get it cracking, let's call the team in and let's go through it. And I read through the command climate survey and, sure enough, there are the stories that are in there. And I tell the captain, it's not just about me, it's about me, it's about the XO. Typically, in my experience, one of us is always going to be a lightning rod in the survey. Typically it's going to be the new guy is going to be the one everybody loves. The one that's been there the longest is probably going to be the one everybody hates, and the one that's been there, like in the center, is the one that doesn't do anything. That's just kind of been my experience. Right, it's typically, uh, there's usually, as they separate the co, the xo, the cmc, and so, uh, I tell captain, I'm like sir, my advice is, yes, do the focus groups, yes, do these other things.
Gary Wise :But my advice is, investigate these allegations that are in this report to see if, make sure there's anything there or not. That's my advice. I would do a PIO on all those allegations. My captain was like I ain't doing that, master Chief, it's crap. Pio and all his allegations. My captain was like I ain't doing that, Master Chief, it's crap. We've already talked about these things because every time I would get this intel from my leaders, from my people that were telling me what people were talking about on the deck plates as they're all freaking trying to figure out how they're going to try to tell their side of drama. I would go talk to the captain, I would go talk to the XO, I would go talk to the JAG, I would go talk to the CMC up on the Hill right and tell him my concerns. Every time and he's like match chief, I ain't doing that crap. And I was like, sir, I got it, but you're leaving soon, you're changing command soon, me and the XO are still going to be here and I feel like if you don't investigate some of these things, the new CEO is going to come in. I don't know how that's going to go because I don't know how he's going to feel. And let me tell you guys something about the Command Master Chief program. If you don't know this, I can't speak for the other services, but for the Navy. You serve at the grace of the commander period. If the commander does not want you to be his master chief, you're done, you're cooked. That's all it takes, I swear to God.
Gary Wise :When I was a master chief in Norfolk, I went to Fleet Forces Command, or Surflant, and I met with every command master chief that was at the Surflant staff that had been fired. Ok, I sat down with all of them and I wanted to know how had it gone sideways for them, what had gone wrong and what I found. I mean, some of them had made bad moral choices. Some of them had made bad moral choices. Some of them had made bad career choices. All true. But then what I also learned was if their commanding officers had wanted them to stick around, they would still be there.
Gary Wise :So ultimately it's the commanding officer's job, but a lot of commanding officers do not want to run afoul of leaders above them which are typically senior to them Wink, wink. And typically those senior people have master chiefs and those master chiefs have a role to play in which they're supposed to be up there to help advocate for what's going on. But if they're not solid and they're not able to to speak and represent, there might be a problem. Okay, but for all those guys that were at the surf land staff, I understood why they had all gotten fired. Like I got it, like you can't. You can't even alcohol, things like that, I got it. Those are bad choices.
Gary Wise :Um, I could go on other stories, though. Where it had got where they were, there were not those choices. You can't. You can't even alcohol, things like that, I got it. Those are bad choices.
Gary Wise :I could go on other stories, though. Where I had got where they were, there were not those choices, right, but I will just tell you that you serve at the I just at the commander's leisure. So I'm like, sir, captain, my advice inspect, investigate these things, wrap it up in a bow, turn it over to the incoming CEO because this is your command climate survey, not his, and go from there. No, by the way, the previous survey had none of this crap. This is the survey. Remember that we're only doing this survey, not because we had to, but because they're looking for extremism in our ranks and the sailors. What they heard was oh, this is our opportunity to go after people we don't like for whatever their reasons. Okay, now, my captain was like nope, not doing a mass chief, your dad just passed away. This is crap. They weren't here with us doing everything we did. I know none of this stuff is true. We've talked about all this already. No problems, don't worry about it. Cool, whatever, sir Got it. Change of command happens in July.
