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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
From SCBAs To Series 7: Yes, That Escalated Quickly
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A kid from Staten Island walks three miles to a Navy recruiter after a jobsite blowup and ends up a warrant officer, a chief engineer, and finally a financial advisor. That’s not luck—it’s discipline, mentorship, and a lot of deckplate reps. Gary sits down with his shipmate Jody Schilling to trace the full arc: boot camp in Orlando, Treasure Island A School, meeting a destroyer in Bahrain, and learning damage control fast under real pressure. Along the way, Jody owns his missteps, turns NJPs into fuel, teaches DC indoc, and earns ESWS by treating standards like a sport.
The conversation digs into the gear and the grit: OBA to SCBA transitions, Halon decisions when the heat won’t quit, and the night a “Bravo fire” turned out to be a frozen fan. You’ll hear why recruiting after 9/11 worked when it focused on follow-up and results, not overtime and waivers. We get gator life with Marines aboard, ballasting math, and a SWO(L) pin earned on watch, not in theory. As a warrant DCA, Jody pushes for recognition systems that surface more talent and moves the crew from compliance to readiness.
Then it widens: a small-ship chief engineer tour under COVID, geobaching, and writing evals that actually move sailors—EL letters, real quals, faster promotions. In Bahrain, he fixes broken ranges for $13 instead of $40K, builds qualification boards, and helps sailors stack degrees while the mission rolls. The thread through it all is simple and powerful: take average and make it good; take good and make it great; take great and make it lead. That same mindset powers his post-Navy pivot to Edward Jones, where helping families plan feels like one more watch worth standing.
If you value honest sea stories, practical leadership, and the mechanics of reinvention, you’ll find a lot to take with you—whether you’re chasing ESWS, running a shop, or planning your next career. Listen, share it with someone who needs a push, and drop a review so more vets and leaders can find the show.
All right, everybody, half a day. How are you doing? Gary Wise, once again, words from the wise here to share today a story with a brother of mine from the United States Navy time. His name is Mr. Jody Schilling. He's a retired Navy Warren Officer, and I'm looking forward to hearing how he got to where he is today and what he's got going on in life. So without further ado, Jody, what's up, man?
Jody Schilling :What's up, Gary? How you doing, man?
Gary Wise :I'm doing good, bro. I'm doing good. Matter of fact, it was I taught all day today about the end of World War II and going into the Cold War.
Jody Schilling :Yeah.
Gary Wise :And I was trying to share with the students about like the similarities in the world then and the world now, especially with like Russia, China, Korea, and just everything that's going on. And but I love it, but at the end of the day, it's you're exhausted, right? Six classes a day on the stick, just talking, right?
Jody Schilling :Keeping you busy, keeping you motivated, all that good stuff.
Gary Wise :Oh, they do, man. They keep me so freaking inspired, man. These kids are freaking amazing, bro.
Jody Schilling :I uh I spent my day in the morning. I work at Edward Jones now. I'm a financial advisor. Very cool. Just started, you know, um uh a couple months ago, but I really like it. It's almost you know the same thing as recruiting, very similar. Yeah, and uh one of the guys I met during my field training, which is where you go out and talk to different, you know, uh people already out there doing the job, and I talked to a guy, and he uh he sponsors an RTC at at one of his high schools down where he's at. It's it's in the Ocala area. I can't tell you exactly which one. But uh today I met with his son at about one o'clock to talk to him about the military um and see where his head was at. Because uh when I had met that guy, he said, you know, I'm trying to figure out where my son's gonna do, and he wants to make sure that he's he's on the right path. And the kid's smart. Um, he's got a lot of different options. I don't know if he's gonna go ROTC or if he's gonna uh you know go to regular college or if he's just maybe that doesn't happen, he just goes into the military. Of course, uh I was talking to him about the Air Force and the uh the firefighting certifications that actually count um and get those guys hired. Um I love to push that to him. Um I actually recently went to a uh an Air Force uh boot camp graduation. I've never even been to to Chicago's graduation, but I went to the Air Force one, you know, when I graduated Orlando. Um so I don't know where you you came in probably right after me, like 95, 96, something like that.
Gary Wise :97, yeah.
Jody Schilling :Okay, yeah, because I remember when you um I met you up at MEPS one time and I knew I think you got there as a DC three, and I gave you a North Star. I don't know if you remember that. Uh the study guide. I was yeah, I do. Yeah, so I was the first class, and I was like, man, this kid's out of you know, out of his rape, sitting here trying to put people in a navy, probably getting all the pressure in the world. Well, this will help him out a little bit. So yeah, that's that's but I I remember that first meeting, and you know, I was two hours from MEPS. I think you were a little bit closer, it was about two and a half hours from MEPS, and you were uh a little bit north of us, um St. Pete.
Gary Wise :Yeah, out of the Claywater.
Jody Schilling :Yeah, I remember. You had uh you had Winston with you guys and maybe Vineyards and uh a couple of cats.
Gary Wise :I uh Navy Recruiting District, Miami, back in the heyday. That was a good time to be a Navy recruiter, though, bro.
Jody Schilling :Yeah, coming out coming in right after uh you know, unfortunate events of 9-11. Um, I'll tell you something funny about that office. Your your office, I went up there for some training, some rent training. And uh every night we went out and you know, we were steaming hard. There was always a kid at the front desk, and I'm talking to him, and he had like six years of college, and he's working the front desk, and then he had a day job. I said, dude, what are you doing, man? Why are you working here, you know, with all this college and you're working a front desk at, you know, whatever we were staying out? Let's say, I don't know, Marriott, whatever, nothing crazy. And uh by night, night three, that kid I just gave him my card. He said, You give me a call when you're ready to go, bro. And an old BS man, two weeks, two weeks later, a kid calls me and uh he's like, Hey man, I'm ready to join. And I got a recruiter that's just killing it. And I said, All right, man, you need to go get that kid. You know what he said for me? He goes, I got plenty of kids right here in my area. You could you give that to someone else? And um, I had them working Monday through Thursday. That was it. We weren't Friday, Saturday, Sunday, three-day weekends, we're killing it. And I called your office and I was trying to give it to Whitzel, but I think uh Jay Vineard ended up getting a kid 96 nuke, everything. So yeah, and it was it was funny, just just a weird situation. My guy didn't want to drive to get him, and then the kid rolls a 96 or whatever, super smart, new program, good for him. So I don't know if he's still under knock because I don't even remember the kid's name, man. I was coming in steaming every night.
Gary Wise :I understand, man. Like I uh like you, I put a lot of people in the Navy during my time as a recruiter, but had no idea what I was really doing, right? I was a baby, and uh it changed my life. Recruiting changed my life, right? It gave me exposure to ideas and to thoughts that I would have never had exposure to before, plus the the confirmation that I needed to stay in the navy for as long as I knew was was as long as as long as I knew I needed, right? Because I had this idea that I was just gonna be out of the navy, go open a bar with some money for small business loans. We were all gonna be V8 veterans, you know. Well, coming recruiting, I got exposure to the reality of the world and what was really happening out there. And and then I met my wife Erica on recruiting duty, and then away we went, and I started taking the Navy seriously, right? Because I I mean I was only a DC man maybe a year before I went recruiting, and only six months in our division. They kept me in the pit for like two and a half years. So I got to my first ship coming out of out of recruiting with no understanding of even how to do damage control and needing to learn how to do damage control, and then they put me right in Euro 9 because you know, hey, that's where a DC2 needs to go, right? Thank god I was a DCPO for collateral duty in the at least I knew the maintenance, you know. But hey, before we get into all that, bro, because we could probably go down all kinds of rabbit holes, and you know what's funny about Edward Jones? I looked at that, bro. I looked at that several times. My cousin does Edward Jones in Arizona, a good buddy of mine does Edward Jones down here in Ocala, and I was looking at their programs when I was getting ready to retire uh because I was interested in personal finance. So kudos to you for getting involved with that because that's a that's a great freaking deal, bro. That's awesome, man.
Jody Schilling :They, you know, they pay for your school, they pay you while you're at school, and uh, you know, they tell you your salary before you even start. So I mean, all that stuff's all cleared up and it's good to go. Uh the schools were overwhelming at a point because I was like, man, I can't be sitting here six days a week, eight hours a day, man. It was it was rough. So um, those classes are tough, so you gotta come in prepared and ready to go, or you're gonna uh you're gonna be underwater for a while trying to get catch up here with your ads. I I like it. I do like the uh the challenge and I like the um the idea of helping people set themselves up financially, you know, for long-term success. And I really I did that in the Navy, man, with TSP, you know, buying cars, buying homes, telling kids, you know, look at these percentages, all this craziness, and keeping them uh keeping them, you know, like I had kids telling them I'm gonna buy a second house. I'm like, hold up, player. You looking at the the mortgage rates, you know where you're at right now. Yeah. And uh actually one of the last people I talked to was the CWO5, and uh his wife was pushing him to buy a second house down in Tampa. And I printed it out for him and the interest rate was like five five, and it's even higher now. And I said, Gerald, you'll be paying more for that house in interest than you will for the cost of the house. So he's gonna pay $800,000 for a house that was $400,000. And he took that home, and that was the end of that discussion. So I saved him because he would have been, you know, sitting in a tight spot, two mortgages, crazy rates, whatever. But it's still crazy now. It's tough to be a homeowner with these interest rates.