Gary Wise :Okay, new CO says well, I don't want to do a command climate survey because you guys just did one. I'm going to talk to the admiral about the guy on the hill. I'm going to talk to that guy about just accepting those results and moving forward. All right, I recommend you do another one. As I said, do another one, pull another survey. Let's go ahead and see if there's the same stuff going on back to back, because again, the data I'm getting from the deck plates is the sailors all looked at that survey as a one-off and they could just do whatever they wanted to do with it and make all the baseless accusations, because nobody took it serious.
Gary Wise :They all just thought it was a free-for-all, right. But I mean, there you go. But the guy, the boss, comes back and says alright, well, we're going to take it. But, cmc, I think you got some things to worry about. What, what? You just became my boss I just barely and I got some things to worry about, like, what are we talking about? Well, master Chief, you know, there was a lot of things in that survey that we think, think or that that we're gonna take a look at. I was like fine, do what you gotta do. Sir, I already recommended this to captain grimes. Nothing ever happened. What are we doing, right? I said I don't know, the region is going to take care of it. I'm just like hold on. Why are they going to do something? That's not even about their survey. Okay, it's not even your survey, it was the previous commander's survey. What are we talking about? I don't know, match chief, I'm just letting you know.
Gary Wise :So I go back and call up the match chief up there on the hill, say hey, man, what the hell is going on, bro, everything that's in this thing. You and I have spoke about, everything that's going on you and I have spoke about. Why is there all of a sudden I got something to worry about. Oh, gary, gary, just calm down, man, don't be so, don't be emotional, right? Yeah, right, don't be emotional. Calm down, gary, it's not you, you know. Got to trust the process. I'm like, okay, well, let's go Chop, chop, let's get it going Right.
Gary Wise :And then days go by, weeks go by, nothing, nothing. And then all of a sudden, after about a month or two, I get a phone call. Hey, gary, there's this, there's this commander down here interviewing our sailors about you. Hey, gary, there's this commander over here interviewing our sailors about you. Hey Gary, there's this. My chiefs are calling me up like, gary, what's going on? Man, there's this guy down here as a commander interviewing the sailors about you. I'm like, look, bro, just trust the process. I don't really know what's going on. We'll figure it out, right.
Gary Wise :Months go by, three, four, five months go by and this investigation is ongoing. This guy is just popping up at random and interviewing sailors. Finally, and I'm calling up the master chief up there, or the E9 up there, I'm like, bro, how long does this last? Where I come from, if a CO, an XO, a master, somebody significant, is getting an investigation, we're trying to wrap this up quick, because if this guy's a problem, we don't want them in the job, right? If this person is not good, like what are we doing? It's been like four or five months, what is going on, right? He's like, oh Gary, just trust in the process. This is just, we're going through this process like, okay, well, finally I get called up to talk to this guy, right, this commander, who is a freaking reservist from hawaii, who they activated for the pandemic, who was left over on Guam, okay, this guy had never been in command, never been an XO, never been a Master Chief and, in my opinion, you're not qualified to investigate somebody in those positions if you've never held a position of similar and or equal responsibility. That's my two cents right. But this guy calls me up there. Responsibility, that's my two cents right. But this guy calls me up there and I remember uh says, uh, I'm gonna read you your rights match chief, you're under, uh, all these things right for violation of the equal opportunity program. I'm just like, oh, my god, all this month for that, that's it. It's like, yeah, just so everybody knows a couple things.
Gary Wise :I didn't wait for the five months quietly. I, besides calling the mass chief, I went and talked to defense council. I leveraged mentors around the navy. I'd gotten together all of my information to be prepared to go against this, but I could do nothing until something actually happened, right. Oh, by the way, I had already dropped retirement papers because I'm not staying in the Navy. I'm done, bro. What are we doing in my Navy? This is incredible. I was just getting a meritorious service medal for freaking, doing great during COVID.
Gary Wise :And now, because I got this new guy on the Hill, or this new Jag who doesn't like the way I use my words, or whatever these sailors want to say about me, I'm under scrutiny for five months of an investigation which, if you've never been under investigation, it is stressful because you're just always wondering like what did I do wrong? What could I have done better? Did I do anything? Did I not do anything? And I was to the point where I was. I was very frustrated because I'm talking to people and no one's talking to me. Everyone's telling me not to worry about it, but all I'm getting told is trust the process, trust the process five months later? Okay, so when I go up there and I talk to this guy, I have a choice do I answer his questions or do I not? Okay, that's my choice. I have about eight months left in the navy at this point because I'm already in my year out.
Gary Wise :Again. I've been under investigation for like five months and again I could not answer his questions. But in my mind, if I don't answer the questions, I might as well just say I don't want to end my career as a command master chief, because if you can't trust me to answer questions, then why should I be in this position of authority but or responsibility? But I also felt like, if you're going to investigate me for five months, why am I still in this position? Like that's crazy to me. Like if it's this big of a deal, what the hell are we doing right? But whatever and I've been talking to my ceo about this like weekly ceo have you heard anything about this investigation, ceo? You're hurting by this investigation, co, have you heard anything about this investigation? Hey, master Chief up on the Hill, have you heard anything about this investigation? No, master Chief, just keep. And I'm kicking butt, taking names, doing my job, doing my job.
Gary Wise :This is where it goes sideways. So I say you know what? I'd already talked to my defense counsel. I got nothing to hide, man, I'm retiring, let's go bro. And he asked me the questions. I give him my answers Boom, boom, boom, straight shooting, just like I always do.
Gary Wise :He tells me at the end of it all he's like Master Chief, I am so sorry for putting you through this. I'm so sorry it's taken so long. This is not my only responsibility. I'm TDY here. I'm sorry it's not been a priority and I was like, sir, you've got me hanging on the loop for five months for this investigation. I appreciate it's not your priority, but this is my life, my career, my reputation. You're talking to my sailors about me Like I'm doing something wrong and you're taking your time Like what's going on? Do I got a problem here or what? And he was like no, master Chief, you don't. He's like you're doing a great job. All your answers add up Keep doing what you keep. He basically says keep kicking butt, taking names. I wish I had more like you. All right, man, whatever. So he leaves, ok, goes wherever he's going to go.
Gary Wise :I'm thinking it's over. I'm thinking someone's going to tell me here's the results of the investigation, here's the readout of the investigation, here's the change out. You know what I hear, know what I hear, ready for this that they adjust the scope of the investigation because the reporting people up on the Hill did not like the results. I'm like I heard that one, and that was when I. That was when I unfortunately, that was when I had a hard time.
Gary Wise :I remember I called up the guy up there on the hill and I was like, bro, what are we doing? Why are we going to expand an investigation against me? What are you guys are trying to find on me? What did I do wrong? I will tell you if I did something wrong. What's going on? Right, and he's like Gary, just trust in the process. They're just, they're looking at a few more things. I'm like, bro, what are we doing? And, uh, I said, do you know?
Gary Wise :Um, after five months of being under this level of scrutiny, I'm really starting to be frustrated with this whole process and what's stopping me is from just doing something really drastic to communicate to the world that I don't feel like this is fair, this is right, right, what's stopping me from, from popping a flare or or or blowing a smoke signal. Cause. Here's the thing my captain is not doing it. My captain is not doing it. My XO. All he's telling me is Gary, I'm so sorry, gary, gary, I'm so sorry, gary, gary, I'm so sorry. I'm to the point y'all and I have only told this to a few people.
Gary Wise :I was to the point that I was really thinking about doing something drastic to hurt myself, and I'm sorry if that triggers anybody, but I was going through there. I was thinking about it because I was like how do I communicate to the world that I'm getting treated this way on this island in the middle of the ocean and no one seems to care about me? Meanwhile, I'm still taking care of all the sailors, all the Fleet Family Support Center, all the families, all the barracks, all the everything right, and there's no. I mean, I'm going to mental health now, by this point, I'm going to the doctor. They're starting to put me on different medications that's causing my body to change. Because I'm trying to figure this out, because I'm trying not to do anything crazy and I'm trying to trust the process and no one is caring about I would never let this happen to one of my sailors.