Gary Wise :It's uh it is, yeah, adulting is hard, bro. Yeah, I tell that to the kids all the time. I'm like, y'all don't rush to grow up, don't rush to make all these crazy adult decisions. Enjoy being in high school, enjoy going to these competitions, enjoy having lunch with all your buddies. You know, because I dropped out of high school at 15 years old, you know. Like I gave all that up because I thought I had a better quality of life outside of school. I had no idea what I was giving up. So I'm now my my kids are going through it, and I'm seeing these kids go through it, and I'm always trying to remind them like, don't rush, because now I've watched a full set go from freshmen to now seniors. Yeah, I got here in 2022. My first year freshmen are now seniors this year. That's great. It's like seeing your babies go from their first time on your first ship to now they're getting ready to rotate, and it's super rare to get to see the whole experience because you know in the Navy, you might only get 18 months with somebody. Almost probably never will you get five years with them, right? And uh it's it's very powerful to see the growth and to see where they've come from, and then to see also what's really gonna end up happening because everyone talks a good game until it's time to actually get out of high school and go to work, right? Yeah, see who's winning. So let's get into this, man. Where did you grow up before you joined the service?
Jody Schilling :So I lived in Staten Island, New York, um, all the way up to my senior year of high school, and uh, you know, I had delivered papers, stuff like that, which was good. I had to Air Jordan's twos and threes when I was a kid because I could buy them with my own money. Um, parents were real young when they had me, so they were never together officially. So that was uh I grew up with a single mom, two sisters, so she was always hustling to take care of us. We moved a lot, which was always crazy. But Staten Island, I'd always go back to the same neighborhood, you know, where all my friends were, my cousin, uh, my cousin and my uncle and stuff like that. Right. Um senior year, my mom wanted to move to Tennessee in a really, really remote area. And I was like, man, I I don't think I'm gonna do that. So I went to I went to Riverdale High School down in Fort Myers. And um uh those kids chewed dip and uh you know, wore cowboy boots and hats. I had a dice hearing, you know, they thought I was nuts. I thought they were all nuts, so it was what it was. But uh like you, you know, I'm only about five six. I weighed like 118 pounds when I graduated high school, man. I was low. So my mouth couldn't cash no big checks, I'll tell you that much. But always had the same mouth, so it is what it is. But yeah, I did it. I then I did uh a year of uh community college, waste my time, knew I didn't want to be there, and then um uh passed a couple classes, failed a couple classes, just kind of mediocre.
Gary Wise :I actually went to Florida, bro. You said your mom, you said your mom's going to Tennessee.
Jody Schilling :So my grandmother, my my dad's um mother, I used to go see her every summer. So I kind of skipped that point. I would go see her in the summer, she buy me school clothes, uh, take care of me, and then I go back up to New York and you know, back to school up there, and uh that's that's just kind of how that happened. Got it.
Gary Wise :Okay, so grandma was down there.
Jody Schilling :Yeah, my grandmother in New York took care of me, and then my grandmother in Florida took care of me. So they were really uh big in my life, my grand, my my grandmothers. Um, so that was a benefit for me. But anyway, I get down there at Riverdale, speed through that one year real quick, and then uh, you know, one year of uh of college at Edison Community College, which now I'm I'm sure they call Florida Florida College or something like that. I think they the state college or whatever Florida College. Uh anyway. Um I then uh was doing construction and I got an argument with this kid, and I remember everybody's name, so I'll try not to give up too many names. First name was Joe. He had a he had an old beat-up Chevy truck, and his door wouldn't close right. This is so silly, man. We get to the red light and uh in a uh cement truck went flying by and the door blew open. And he he got really mad and he said something smart. And I was like, you know what? If you fixed your door, bro, we wouldn't have these problems. And he said something else real smart. And I said, you know what? You can carry block at the next job. I was a mason tender, I was making making concrete and carrying block all day. That's all I was doing. So I got out at that red light and walked to the Navy recruiting office, it was like three miles. That's how I joined the Navy, man. Real big, you know, thought process, real prepared. Just walked in that sucker and said, Hey, I'm ready to go. And I'll have to have my grandma come pick me up.
Gary Wise :So did you already have a pre like a pre-identified idea you wanted the navy when you I mean, or did you just know the navy was the closest one and you were making the move?
Jody Schilling :So I went to the Air Force, I called the Coast Guard, they hung up on me, uh, because I had so many traffic uh tickets, and then um uh I knew I I didn't want to go uh to the Army because my uncle was in Vietnam, he had two purple hearts. I was like, man, I don't know if I'm ready to get shot yet. Um but I went and talked to the Marines, and they're pretty intense as recruiters. And the dude was like, I was in there for about five minutes, and he, you know, we get the table, you're ready to be in a Marine. I was like, dude, I've been in here for five minutes. I'm ready for some more information. You know, I'm not ready to jump out of the back of helicopters yet. But anyway, so uh then I went back over to the Navy recruiter uh and talked to him for a while. He was a funny dude. Uh Matt Langan, he actually ended up being a reservist, but um, he was good and he was kind of laid back and he, you know, said, Hey man, you know, this is what it is, this is what we do. I think they had like a top gun movie at the time or something in the back. That's the same office I recruited at him when I was a recruiter too. So I went right back to that office. But um, yeah, I had to wait. I was uh I was on probation, so I couldn't even go. So I had to wait till I got off probation. And um uh once I got off probation, I was able to go and that was it, man. And I was on probation, some dumb stuff, man. Nothing, nothing bad, but just dumb kid, kid stuff, me and dumb.
Gary Wise :Hey, I can relate, man. When I landed in uh Clearwater to go to recruiting duty, I wouldn't go buy a car. I couldn't buy a car anywhere because I found out my credit was so bad because of decisions I'd made as a junior delinquent, and I had warrants for my arrest in the state of Utah. I had no idea. I would I was coming back from overseas tour in Japan. I had to literally fly to Utah to resolve all those issues. Just I had and so I can relate, right? And I can understand. And it wasn't like I was freaking starface, right? I was just a juvenile doing dumb things, and there you go. So when you when you joined the Navy, did you know coming in that you were gonna be in damage control?
Jody Schilling :No, so that's another crazy story. So I only joined for two years. I told the dude I got a high, you know, pretty good ass bat score, 76 ass VAP. And uh the guy said, Um, uh, hey man, you got you're good qualified for a lot of jobs. And I said, if they don't have that two-year job, I ain't joining. And I don't know if they still had it for you, but that was a two-year semen apprenticeship program. So I said, I'm going semen apprenticeship. That's it. I'm locked in for that, I ain't doing nothing else. And um, so I got it. I was like, Yeah, I got my job, you know. And you don't know any different because you know you haven't never been anywhere, you don't know. Um, I get to boot camp, and I I really enjoyed boot camp. I really enjoyed people getting yelled at. I enjoyed the push-ups. I thought it was so great that we were all getting cycled. None of that stuff really bugged me. Yeah, then my company commander came to me, he's like, Hey, you uh I think it was water safety and something day. And he's like, Hey, you got a high Asgab, you need to go pick a new job. And um I had dated a girl for a couple years, and she had moved uh to San Francisco where her dad lived, and that's where A-School was for damage control. Right. So I'm looking at all the cards, you know, they had the cards at the time, and I picked like parachute rigger, postal clerk, I think aviation, structural mechanic, and damage control. And right at that time, damage control was short people, they were given $20,000 reenlistment bonuses right before you and I got in. I never got a nickel, but um so but I took that A school for eight weeks because that girl was there, and uh she's still beautiful to this day, but you know, never worked out. But anyway, at the end of the day, uh, that was why I took damage control basically. Eight weeks in San Francisco Island. That was a good place.
Gary Wise :I love your thought process here, bro. You know, that's why you made it such a good snipe, right? Yeah, you just do what you do. It makes sense, right? It makes sense. Uh, so when you got to when you graduated boot camp, how long were you in Great Lakes before you went to Treasure Island? Was that an immediate move?
Jody Schilling :I was in Orlando. Remember, I'm older, I'm I'm an old dude. So I went to Orlando, one of the last people. Um, I actually took the train to boot camp from Mets. That's good. They used to take the train. And uh the girl left all of our pack packets on the train, and they were the crucial packets. I said, she had them. I I I ratted her out right away, man. Funny. But uh, so I was only there for two weeks. Um and then um uh I uh I mean I I went home for two weeks and then I went to A school. But I I want to rewind one quick thing about boot camp. Week week five, um, they did that uh, I don't know if you remember the universal signal for choking was this. And I thought it was ridiculous. I said, How are they doing this? This is so ridiculous that they're doing this. Well, we were at a dress whites inspection, and a kid um started coughing like real, real, real bad right next to me. And I came to attention, did a right face and said, Are you choking chipmate? Give me the universal signal, and you can see my company commander as high as eyes. He went and like turned around and walked off like he didn't know it happened, but it was so funny, bro. And um, I uh in my my book, I don't know where it's at, it's around here somewhere. But my boot camp book, it says, uh, are you choking chipmate? That dude wrote that in my book, my that MTC, who was my company commander. So I was always crazy, man. I was always looking for trouble, and that was one of the funnier things I did at boot camp. But yeah, just and a girl came home with me from boot camp because you know it's half girls, half uh half guys. So she hung out with me for a couple days and then she went to where she had to go, which was Maryland, I believe, and then to Hawaii. But uh, I really enjoyed boot camp. I would stay there forever, man. I was there four years at boot camp, wouldn't have bugged me enough.