Gary Wise :I would have been brazen. Hell. Five months I've had all kinds of sailors get investigated Chiefs, senior chiefs, master chiefs Guess what? We got that done Packaging up in a bow, debrief that sailor as to what we think what's going on. Whatever we're going to do next, as to what we think what's going on, whatever we're going to do next. And after five months already being under investigation, now you're going to expand the aperture of the investigation. Because what? So then I find out.
Gary Wise :So I had that conversation with the match chief right, telling him these things, and you know what he tells me. Well, gary, thank you, I appreciate you for just hanging on Like bro, what, what? I'm down here doing the job. I'm telling you you're supposed to be my person that I talk to Like dog. I'm struggling down here. Why is this continuing on? Take me off the dot, bro. Take me off the seat. If you guys don't trust me, put me out to pasture for my last five months. Whatever, I don't care. Well, you guys figure out this investigation about me, right? Oh, gary, no, no, I appreciate you just hanging in there. Ok, ok, I'm still on medications.
Gary Wise :I just try my best and not freaking, lose my mind, even just reminiscing about this. I'm trying my best to not freaking lose my mind, even just reminiscing about this. So then I hear a day or two later that the leaders from up on the hill are down there with security talking to security. Now they're going to a sailor's barracks room because he says he's got moldy boots and that they had told me about it and that I did nothing about it. Yeah, I went, they told me about it. Yeah, they told me about it. Right. On that same email I replied back and I cc'd the guy, the master chief on the hill. But I also said we live in a tropical climate.
Gary Wise :If your closet is not having adequate ventilation and you start to recognize problems, my advice is to freaking clean it out. I've got hundreds of barracks rooms. I don't got hundreds of complaints about mold growing in barracks. Right, I got one from security because this dude's got cowboy boots leather cowboy boots in a freaking dank closet and it's a science experiment for this kid. But they've got.
Gary Wise :The guy from the hill is over in the barracks and he is fuming like gary. You need to come over the barracks right now. They want to see you over here right now. Right, all right, bro, go over there, hear everybody. Everyone's got to say mind you, hundreds of barracks, hundreds of barracks that I manage, not just one, hundreds, but this is the one. Oh, you're not taking care of our sailors. Okay, we live in Guam. We live in Guam, humid climate. What do you want to do? Okay, we're going to figure it out. We're're gonna figure it out. We're gonna figure it out. Close this barracks room down. Shut it down. We're gonna redo all the ventilation of this whole building. Shut the whole building down. So now I gotta figure out how to vacate all these sailors out of those barracks so they can get this whole project done. That I would have never happened had not this whole thing blown up and I still don't think it needed to happen. It was just a freaking.
Gary Wise :People are bored and they got nothing better to do on a Tuesday and they're trying to find reasons to be angry at somebody, right? So months go by, months go by, like bro. What are we doing, right? What are we doing? I'm getting closer to my retirement day. Am I going to get my cover on the Navy Times tomorrow? Are you guys going to tell me the status of this investigation? Am I going to lose a birthday soon. What are we doing, bro? No, gary, just keep doing a good job. Keep doing a good job. Trust the process. Trust the process. That's okay. What would y'all say? I mean, I'd already dropped my papers to retire by that point. So what are they going to do?
Gary Wise :Right, two weeks before my retirement date, my captain sits me down and he gives me an LOI. He gives me an LOI and it says on this LOI that we're going to meet every Friday to have leadership training. I'm like, sir, I'm retiring in a week. I know, master Chief, like, what's the point of the LOI? Sir, the point of an LOI is to recognize the deficiency and identify a way that we're going to train to the deficiency in order to move forward. He's like well, let me show you something. And there's this cover letter to an investigation wrap up. And the guy says if Master Chief was not retiring, I would have taken additional actions.