Gary Wise :So it you know, when I look at the whole time I spent in the service, you know, especially as a younger guy, I I love that structure as well, right? Like I I tell the students and I tell pretty much anyone that will listen, thank I thank God every day for me joining the service and having that structure. Because up until I was a chief petty officer, and even then I needed it a little bit. I needed some extra people to be watching out for me. I just and I didn't mind the direction of it, right? I didn't mind go there, go here, do this, do that. Some that was simple, right? And I think that people get in their own head and they worry about having the little lack of perceived freedoms or whatever it is, because we have a thing in my classroom where the students get the chance to reorganize the letters and make sayings, and they reorganize it this week to say to read discipline is the highest form of self love, right? And and Again, they wrote that. That's coming from the mouths of high school seniors. But again, when I look at those places being in this disciplined environment, it was actually very easy to be at ease and to be at peace because I wasn't stressed about a bunch of variables that were beyond my control. Right. I used to tell people one of my favorite stress-free days, believe it or not, was like the first day of a Westpac, right? Like I once we get them, once we're done with the scene acre and we're underway, I can settle in and know that for the next seven, eight months, this is what I'm doing and this is all I'm doing. And anything outside of this probably is beyond my control, right? I mean, and and it was it was and then when you get back home, you gotta get back to real world, right? You gotta get back to the real world to figure out life, but not that underway, man, it wasn't too bad, right? If you could just take a timeout from the real, I used to tell the sailors, I'd tell my chiefs in the mess, but you see that clock on the wall, that ain't nothing to me, bro, but a round thing with numbers on it, baby. They were like, Gary, you're crazy. I'm like, no, I'm a freaking uh this is what I do, man. Right, and I again talking to the kids in school, it's like it's weird having been really good at something, and you're probably working through this in your retirement. Having been really good at something in our lives and knowing we'll never do it again, yeah, it's very odd, right?
Jody Schilling :We've got our shot, you know.
Gary Wise :Yeah, it is you know, I I I think about it all the time. You know, I won't ever very rarely, I'll probably never be in chaos again to the point where it's like call, but I I thrived in those moments, right? I was trained for those moments. I wanted to prevent them, but I didn't mind them because that was what I was built for, right? And then now my chaos is when the bell rings and I got a bunch of high school kids.
Jody Schilling :Yeah, the halls are crowding, trying to get people to get to it.
Gary Wise :So when you got to Treasure Island, how was that for you, bro? Here you are, you're a young man, just graduated boot camp. Now you're on the west coast, you're in freaking San Francisco. How was that?
Jody Schilling :Frisco was cool. Um, we would go to the city pretty much all the time. There was a place called Columbus Pizza. Uh, there's another place called the Condor, which is like the first strip club ever in um in the United States, but it was now uh just a bar. And it had uh, what'd the guy say? Boston iced teas. He made them with some type of blue stuff. And I was 21, so I could drink. And I had another kid uh uh that was there with me named Jeff, and I would give him my ID because I had you know my my driver's license. All right. So I remember I could get in there and and Jeff would get a couple drinks once and then we got busted one time. The guy was cool about it, he just gave us back my IDs and said, You guys can't be in here. But Frisco was cool, man. It was a good time. I um I enjoyed it. There was a uh one of the major uh like art RDC type dude was uh a guy named DC1 Clemens. Um, a twin brother in the Navy, and he was a real good story about, you know, he joined the Navy and couldn't even read. And then, you know, I I saw him years later as a chief, and then his brother made warrant. So just craziness stuff that you remember. Um, my my memory is really good about a lot of different things. Um, so I remember a lot of the stuff that I did there uh and and had fun, the classes and all that stuff, and walking, you know, whatever. There's a circle building, it was really weird. The stairs were on the inside of the building, but it went up like on the inside wall, and then you you know, I think we were on the fourth floor or something like that. But Treasure Mountain was a lot of fun, and then you know they shut it down a few years later. Um, so I don't know. You didn't go, did you get to go there or no?
Gary Wise :Yeah, I never went to A school at all. I believe it or not, I never went to an actual DC school till I went, I was a chief.
Jody Schilling :Okay.
Gary Wise :I never I mean I went to repair locker leader and all that other stuff.
Jody Schilling :Yeah, yeah, the basic flight deck, yeah, right.
Gary Wise :But I never went to an NEC school. Like when I left recruiting duty and I was going to the Ogden, I asked them, could I go to the 4805 school, the C D R and D school, right? And they told me no. They said no, you can't go, we'll figure it out in the future. And I didn't bite it because at that point I really thought I was gonna cross trade to NC, right? For the for uh at the fleet. I thought, you know what? Coming off recruiting duty, I love to work more people. I might go ahead and go be a career counselor on the ships and change rates, right?
Jody Schilling :Jason Sane, huh? Jason Sane, he was a recruiter with us out of Port Charlie, and he did that. Yeah, he's an NCC, yeah.
Gary Wise :Yeah, did he go from being a CRFer to being an afloat NC?
Jody Schilling :No, so that turkey was he showed up uh to Fort Myers as a BM3, went to AM AM uh aviation uh maintenance, whatever uh um AMS, I think it is, and made uh second class at the A school. So he was going back to the fleet as an AM, AM1 he was when he got done with recruiting, and then he went NC because he had zero days as an AM, and now he's an AM1 on a carrier. That's what happened with him. So he kind of got moved into a spot he wasn't really familiar with, and then he became an AC one on the ship. Yeah, then he struck NC and made you know chief and senior chief at least. He's right now Fort Myers.
Gary Wise :Probably you know what's funny is I was looking at that as being a real option because I wasn't in love with being a damaged control man. I just picked DC because I went out of the pit, right? Like I just they had a shop, bro. They want they want they watched National Lampoons Christmas Vacation in the shop. I didn't have no shop, I had my rack and I had the pit, right? There was no between, but I was like I was a D CPO, and so I would always see them guys and they're screwing around. And my buddy John Floyd was a DC man. He was like, bro, you should strike DC, they would love to get you R Division, and eventually I did, you know, but then they kept me in their space because of my all my calls and everything else. Yeah, and and I had not told anybody I was struck in damage control. I did pars for MM3 and I did pars for DC three. I kept it quiet until they called me to personnel, like, what we got two tests. What are you doing? And I picked the DC three test, yeah. And when the results came out, and everybody knew I was a DC three. Of course, machinist mates weren't too, and I was on a steamship, right? I'm on the belly at the time. That's a big deal, and you know, whatever it was what it was. Looking back on it, I understand, but I I never really mean being an engineer. I wasn't coming back to the fleet, I wasn't super hyped about being an engineer. Now I fell in love with it during time on the Ogden, right? And just you know what's funny about that for me is I come back from recruit duty and all intentions of probably going over to NC. Well, then my DCA is in DCC, now LDO, yeah, right. And my DC chief was a guy that applied for LDO and didn't get it. Okay, so there's salt in the wounds there, right? Yeah, because the DCA is junior to the chief, yeah, but now he's an LDO, right? Right, and he got picked, and the other guy did it, and so the chief was just never around, right? He was like in the in the mess, just never around, and he left us all to the DCA to run us, right? Well, the DCA man, he sold me on going LDO, hook line and safer. He's like, Gary, you know, DC1, you should go, you should consider this. And I was hey man, highest pay grade wins, right? I'm looking at it. Yeah, I don't know that much about the navy. No one ever mentored me about making cheap or going LDO. He's the first guy doing that. And I so the year I took the test for L the year I took the test my first time was for LDO purposes, yeah. Right, I wasn't even up for cheap, right? And I and I took the test for LDO purposes because that DCA helped me. So then my master chief comes up, he's like, Hey, wise, what the hell? Why don't you want to be a chief? And this is like 2006, and I was like, Um, I'm not up for it. I wasn't in love with the chiefs mess, you know what I'm saying? I wasn't like, Oh my god, I gotta be a navy chief, I was just a DC one working my butt off, trying to make it work, and I took the LDO test early, and now I made board for LDO, right? And the mass chief was like, Do you want to be a chief or not? Wise I was like, Master Chief, I'm not up for it. I don't get the question. Well, here's what I didn't know. I was the sailor of the year that year, I was the number one EP. Okay, there is a time and rate waiver for EP sailors that nobody applied for me for, right? Yeah, I took the test for LDO on my own choice because of that DCA giving me mentorship, right? Right, it wasn't because no chief taught the fact that I was a junior EP and was like, we gotta make sure Wise gets this, but they backdated oh, somehow they got the waiver approved. Now I'm chief board eligible. I freak around and make chief that year, yeah, and I choose going through initiation. I was like, Oh, I love this initiation thing, I bought into all that, and away it goes, right? But I I I look back on my career and it's like if that one guy hadn't given me that idea to take the LDO test early, I would have never made Chief that year. And and there you go. So but it was during that shit that I fell in love with engineering, man. And and just to what they could really be as a team. So for you leaving Treasure Island, so first of all, when you were at Treasure Island, what other what other things were on that base? Was it just DC? Was it just the ace?
Jody Schilling :Yeah, it was DC, and then um uh there was no other reschools there. That you know, I think they did the World Fair in 2000 and then they shut it down, but um obviously it's a key point location, so there used to be ships and all that stuff there, but not when I got there. I think Almeda or Alma, what is it called? Almeda, Alameda, yeah, Alameda's up there, and they had, I think, reserve uh, you know, ARS or something like that, you know, the USNS ships, but there wasn't nothing else going on. A lot of the buildings were shut down because they were all full of um uh uh asbestos. You know, as soon as you walked into the class, it said this building is built with asbestos, you know, blah blah blah, we're not responsible.
Gary Wise :How was the energy of the schoolhouse, right? Because that generation of D seamen was probably the generation that reinstated the rate, right? Yeah. They got rid of the damage control rate, then they brought it back, and so there was like a blitzkrieg of people jumping into the community because they were gonna make rank, right? They it was a good, it was a hot running rate, but were they like super intense about being damaged control men? How was that for you?
Jody Schilling :So at the A school, there was a lot of young uh senior chiefs, you know, we're talking 11-year senior chiefs, stuff like that, because exactly what you said. They took that DC test, made it, made chief, and then doing a good job, make senior chief right away. So there was a lot of young guys there. Um, and I think that that they had the uh the energy to push you, you know, to get in there and get, you know, we did all the structural firefighting and stuff like that. And it's probably a little bit watered down now from what it used to be. Uh, but it was it was for real. You know, guys were down there passing out stuff like that. Um, guys built like me and you, we don't pass out. Usually it's the real skinny people that don't carry no water that passed out. So um we we don't normally do that, but yeah, it was intense. Um I was always getting in trouble with my mouth as usual, but uh I I think that they had two ret two fleet returnees. One was an RM3 and the other guy was just a fireman and he was striking DC. I remember that. Um so that was kind of cool because you didn't know you know they're from the fleet, you know, you're excited to talk to some fleet people because you ain't never been there, you ain't never seen nothing. His last name was Burton, he was a good dude.
Gary Wise :That's what I was curious about, man. Because you know, in the deal in the damage control community, you kind of meet people that are either super hyped up about the pro about about damage control or the ones that are just kind of like, oh my god, it's such a hard thing, and and there's really no in between, right? Yeah, um, and I was just curious because I never got that experience to go into that school, but I worked at Ferrier, I worked at Swass eventually my career in Case and Norfolk, and I really remember trying to get because here's the deal if you don't have energy for it as a senior enlisted, you're gonna struggle, right? You gotta get everybody excited about damage control, right? But I always wondered how it was in the schoolhouse. What was your first ship you went to after school?
Jody Schilling :So I went to uh Harry W. Hill out of San Diego, it was already on deployment, so I met it in Bahrain. Um, and I remember sitting down, it would there was brown eggs and and room temperature milk at the old uh at the old uh Bahrain base, and I forget what they called it at that time, but it was uh basically ate outside underneath the tent. And uh I was miserable, man. They had lost my bags, I had no uniform, so I was walking around in sweatpants for my first couple days on the ship. Um, but they took care of me, honestly. There was an HT3 that checked in with me and they sent him to another birthing. He's a big dude, and they're like, We're gonna put you with us for now because we don't want to, you know, getting picked on somewhere else in another birthing. It's like, ain't no one gonna pick on Will. It was like 6'4, 250, you know, and he might return HT3 already. So and it worked out. I think Will was a little mad about it, but I think at the end, he we me and him were pretty tight, and he goes, it was probably the right thing to do. But yeah, so I I met the ship on on deployment. They had been at sea for like 30 days. I think the last place they had been was Thailand, and no bullshit, they all went out and got drunk and then they came back. It's my first night on the ship, and I'm in my rack, and I heard them all like you know, making noise and and uh getting crazy. And uh there was a DC one on there. He used to be a data processor, so dude has no idea what DC is. He probably did the switch over to try to make chief, uh and it was not gonna work for him, and uh and uh somehow he fell out of his rack and broke his thumb. So I'm in my rack just sleep, you know, trying to sleep, and I'm a light sleeper as it is, it's going nuts. And I hear him going, oh my aching thumb, oh my aching thumb. And I was like, Yes, dude's got this dude's gotta shut up, man. He ain't gonna shut up because he's drunk. All the people tended to him are drunk, and they went and got the HMC. Well, H and C came down there and he said something because he was really drunk. And HT3 jumped out of Iraq ready to fight him. And I was like, holy moly, man, you know, this is my first night on this ship. There's about to be a fist fight in Ardivision's little cubby. And uh man, I said, I don't know if I made the right choice here, man. This might not be such a good plan. But anyway, Amos ended up finished appointment with us. Uh the HT, I think he went to uh DRB, got yelled at, and told, you know, saw me in a jerk or whatever. But uh that was my first night on a ship, man. So because I didn't go out, I just went to the ship to get all like settled in and get my rack ready because I didn't know what to expect. So it was just bombing anyway. So what kind of was that a DD? Yeah, DD 986. So uh destroyer, um you know, 560 feet, whatever. Our birthing was way back aft, uh, and our shop was right there as well. So we were across from the EM shop in the back half of the ship.
Gary Wise :So on a ship like that in that year, was was it in Brooklyn was there a DC chief on that ship?
Jody Schilling :Um, when I first got there, it was a guy named Gordon Gist. He was a senior chief at the time, and he was old school, yell at you, go nuts type of dude, you know, throw shit. Um and uh he was an intimidating dude. He'd get you know rowdy and and mad real quick about stuff. Um but the guy who ran the shop was actually a DC2. Uh and he we had three first classes, but he ran the shop, and his name was Dan Goldsmith. Super smart dude, um, 95 Azbab, hated every minute of the Navy, but worked harder than anybody, and he was just a beast. So that's what I kind of learned from. He was the one teaching uh N Doc. And then you know, six months later I'm teaching N Doc. That's how fast it worked for me. So but it was a good ship. I made DC two on there, went to Mass twice on that ship, once for uh once for wearing earrings in Bahrain, and then once for uh the Chang wouldn't let me go home to take the fire department test. I wanted to take the fire department test down in Naples. And he's like, We need you here. I was like, We're in port. The chief said yes, the LPO said yes, the duo said yes, and you said no. I said, I don't even work for you. And I said, uh, I said, Well, I quit. He said, uh, he said, his name was long, last name was long. He retired as a captain. Um he said, get the fuck out of my state room and shut my effing door. Sorry, sorry about the curse. And um uh I said, you shut your own effing door and I just walked out. I went to pass. That was the first day of Christmas um Christmas break. Oh so I they they teamed me up right away. They're like, You're going to mass today. So then the the MAC came down. He already knew my mouth, and I already had the earrings incident. I went to XY the first time they let me go on the earrings, but I was still a believer you could wear earrings. So I ain't never gone to XY and then a mass. But anyway, so the MAC comes down first day of Christmas break, and he goes, I was still hot. He goes, You got your blues on board? I said, Yeah, I brought them today, chief, hoping I'd go to mass. He's just looking at me like, okay, all right, bro. We got your we got your card. So uh I go up there to mass and my dungarees, the old school dungarees with the goofy pockets and all that stuff, shan brake shirt. And um uh it was in the in the library, and I said, I need a closed mass, which I never did before. It probably saved me. Um, and I told the captain, I just don't understand why everything I do for the ship, but I can't get the opportunity to go be a you know, try to be a firefighter. I was senior repair five, senior leader flight deck, senior flying squad, main demonstrator, hang line, all that stuff, you know, two-year guy, but just doing everything. And the captain gave me uh 30 days, um 30 days uh restriction and half times two. I had no money at the time either, man. I was gambling down to Tijuana all the time, going to bed on sports, being a total crazy dude. Been at Tijuana probably 500 times. But um anyway, so uh I go to Mass and I'm on the ship for both Christmas breaks. And that wasn't a big deal to me anyway. I have no, not like I had kids, I wasn't married or nothing, still young. But like on the 23rd day, uh I was I was on the ship and I get called to the captain stateroom at like 1400 on a Friday. And um two days before that, the DC One got caught sleeping on town security. And he was really not really uh not good at what he did, you know, didn't really care. Let's say that. And uh I I was like, I think the captain's gonna ask me if this dude's worth it. You know, can we save this guy or should we save this guy? And I was I was really like, I don't even know what to say that's gonna be positive about him. He was a DC two actually, so at the time, I apologize. 15 year DC two. I'm a two-year DC two, right? And um uh he made DC one the test before me. I'm so mad because you know he's a 16-year DC one, and I'm a uh five-year DC one, you know, later on. But uh anyway, I'm so mad. But anyway, I go in there and the captain said, you know, uh DC two, uh Tank said you've been doing work, you know, getting it done, working hard still, nothing has stopped, um, or preventing you from you know, when you got in trouble, he goes, So you're off restriction asset right now, and you'll be able to go home and take the fire department test. Which turned out to be nothing anyway, because I went down there past their physical, past the written test, and they're like, Well, none of your calls count, so you're kind of you know at front street step one. I was like, man, so I better just go back to the 80. So I did.
Gary Wise :You know, I uh all the guys in the DC community are always talking about getting out and becoming firefighters in the civilian world. World. And yeah, we don't really know what we're talking about, you know. Um, and that's an important piece of information for the world. I mean, yeah, 100%. I I've had that same conversation countless times with people because I did my research. It was like, look, brother, like ultimately, this is gonna do nothing but give you some life experience. You're gonna still go to the fire college, still gotta go through the firefighter one, firefighter, get all that stuff done. And it's like your earlier point, it's not like the Air Force that gives you a lot of those certifications along the way, and it's because shipboard firefighting is so different than structural firefighting. Absolutely. I I would never expect any of them to come do what we do on ships, they wouldn't, they'd get lost. Yeah, so really the best thing to tell sailors if you want to go be a paid firefighter, is go to MSc and go work for them and be a shipboard engineer, and and and you can make good money. You know, I've had people lead for my damage control training team, have me write letters of recommendation for them, and they got hired on as damage controlled trainers on MSC ships, making real good money, bro, just for D set experience.
Jody Schilling :Yeah, QED, they've been all fighting engineering department, QED, and then you're on that fire party. And I think you know, one of the big things that's gapped is they don't have any of that stuff on um uh these cruise lines. I go on a cruise this week with uh some family, but that's a total mess. They got just a bunch of cats that have probably ran two drills in their whole life. Once in a while you would see them at the schoolhouse, I'm sure. But you'd probably see MSC guys, not not cruise line guys, but yeah, it's a mess, man. And those ships catch fire, they just burn until you know, until they hit the water line, and that's a little bit scary. Um you're right. Civilian, civilian uh firefighters really are lost on the ship because they've just never done it before, it's so enclosed. It's an animal.
Gary Wise :Brother, I used to get into these conversations, really these debates with people that would do this, and you know that import firefighting doctrine we got now. Yeah, fire down here. I would lose my ever-loving mind, bro, because I'm just like, especially when I was in Japan and they were all Japanese firefighters, right? And I'm on a nuclear ship, and the Japanese can only go certain places. Yeah, I'm like, none of this makes sense, bro. Like, this is you're not gonna hump that hose. I'm sorry, that's not gonna work. My crew must defeat the fire, it's just how it's gotta be. And if anything, give me more sailors, possibly. Like when we saw what was that ship that burnt to down, was that the bhr? Yeah. Like, that's a bro. How many years have we have we been waiting for that to happen?