Gary Wise :Okay, is that a threat? Like, what are we doing? I've been waiting for that, bro. Let's do that. Bring it, I want to have that conversation. I'm not afraid of this dude. Bring it, I want to have that conversation. I'm not afraid of this dude. Let's go, let's have that conversation, because y'all lucky I'm not dead in my freaking housing because I've been thinking about that part. I've been thinking about that part and y'all can answer that question how you got this man under investigation for 10 months, how you got this Navy family living under that thing my wife, me, my kids dealing with me, me on mental health medication, me trying to do my job and live under that scrutiny for freaking, almost a year, right after my dad died, right after having I mean that part, after my dad died, right after having I mean that part, let's what, what, whatever, bro, I told.
Gary Wise :I told the captain hey, sir, so are you gonna come to my retirement ceremony? You know, because at my retirement ceremony my captain grimes, he was my speaker right, my captain off the ashland, who's the who's the commodore for freaking mip sean. He was there as my retirement officer. Right, my captain off the ashland, who's the who's the commodore for freaking mip sean. He was there as my retirement officer. Right, my chaps is there, right, but the captain didn't come to my retirement ceremony.
Gary Wise :My captain did not come to my retirement ceremony even though I said, sir, is this how you feel? I mean you and I have had a great, I thought a decent relationship, to be told. I liked him right, except for he didn't stand up for me. He didn't have the courage to tell his boss like, hey, he's my master chief, I'm good with everything that's going on and if we're going to fire him, let me know. But I don't want to. I told the captain. I said, sir, we had a conversation one time I, we had a conversation one time. I said, sir, why would you still let me be your CMC after all these months of investigation, if you really thought there was a problem? He's like Mass Chief, I don't know what to tell you. I was like well then, do you want me to not be your CMC? He's like no, I do. You're doing a great job, keep it up. What are we talking about, man bro? What are we talking about, man bro?
Gary Wise :And you know what an interesting last 10 months to my Navy career which was. You know he gave me a comm. Right, my captain gave me a comm. The same day I got the LOI. He gave me a comm. He said Master Chief, I got your eval here and I got your end of tour award. How do you want it? I was like just give it to me. I don't even know where it's at. I got it somewhere. I got it in my salmon a freaking year ago. Whatever dude, I don't care about no freaking trophies. Matter of fact, that was the song that I had playing at my retirement ceremony where we had my reception at the base club that was packed full of people from Naval Base Guam that freaking cared about my family. My retirement ceremony was packed. Then that one dude from the Hill, that E9 from the Hill. He came to my retirement ceremony and I was like, bro, why are you in the room, dog? Why, bro? Because, nah, man, hey, not for nothing.
Gary Wise :I don't have too many of these stories, y'all. I don't, I really don't. I've got two, maybe three of them, but this was a big one and I've never been quiet about it. I've always spoke my truth. Plenty of people know this story and many of them have been telling me, asking me to share it with the world. I've just been waiting for the right time. I was happy. Today felt like the right time.
Gary Wise :So thank you very much if you're listening to my story, if you ever do think you want to put yourself into the leadership arena, I always want to tell you, god, you can't control certain things you can't control. If everyone's going to like you, you know, again, I had this phone call from this brother last night who is a boy of mine since like 2007,. Right, and you're telling me about people that didn't like me and I'm like dog. Well, I don't care what they don't like me or don't like me. I well, I don't care what they don't like me or don't like me. I guess my question is why do they feel comfortable saying it to you, bro? If we're boys, I'm going to tell them that's my guy. Don't talk about my like. That's my friend, right? What are we talking about with that petty crap? We're a bunch of freaking supposed to be master chiefs that are supposed to be running with our captains and y'all are talking about I don't like this person's eye color or hair color or their flavor of their voice or whatever. Come on, bro. Come on, bro, stop.
Gary Wise :When you retire from the Navy, right, when you retire from the military, you go to the VFW, right? Guess what they don't ask you when you walk in the door. What was your rank? Guess what they don't ask you. You know, or you a freaking force master chief or a fleet master chief, or you any of those things? No one cares. Ok. So get over yourself, people. Stop, rebalance, refocus, do better, do better, because you're not going to keep the best.