Jody Schilling :Right Sunday, the base is empty, you only got duty section on base, you only got that's a I mean, it was just a really bad timing thing in a yard period or in an availability.
Gary Wise :And I look, I never slept well in the availabilities, right? I was because I knew fireman was gapped, I knew it was just it was just a waiting problem, yeah, and it was super sad to see it happen, but no, I was not surprised because I know how hard it is, and then of course it's arson, right? Freaking arson, bro. Like, how are you gonna fight that, dog? Like, fire prevention is not for arson, fire prevention is for like you know, let a Charlie fire that lights something else on fire. It's not gonna stop some jerk that goes and freaking sparks it up, bro.
Jody Schilling :Like, yeah, it accelerates it.
Gary Wise :I uh I gave grace to that crew as soon as I heard that whole arson thing because I was like, you know what? That's just an unfair thing, and unfortunately, our ships are tender boxes in a lot of different ways. It's the goal is to prevent it from ever happening, right? And fortunately, we're pretty good at that, right? I mean, we we really are. So, okay, you get through with your first ship. Um, when you look back on your first ship, before we go to your next part of your career, any significant leadership takeaways from you in your first ship? Because those are usually pretty pivotal.
Jody Schilling :So, what was really an interesting moment for me, you know, I told you I taught in doc for DC. I was the I was the only guy, you know, I'm an E4 and E5 doing that. There was plenty of other people that had that opportunity. So, you know, even though I didn't run my mouth and get in trouble, people still knew I knew the job, and I knew, you know, I trained every person that stepped on that that ship. And one time I was doing uh Eastwast came out back then, and if you look in the book, nobody has it. I'm the only guy in Artovision that ended up getting it. And the reason I ended up getting it was I was downstairs on uh Deco and a chief came in to get some DC signatures. PNC just got there, and I'm giving him, you know, going through all the stuff. He's like, you know, DC2, you really noticed pretty well. How come you don't have your e swaps? I was just like, I don't know. He goes, Well, something you probably might want to do. That's what he kind of like closed it off with that. And I was like, All right, challenge accepted. Uh and that was a PNC. Uh, his last name was Flemings. I don't remember his first name, obviously. Um, but that dude, you know, he he turned the light on for me for that one, which was pretty cool because I had if you if you look at that earbook, I have that earbook right over there. I'm the only clown in Artigas with an Eastwasp pin, and there's four first classes sitting there slick with nothing. And um, you know, unfortunately, all those guys ended up retiring as first classes. They never they never got over the hump, but they ended up getting their their eastwasp pins, but they really took their time about, you know, yeah, and that chief just kind of made me like challenge except, like I said. And I said, All right, we'll make this happen. And I went to the board with a uh ET tube, and you know, back then the first classes did the board, right? And then you did uh the chief board, and the cheese board was a lot of them didn't have it. I ended up being on the cheese board as a DC two because a lot of them didn't even have it. Uh and there was no DCC on the ship. And you know, I taught the class. So um, but uh anyway, and then you walked around with the captain. So you did a walk around with the captain, and you point at certain things, and you'd have to know what it was and all that. And obviously, it's become way more um, I think, harder to get your Eastwasp pinned out just based on more knowledge based than kind of just talking your way through it. So kids have to memorize a lot more stuff, yeah. But um, yeah, that was it. That that chief kind of pointed out to me, like, hey man, maybe you want to do that. And that was a that was a good point.
Gary Wise :So very cool, chief. So you're getting ready to leave that ship. Did you know, like, were you planning on staying in the Navy? So you can't we did the firefighting thing, recognized that wasn't gonna go as flawlessly as you thought it was going to go. So, did you decide, hey, I'm just gonna re-enlist and see what the Navy has in store for me, or how'd that work?
Jody Schilling :So, I extended for the cruise. You know, I'm still playing, I'm not doing this game. You know, I'm just gonna do it, just do a little whatever it was, eight-month extension or some nonsense when you could do that. And then um uh I had to re-enlist for orders, and the orders they were all offering me was uh uh South Southwest Regional Maintenance Center because I went to Mass twice, you know, and I'm like, I ain't taking them orders, bro. I ain't doing that. So put me on a ship. So I went back to back ships. I did four and a half years on that ship at DCOM. They sent me to a frigate, uh Clackering. They said it was in Mayport, it was in Portsmouth, you know, not that big of a mistake. Anyway, I was so happy to get to Mayport. I'm driving my happy butt over to Virginia, P Town, and uh, so I ended up on that ship. And what was really um eye-opening for me there just arriving was I was the man on that last ship, even though, like I said, I went to mass a couple times. I'm teaching in doc, I'm doing everything. They stuck me in repair three as like a I don't even know if I was a scene leader or the team leader. And I was like, I was sleeping during the drills because we I we do nothing in repair three, it was repair five, and then get relieved by repair two. So I was like really like, man, this is this is weird, man. This is not what I'm supposed to be doing. Yeah, and um we deployed about six months into that, but right before we deployed, the guy that was running the show was a guy named Tony Folk. He was at SK2 and he was scene leader on everything, and he had to miss it underway uh to take care of something. I think his wife was having an operation, she wasn't gonna be able to get around, so he's gonna take care of her. And uh they put me as scene leader for the drills when we got underway, and of course, I smoked it, and then you know, Tony came back and he was in repair three sleeping after that. So uh, and he ended up retiring as an MACS. Believe it or not, you know, he jumped on that MA bandwagon when he couldn't. He was always like that anyway, so it was a good good fit for him. But I did time on that ship. Um and I I enjoyed the frigate, man. The frigate was cool too. It was just like the D, you know, a little bit smaller version of the D D. Raser was, you know, probably 10, 12 kids. Um pretty much all those guys got out uh and on that ship. You know, they were all first termers.
Gary Wise :Was it still OBAs?
Jody Schilling :Yeah, yeah. Still OBAs, and then we got SCBA's. We were a pilot ship or something after that first deployment. We went to SCBAs. So uh we got them, and then um uh that was you know, that was good.
Gary Wise :Um that that was a that was for me, that was another challenge of my career, right? I was OBA's all the way till I got to my aircraft career, so I went from never having SCBAs to having thousands of SCBAs and a lot of PMS and a lot of work, yeah. Thank god I did a tour at ATG San Diego first, and I got the chance to watch people do a lot of SCBA checks, yeah, and I was able to fake it till I made it, and then when I got to the ship, I was able to learn from my sailors and figure it out. But I didn't grow up doing PMS on high pressure filter assemblies and yeah, all I mean, yes, I had SAR SCBAs, right? But I did not have the installed high pressure compressors, and so that was a huge change, and then from the firefighting perspective, like OBAs sucked, like they were horrible, right?
Jody Schilling :You knocked the air out of them suckers, man, you're out.
Gary Wise :That was horrible, and so fighting fires and casualties was I was a lot more confident in SCBAs, right? And yeah, I thank God that I never really had anything too catastrophic in an OBA because that wouldn't have been a good plan, you know. Whereas I mean, you sure it could work, but it's it's not the it's not nearly as effective as the SCBAs.
Jody Schilling :No, it's like a pore shrinking a station wagon, brother.
Gary Wise :It was it was the it was something, right? It was something. Um, so you're on the clack ring. How was it living in Portsmouth by living in San Diego?
Jody Schilling :Right? So San Diego I always lived on the ship uh all the way up until about the end of my 40, like maybe at my four-year mark on the ship. I finally moved off, but I was still like I told you, man, I was going down to Tijuana betting on sports all the time. So there are sometimes I had like 14 bucks in between my credit card payments and all that nonsense. So I was running Buck Wild. But going to Portsmouth, um, that's where the ship was, but I definitely didn't live in Portsmouth. I lived over by Virginia Beach. Um, I had brought my car out there. I, you know, drove it from San Diego, and um I lived with OS2 wiser, and then uh, but when we came back, I moved straight into the hood. We lived right there, right there in Pete Town, about a mile and a half from the base. And we were straight in the hood, and there was a dude there named Mr. Jones. He owned two houses, and we rented the house for him for 600 bucks a month, and he said for 615 a month, I'll cut the grass, and if there's snow, I'll shovel the grass. I mean, I'll shovel the snow and I'll I'll cut the grass. And the dude was probably 75 years old, but he was a very entertaining dude to talk to. And he said, and and the 15 bucks goes to me. Mrs. Jones gets the 600, but we don't talk about the 15. So he's got a little side hustle to get his 15 bucks a month, which was so funny, man, because you don't hear your kid like, yeah, whatever, dude, we'll got you. Yeah, and uh he would come over, I'd put a pool table in that house. Um, and we got a bit, it was a big house, it was a cool house, like a cool party house, actually, for for uh us. And uh I was only there for two and a half years, but it was a good time. It was back-to-back ship, so it was easy because I knew everything, and you know, I was already didn't lose my touch or whatever you want to say, didn't go to shore duty and kind of slip up a little bit or whatever. Um, and uh on that first deployment, I made first class. I had taken the test already, and I was walking back from Liberty coming on the ship in Bahrain, and a guy goes, Hey, you made first class. And I said, I knew that, bro. I was just waiting on those results. You know, I act cocky, you kept walking like a jerk.
Gary Wise :But uh hey, that's D seamen, bro. We we can be we you gotta look to be I when it comes to DC Men, you either you either have swagger or you don't, yeah. I the very little, especially at the khaki range, you're either very, very good at what you do or you're not, and there's just not a lot of in-between, right? It's and and I think it's because of the amount of pressure we get put under so you junior, right? Because as DC, I mean, just like you, I was a DC, I wasn't in Ardivision Law, but I was teaching in doc very quickly because they can put me in front of that's how I got new Navy recruiter. I was teaching in doc and they came and watched me teach, and they said, Hey DC3, you want to go be a Navy recruiter? And I was like, Hell no, get out of the Navy, bro. And they were like, Well, think about it, and I thought about it, I said, Okay, I'll go be a recruiter. Yeah, but and so I think for DC mean a lot of us get that early experience and then duty section training, right? Doing training with the just all kinds of different places and running scenes, running teams. Um, and then people that struggle with those things, especially when they get to cheap, they're gonna really struggle because now you have no choice but be in front of everybody, right?
Jody Schilling :You gotta be doing it.
Gary Wise :Yeah, especially if you got to get into a damage control training team brief, or you gotta fix the DCPO program that's broke, or you got to inspire a whole crew of freaking khakis to care about the ship's readiness, right? Yeah, to stay late and care, you know, you gotta exactly, and you gotta get your people hyped to want to win, even though they're outmanned and outgunned, right? Because there's never enough. I mean, I personally believe that the damage control rate should be multiplied by about three. My my personal opinion. I just don't think there's enough sailors to do the maintenance that is on the ship for them to do, and there's really no other way to get around it. And that's not even talking about the portable maintenance or the DC co maintenance. I'm just looking at just the fixed systems, just the valve maintenance, like by the book.
Jody Schilling :Yeah.
Gary Wise :Now, if we're gonna throw the damn book out, I could do that too, I can have that conversation all day. Yeah, um, but again, I I would advocate for that when I was at at DK's as a DC Master Chief. I was just like, look, they're not the manning is not appropriate for what we expect them to do. And the engineers, I love the slides, but they don't have to worry about the whole ship, they focus on their spaces, yeah. But it's a different thought process. So after clacking, did you go recruiting then?
Jody Schilling :So this is what happened. So uh I made first class there, like I just told you, and I said, I want to go recruiting. And they said they're not taking first classes. I said, Well, I'm not the average dude, bro. I need to be someone's got to come tell me no or something. So they made me go, uh, they made me go interview with a uh with an NCC. And he he signed me off. He goes, Yeah, you'll be fine. So now I'm pumped up, but now they're offering like Minnesota. And I went back to the XO and I said, uh, hey sir, and he was decad leader, so he already likes me. And I said, sir, I'm staying on the ship until they offer me Miami. He's like, What? I said, I'm just staying on this ship until they offer me Miami. He goes, All right, I'll call the detailer. And this was 99, uh, 2000, probably. So he just called the detailer and said, Hey man, when you got a spot in Miami, my guy's ready to go. But until then, he's on the ship. So XO was cool with it. He's like, I got my dude for deployment and everything. Yeah, and uh I ended up flying out of um uh I missed Brazil, man. I was supposed to go to Brazil, but they said he needed a visa to fly out. And what you know today is okay, I would have had to pay 40 bucks. I would have gone to Brazil for 40 bucks. Anyway, I had to fly out of Uruguay and um uh got back to um uh Florida. You know, they flew me into Miami and then went up uh went across over to to where my uh grandma lived in Fort Myers, Lehigh, and got my car and drove it up to uh to school in Pensacola.
Gary Wise :Yeah.
Jody Schilling :So yeah, that's when I started uh my recruiting school right from the middle of deployment and uh went up there and did that.
Gary Wise :So how long were you a recruiter before you became the rank or the recruiter in charge?
Jody Schilling :Eight months. I was at Fort Myers. Um Fort Myers had uh had just missed goal by one, so they had a kind of a shaky year with four recruiters in there, maybe five recruiters, and their goal was low, it was like 34, and they got 33. Um, but what had happened is I got there in July, or I got there in January, and I was zone recruiter of the year, even though it only goes to September. So I only had nine months, and I you know me, I'm talking shit. I said, look, bro, you guys had 12 months, and I came in here with nine months and smoked you. Can you imagine what's gonna happen next year when I got 12 months? You know I went back to back zone recruiter of the year. And then uh so at at the at the the uh right after September, right after the year's up, they send me over to Cape Coral, which just got destroyed. They missed goal, they went like eight for 17 with two recruiters. And I'm like, you guys put eight people in the Navy? Two dudes? What's going on over here? Anyway, uh, but now that's uh that's 200 um one. So I get there in September, and you know what happened September 11th. Um, and I didn't even know the the TV worked. We had like a little TV in the office. I guess they showed videos on, but I just got there, so I really didn't know. And of course, my recruiter was out because he had some dental work, so he ain't even at work. Now he's trying to tell me on the phone, you know, that you know, 9-11's going on. Turn on the TV. And I was like, the TV works, and I didn't even know what was going on. So I turned it on, they sent us home. I don't know if you were there yet, but they made us take all the cars, put them into the middle of the parking lot, and just go home. Um, so uh that was you know, that was my experience in Cape Coral. And then um we did good in Cape Coral. We killed it. I went to Mass there as a first class, uh making diplomas, putting everybody in the Navy I could. And um uh the thing was I never put a guy in the Navy or a girl in the Navy to make gold. So when they were I'm sitting there at the DRB as a first class, and um uh NCC Cromer was like, okay, so you're one for three, you're Fort Myers. And I was like, actually, uh Chief, I'm in I'm in Cape Coral now. He's like, okay, so you're four for two. Four for two? What are you doing putting in a person? I've never seen someone put in a person that they didn't need for gold. I said, I didn't put them in because I needed gold. I put them in because they need to be in the night. So anyway, I go to math for that nonsense, right? And uh, I'm a first class getting ready to take the chiefs, already took the chiefs test, I think. Um they make me go sign an evo uh July 3rd. Well, July 4th is July 4th, there ain't no mail. And the deadline for packages was July 5th. So NRD Miami mails that sucker in and it got denied and sent back to them with my mask paperwork. So I got three masks, right? Three masks, third class, second class, first class, and now I'm up for chief. And they can't do nothing about it because there ain't no email, there ain't no, you know, it wasn't like it was like it is now, right? And um uh I get selected and I get a call uh uh uh from Todd Chate. He was an NCC, he was my zone suit. And he says, Accountant's about to call you. And he goes, There's only two things either you're in trouble again or you made chief, you'll be in trouble for that too. So I'm you know, I made chief on the way home from Mets, of course, because I'm putting somebody in the war. And um uh they said we don't know how we're gonna handle it, but um uh we'll let you know. So you might or might not know I didn't go through initiation until April. They made me wait till I got paid. So I went from initiation like April 1st to May 16th. And it was, you know, obviously it was watered down a little bit, but they were still allowed to use food at that time. But um I actually did the uh thing at at uh Port Charlotte's um Eagles. I I did the uh the uh night night of uh with Ken Jaco, if you remember NCC Jacob. Um, but some of those guys that uh were there. But anyway, I had to do a lot of driving around, man. And I was they would make me drive like to Miami to go talk to a chief and you know, a guy I never saw before, and and you know, try to figure out some stuff, just get yelled at, told to go to you know Port Charlotte now, and just it was kind of weird. Um, the night of was pretty good. They had everybody came in from Puerto Rico, all that stuff, just for my event, which was pretty weird. Um, so I went through all that stuff and it did the night of, did the you know, the standard stuff, um, and then put it on and then went right to Jamaica. Uh, because I was going to Jamaica for a couple weeks, and that's another time, another story, but it was a good one. Um so I'm a I'm a chief in Cape Coral, um Make goal, make goal, and then um uh the guy who's his own two or is actually an MC one over in Fort Myers is is thinking about getting out of the Navy. And um uh I had just gone to Mass as a chief. So now I got four masks and I went to Mass for I got a kid that was working at Nextel and he wanted the weekend off. So I wrote on Navy letterhead, hey, he's working for me this weekend. Can you give him a pass? Well, someone at Nextel used to be in the Navy as a security officer and send that shit down to NRD, Miami. I went to Mass as a chief for a letter, and uh first half times two, you know, can't put me on restriction. But that was my fourth mass. That put me in a real good timeout to make uh senior team. But anyway, I go over to uh Fort Myers and no BS man, they were down I I think they were like 18 for 34 when I walked in there. And that was six months into the year, so it was already March. And they were working Monday through Saturday, nine to six. And uh the guy that was getting out was just frustrated. You know, he's like trying to get out to go be a uh uh real estate agent, and real estate was kind of hot, but about to get real bad anyway. So he got lucky. He stayed in and made NCCS and retired. He actually works at Jones. Um but uh I went over there and I said, look, we're working Monday through Thursday, and uh we'll work till whenever, whenever the parents want to do those appointments, but we do not work Friday, Saturday, Sunday. If you set an appointment on Friday, Saturday, Sunday, I will not be there to help you close it. So you better figure out how to close. And one of the recruiters, he goes, Well, that's not gonna work. And I said to him, Well, how many people you put in the Navy so far this year? And he he gave me the four. Six months in, he gives me the four. I said, four. So nothing works for you, so why don't you just shut up and listen? That's what I said. Not as nicely, but that's what I said. Yeah, and um uh we went on to roll we wrote 58 contracts in six months after they had written 18 in six months. And we killed gold, we killed everything, whatever, and all legit, man. Nobody got no trouble. You know, I stopped, I stopped making diplomas. I graduated from that. Um, but um, and we didn't work no, we didn't work no um, I said you could work front waivers on Friday, Saturday, Sunday. And I got rid of people chasing waivers, you know, because you know, they they knew those are days off. So I'm like, we don't work waivers. You make gold, then you can work a waiver, but not not until we get all that other stuff done. I know there's good people out there that have waivers, but right now we're not working that. And then I left, you know. I went to uh I left that October. I did four years out there, two matchs, one promotion, a couple, I lost a couple awards. I lost a com and an am for going to mass, but I still got a common and am on recruitment, so I did fine.