Gary Wise :I'll be honest with y'all I thought I was going to stay in the Navy for a lot longer than I did, but I recognize, after the Seventh Fleet period of time and seeing how that whole thing works, nothing against the big boss. I liked him actually a lot, I do but I wasn't a fan of the cover-ups. That was one. And then seeing just the cowardice and these social justice warriors trying to come after people using their lawfare and their jags and their crap. By the way, when I was getting intel from on the hill, from my people up there, they were just telling me that that jag on the hill really didn't like me and it was him that was driving that and because of that paralegal, they just really thought that I was not a nice guy. Okay, well, you don't have to like me, bro, guess what? I'm not here for you to like me. I wasn't there for you to like me. I was there to do good for my sailors and for my team and for my entire community that loved me. So just because you didn't like me, I don't care, bro, I still don't, I still don't.
Gary Wise :It's actually kind of therapeutic being able to talk about this kind of stuff and share it, because it took me a while to come back off that cliff of thinking about doing drastic things. That's a tough conversation. When you got to tell your wife that you're thinking about possibly doing something really bad, right, that's tough, you know that's tough. And I just I think about senior leaders, especially in my Navy, that unfortunately do drastic things because they feel like they're isolated, they're alone, they're, they're just spent. Because here's this organization they gave everything to, and because somebody has got a personality conflict, because somebody doesn't like them, or because somebody wants to be good old boy club or mean to people, or whatever it is, you can take them, put them through this crap and no one's going to say nothing.
Gary Wise :And I still, truth be told, never called no IG, never popped no flares. I was a good little sailor till the end. Just took it right, just took it, and I would have never let that happen to my sailors. Right, and these guys are still in uniform. I see them, yeah, I see them. I hope they're doing better, man, hope they do good, hope they do better. I'm very grateful for where my life is at now. God has blessed me and my family and, trust me, I had to go to God many times over this whole thing. I'm still working on forgiveness for these people and maybe this will help. Maybe this will, maybe I can finally let this go a little bit and be like you know, all is well that ends well. Right, all is well that ends well.
Gary Wise :I do think that talking to old boy last night kind of spun me up a little bit. It's the fact that I've still got people in that Navy organization still using my name. It's just crazy to me. Like y'all got to move on, bro. Maybe it's because they see my videos and they're haters. In that case, keep hating, bro. You can't even get inside the club. Hate from outside the club, what the hell?
Gary Wise :Thank y'all very much for your time. If you appreciate the content, if you like the content, please like subscribe. I have a lot of people lined up for this podcast. It's super exciting. So I'm going to be starting season two here pretty soon, because I've just got a lot of shipmates that are seeing the podcast and they want to jump on board. And it was a great room it was my birthday yesterday to jump on board and it was a great room. It was my birthday yesterday and just all the love that I got from all of the former shipmates and the people that are seeing what I'm doing God that felt good man. So thank y'all for that. I appreciate y'all and I'm looking forward to doing this. Man, y'all, stay up. Navy Chief, navy Pride still shouting that right all day long. But it's Vanguard Knights over here. I love my Vanguard Knights team.
Gary Wise :We're about two weeks out from going back to school, one week out from doing Ocala Inspired. Here in Ocala, some big things happening. I get to help baptize some people tomorrow with church starting a middle school ministry in my church. That's going to be dope. So thank you, church of Hope, for the faith in me and my family there Looking forward to be dope. So thank you, church of Hope, for the faith in me and my family there Looking forward to doing that. And if you watch this video, thank you for going for the ride.
Gary Wise :I'm sorry if I kind of jumped all over the place, but hopefully I laid the table for you to hear it and appreciate the story. If you're going through this or you know someone's going through something like this. Please watch out for your friends because it's dangerous. It's tough out there alone. All right, y'all have a good night. Peace physics a force that they can't stop. They just don't get it. I think they forget I'm not done. I know I was born for this. I know I was born for this. I believe. I believe we can write a story.