Gary Wise :But um so you did four years at ND Miami, yeah, and two you made gold every year, bro. That's why I'm just sitting here thinking, like they kept you on the bag, like they didn't send you back to the fleet, they didn't say, Hey chief, you're done. That to me is incredible, right? Especially at the khaki level, because typically we get in trouble as khakis, and it's like you're dead to me, bro. You've gotta go. Um, but but it also shows you're just a good recruiter and how much of an effective skill that is for them. What did you find was your common denominator and all those different locations that you were able to invigorate those teams?
Jody Schilling :So, you know, I I did a couple different one time. I did a I had to do, I wrote a little thing about the most important thing in recruiting is following up. And um, the reason for that is this if I talk to you and I'm like, hey Gary, man, what are you doing after high school? And you say, Well, you know, I'm probably gonna go work at my dad's trucking business. You know, I'm gonna drive trucks. Well, you got to follow up with that kid because maybe that's his plan, maybe it isn't, but in you know, three or four months, I still want to know where his plan's at. And that was really the key was let's tell him, hey man, you called that kid out four months ago. Let's find out if he is going to Florida State to go play baseball, like it says in our tools, right? You know, or stuff like that. But it was really about just following up and showing a kid, like, hey man, we still got good jobs for you if you're interested. And um uh that was really it, you know, persistent, uh, working hard, giving them the time off, telling them, you know, Monday through through Thursday is what we work, you know, you got Friday, Saturday, Sunday, without telling the zone two. Zone two be calling me, ask me where everybody is. I said, look, man, we're at goal. You need to be calling Port Charlotte, maybe Naples, but don't be calling Fort Myers because we're at goal. You know, you called the wrong you called the wrong house, you know. So so um that you know, that was kind of it. I mean, reward, you know, work hard and reward. You know, I had recruiters working at eight, nine o'clock, you know, going to do home interviews because we couldn't do them on the weekends. You know, I finally that that third and a half year, or whatever you want to call it, I finally figured out, man, Saturday and Sunday are also my days off. You know, like I don't want to be going out to your house on my day off and sitting there and talking to you about your kid when I could have got it done on Monday, Monday through Thursday, you know, and I would just go to the what day works best for you during the week so we can make this happen. Right. Um, so just little things you pick up, you know, while you're out there. And uh I that was probably my best tour, even with two masks. I was at my hometown, all my friends, um, make in chief. You know, I got distinguished graduate out of school there, out of recruiting, which you get a cup, it's not like it's anything special, but it's distinguished graduate, master chief bipolar in a war. So, but it was based on production, so I'm never gonna get it for academics. I don't care enough to study, but I can get it on production.
Gary Wise :So I'll tell you, I also I loved recruiting. I really did. It changed my life in so many voice. They used to have these tapes and the cassette tapes in the G Jet, like the Zig Ziggler and like Tony Robbins Power Talk. Bro, I had never heard stuff like that before, but I would get so hyped up on that stuff, and I would be like just talking to people about life, and yeah, and then I would get in the car at the AT1, he'd be like, I didn't know the Navy had all that stuff. I'm like, Yeah, I'm gonna bullshit, bro. Like no, I loved it, man. And then when I got back to the fleet, it was game over, right? Because my communication skills were through the roof. I learned I because I really took that PSS stuff in and I made it my own, right? To this day where I'm opening, probing, supporting, and closing, baby. Yeah, all day long. I'm still using those skills because they really are very effective tools and using as you're navigating a conversation, right? And trying to get somewhere with somebody. So when you're leaving recruiting, where do you go to next?
Jody Schilling :Uh Halley Burton. So Halley Burton was on deployment. Um Rick O'Raw was the senior chief on there, an engineer. You probably know him. Retired Fleet Forces. Yep. Um, would have been really, really, really competitive for Mick Pond if he if he had uh gotten to stay, but his wife said you're geo batching if you go to if you go to DC. So he made the the call and got out, actually.
Gary Wise :Um or something like that, I think, right?
Jody Schilling :What is that?
Gary Wise :I think he works like Fleet and Family or something like that in Virginia.
Jody Schilling :Yeah, yeah, he's a director. Yeah, he got the main job. I talk to him all the time. Nice. Um, but anyway, he's trying to pull me, so I can't go to uh 4811 and then 4805, because just like you, I never been to those schools, but I'd been to A school. Um, but they sent me to him backwards. So I did 4811 first, then I did 4805. Um, so but I got both of those. And the guy I went with, man, uh, we were driving back, and as soon as we got back Sunday, Monday, he was starting uh he was starting inserts. Or ultra, whatever. One of them you get underway for, but I think it was inserts. Anyway, so I I could call him in the morning to leave him a message because he's supposed to be gone. This was coming back from school and first day on the ship. And uh I, you know, I'm like, hey, and he answers the phone. I go, hey man, I thought you guys would already be underway. He goes, Oh no, I I woke up this morning in the shower and I fainted, so I just didn't go to work. They were counting on that dude, you know, to come out there and make it happen for him, which he wasn't gonna do anyway. So he just decided to pass out before he even got there to get yelled at. Anyway, uh, they pulled back in, man. They just told me you're good. Stay on the pier, bro. We'll get you your your stuff and you're done. So man, it was just weird for me because I was like, How do you how do you quit day one? You know, and I I couldn't understand that, man. I to me that's not the way you do business.
Gary Wise :So you went to school with this DC Chief, 4811, 4805. Yeah, and you were going to what ship was he going to?
Jody Schilling :Uh, I think it was 64, so it was a a uh DG. I think 64, not 100%, but it was D DG. He didn't even go, bro. Dude was gone before he even got there. He said he passed out in the shower, which I wouldn't admit either. You know, I would never say I passed out in the shower, yeah, especially in DC. I just would have said I decided not to go to work today. I would have made it like I was tough, you know. But he said he passed out in the shower, man. Crazy. So anyway, that kind of derailed his uh upward mobility. But uh uh I got there, and like I told you, Rick was there, and uh engineering was strong, man. Engineering was good. Um, that was a good place for me to show up. The previous, uh the previous the guy I relieved, I don't even remember who that was, to be honest with you. And that's not saying he was good or bad. I just don't remember if he was even there yet. I think he might have left. He had a good DC one, he ended up making chief, um, but he was running the shot when I got there, so obviously I was there to help him out and and and get us get us going in a good direction. We got the SCBAs on that ship like mid-tour, and we'll get into that too. That was there's a good story behind that too. Um but yeah, Halliburg, man, right out of Mayport. So that's my third ship. I'd already been on five deployments, so you know I'm already pretty seasoned at that point on uh shipboard life and all that stuff. So there's nothing new other than I'm living in the Chiefs mess now.
Gary Wise :How how was that being a part of the Chiefs mess on the ship?
Jody Schilling :Uh you know, I I thought like that was that was pretty cool. There were some salty old Chiefs in that in that um uh in that mess. Senior Chiefs, you know, because Rick was young. Rick was only a year ahead of me, maybe. So I'm in 2005, I'm at 14, Rick's at 15, but there was guys 22, 23, 24. At that time, eights had to get out at 24. Um, so there were senior chiefs on there, a couple other guys, and then there were some just you know other new guys coming in too as soon as we got there. But uh, because I always, for some reason, I always ended up getting the ships in, you know, like July, you know, or whatever, transferring in July. So it was right before the season started. But um the I don't even remember who the uh first CMC was. Um the second one was Jerry Pierce, though, and Jerry Pierce was a real good CMC. Um that was a good dude. So he he was the he was the second CMC. I just forget who the first one was. Doesn't mean he was a bad dude or not. I just don't remember. Yeah. Um but Jerry was good. But yeah, we did. I mean, Rick was there for maybe the first year. Then we got Bucky Wallace in who was a beast. Then we got a senior chief electrician. So I think I was still a junior chief, and uh, I was still in timeout for my mask anyway. I wasn't gonna make senior chief there. Um but uh no, it was a good uh, you know, it was my first uh or my my second frigate, so but first ship as a chief, but second frigate. So I knew the ship too. I mean, there was no um nothing new there that I didn't have. I got my EL letter there.
Gary Wise :Uh how was the odd tempo coming back to the fleet after 9-11?
Jody Schilling :So they had just got back from that was the first time I ever got to a ship that didn't get underway pretty much right when I got there. Um so they they got back and we went into a yard availability and all that stuff, and um we were getting the uh like the S SCB upgrades and some other stuff. So it was taking a minute, and I still did two deployments on there in 36 months. So however it worked out, that's how it worked out. And we still had you know the underways, the trainings, things, and stuff like that. But um, I did two deployments there. The uh, you know, base was cool. I'd never been a Mayport guy, so being stationed in Mayport back in Florida, staying in Florida was good for me.
Gary Wise :For those deployments you did on that ship, did you go to the Persian Gulf or did you stay just like doing like fourth fleet stuff?
Jody Schilling :So the first one was uh we went through um we went through uh Fifth Fleet and then into Sixth Fleet. And then um uh on the uh second one, actually we went down south and we were gonna do a mid-voyage uh deployment repair MDVR. And um, of course, I have duty and um uh a turbo freezes in aux 2 on one of the generators. There's a GS on topwatch, and he didn't secure it. So it's like midnight, everybody else is out drunk because we're in we're in uh what do you call it? Bogota, Columbia, but you had midnight liberty, so everybody comes back drunk. But anyway, the thing freezes and catches fire. So all I hear is class Bravo fire wardroom pantry. So I ran up there, and I'm like, I know it ain't a Bravo fire in the wardroom pantry, and um uh so I hadn't ran up there in my uh, you know, my boxers and t-shirt to see what was going on first. And then there's nothing there but smoke. So I said, all right, that ain't right. So I went down and went into CCS and um I'm talking to the GSE, and he's like, Yeah, you know what happens. But I wasn't qualified Eon yet, but there's a GSE one who was. So I said, All right, you take you stay in here, I'll go go deal with this fire, even though I'm the khaki and I'm supposed to be the EDO. But I mean, let's let's be real, he's a GSC one, I'm a DCC, where's the content center? So I go down there and um I I hit Halon, but whatever had happened, the the heat had snapped the um uh high pressure pipe. So it was getting air the whole time. So Halon was not effective, right? Right and the uh the GSPS like Jody hit Halon again. I said, no, it ain't gonna work, bro. Didn't work the first time. I'm going in. So I put on a SCBA and uh and went down there and put that fire out. But that was the only fire I ever had to actually engage on a ship that was for real. Um, I tried to put it out with CO2 because it was electrical components and it just wouldn't get reflashing from that air. And then um uh I had to just go, I said conventional because 555 tells you uh go salt water, salt water on. And I and I put that fire out by myself. Um I had the radio, had the nifty. Nifty was at 968, so it was real deal.
Gary Wise :Um looking like the looking like the damage control Rambo now.
Jody Schilling :Yes, yeah. I had all three things, you know, and uh and the DC Meter up on the mess decks waiting on me. I you know, I went up there and I went back to the fantail. And uh I definitely did not get along with that chain. And uh he was a goober. And um um and I uh you know, I went back there and you know, like Jerry Pierce was there, and Jerry's like, you know, good job, Jody. You put it out. There was people crying up on the folks because they were drunk. You know, we had a few uh uh female entons, never been on ships before, whatever, thinking they're gonna drown, die, whatever. I mean, we're in port, you know, whatever. Uh it might have been a Liberty Boat or whatever, but I mean, you know what I'm saying. We're not out like 50 miles in the in the middle of the ocean dead dead in the water. Um but yeah, just you know, put it out. And uh I didn't expect anything for it, but they gave an OSSN a NAM for putting the SCBA on. We just got to the ship. And uh of course we get investigated because that's what happens. And um, some LDO comes out and he starts asking questions. Like, so if you could have gone with PKP, what if you went with PKP? And I'm like, absolutely not. He's like, why not? I said, because it's electrical components and PKP has no reflash capabilities and we were getting oxygen in the space and CO2 failed, so PKP is just gonna make it a mess. I'm not gonna be able to see what's going on in the box, and it's just not gonna work. He's like, I'm gonna ask you again. I said, Well, I'm not gonna change my answer. There's an LDO engine, and um uh he really wanted me to change my answer. I'm like, I'm not changing my answer. And then he's like, Well, you're the EDO. Why did you go to why didn't you stay in CCS? I said, Well, what would you do if you're a DCC and you got a GSC one who is the EL qualified person in the section? Where would you put the EL and where would you put the DCC? I was like, Well, you're the UDO. I said, Well, okay, well, where's common sense? You know, let's let's in yeah, it was just a jack wagon. Um so anyway, uh I just wouldn't change my mind. And nothing happened. You know, I I think at the end of the day, they're like, Well, you know, this dude actually made the right call. Um, but we put it out and it ended up making us have to come back. We couldn't do the mid-voyage repair there. We had to all come back all the way up to the States, and I think it shortened our uh underweight time down there, maybe or maybe not. I don't remember 100%, but I know we went back down, so but that was my only real fire on uh in my career.
Gary Wise :So that's not a bad thing, right? That's not that's not a bad thing. That's a good thing, yeah. Yeah, that's a good thing, man. I tell people that all the time. The goal of the ships is to not have fires, the goal is to not have fires, not have toxic gas, not have medical casualties, and and be prepared, God forbid, for the day that we have the bad days, you know. Yeah, so after the Halli Burton, what are you looking at doing now? I mean, you're what 17 years in the Navy at that point? 16 years in the Navy.
Jody Schilling :I got there, I get off Halli Burton at uh actually uh 2008. Um so that's 15 years exactly, pretty much. Okay. Um but I I went to Mass in four, so I'm still kind of on the the bad list. Of course, it was you know July-ish. Um, so uh I go to ATG and um right there in at Mayport. And the the problem with with ATG wasn't ATG, the problem with ATG was they had six DCCs check in before me that year, and they all got Ps. And ATG is you know a P, M P, E P, unless something breaks that up for some reason. So I got a knob, and then the next year they gave me a 14 month P. And I was I was mad. But they had to give all the MPs to the two-year guy today TG. But some of those guys, you know, are DIW, they're not going back to the fleet. They're short duty and they're punching out. Even if they made, you know, MICPON, they're gone. They ain't going back to the ship. They're scary ships. So I get uh I get upset about it. And they had what they had talked about uh IAs before that. So I went down to the dude and I said, uh, you know, the engineering officer, he's uh lieutenant commander or commander, and I said, Hey, uh, fill out every IA with whatever names you put. The first one, I'm going. He's looking at me like, what? I said, I'm going. So you you put me on the first IA. I don't care if it says Jim Smith, cross Jim Smith's name out, put my name on it, and put Jim Smith on one that's at the back of the end, or whatever. Well, the first one came up was uh chief of the guard Afghanistan. So I was like, all right, I'm ready to rock here, man. I'm gonna be, you know, full metal jacket. But um, like like two days later, they said, Oh, we're pulling back out of Iraq, or pulling back out of uh Afghanistan or whatever. It might have been Iraq, but anyway, I was ready. I was ready to go do my thing, and uh that never came to fruition. So uh I put my name back in the hat. I go back and say, hey, reset, you know, I'm on the next one. And it comes up Djibouti Africa, as uh I think they said like the job description was not what the job was. Oh, CBR, CBR manager is I think was the prescription. And Osborne had been there. If you know James Osborne, DCCN, yeah. And uh, so I I had called uh James one time when he was in the Netherlands to try to get that job. And that starter said, if you ain't got the qualls, Jody, you're they're not gonna let you do it. But that was where you got all the civilian quals.
Gary Wise :So James had a pretty good you know uh background and all that stuff, and and uh made you know, I think he ended up getting a fleet out there in San Diego after uh after doing he was surface forces Pacific Master Chief when he retired.
Jody Schilling :Okay, yeah.
Gary Wise :He was the CMC detailer. I I do remember his path to trying to figure out life in the Navy, right? Yeah, he went through, but he was like you said, he was a depos guy, he was a disaster prep guy, yeah, that had all those NECs.
Jody Schilling :Yeah, so I um uh I get picked up and I show up, and uh there's a senior chief MACS there, Gary Burden. And Gary had never been an MAC. Uh he went to boot camp as a as a company commander, and he was an SM1 and then makes uh makes chief, but they get rid of SMCs while he's at boot camp and they make an MAC. So now he's an MAC who never even stood a gate watch. And you know, there boot camp, you know, still MAC in it, but he did so good there, he makes M A C S. Now he's an M A C S, which never even stood a gate watch. But anyway, so I get to Africa. Yeah, I did my I did my uh EXW uh school, you know, learn how to shoot, blah blah blah, whatever, play with guns, Fort Jackson, Humvee rollover, all that nonsense. And I get there and Gary goes, You run Deccan on ships? And I was like, Yeah, I ran Deccan on you know a couple ships. He goes, Good, you can run uh A T. I said, What? Dude, that ain't the same thing, man. And you got like five MACs here, you know, like what are we doing right now? And he's like, No, bro, ain't nobody ever ran nothing out here, so you're about to have to run that. So I'm sitting there sweating bullets, bro. I'm looking up PC IDs, you know, big V bids, uh active shooter, trying to figure out all this nonsense. Now, there was a civilian there that helped me out. Um, he had done like, but what they were doing, I believe Justin Jones, and I don't know if you remember Justin Jones. That dude made chief in seven years, yeah, retired at 24, still said, yeah. And he, you know, you know why Justin, you know why he's he struggled? He never got an engineering qual in his life. And every time he put on his um his evals said, ships fire marshal. Yeah, like you gotta graduate from that, bro. That's like the freshman year. That's like JV football. You know, you want to try to get to the next team. But anyway, long story short, they ran two drills the year before. You know, Citadel Curtain, solid whatever, uh Citadel Shield, whatever that nonsense is, that fake shit. Um it's just a demo, is what it is. Nobody does anything, you know, helicopters are supposed to be landing. That's where they must land, you know, whatever. All that nonsense. Anyway, um uh I put it together, man. We ran 70-something drills over like four months. And I had the uh Puerto Rican National Guard in there, and then the Kansas National Guard, and finally the uh the CO tapped out, and he's like, Jody, you gotta stop running drills, man. I said, That's how we get good, sir. You know, we we run drills to be good. I said, something happens, we're ready. And we had QRF, we had the uh I had the uh the um uh bomb guys, the EOD guys with the robot going into the going into the uh there's a bar there if you've never been to Djibouti, uh 11 degrees, and getting, you know, a water bag or something like that. Man, it was some good high-tech training for all our guys and good high-tech experience for me. So I got base emergency manager, I got um uh, you know, you got your CEO, you get your your your other things. Um, but I was in charge of the fire department basically telling them, you know, make sure they're doing their training. And um uh anytime they would land in UAVs, I had to go out to the flight line, you know, because a lot of times they would have missiles still on because it didn't go off or a wheel doesn't drop down on one of those predators. Um, we're not bombing Yemen every other day. Um but uh but uh it it was a great experience for me. Um I got ranked, you know, number one of seven chiefs, whatever, blah, blah, blah.
Gary Wise :Right.
Jody Schilling :I worked in the office with a guy named Mitch Jones. He was a former HTC who went LDO uh Chang and then said, Man, I'm getting out of the Nathan, screw this. And then they said, No, we'll keep you a wink, put you a security officer. And he used to call me Dead Cell. Uh and Mitch Jones was a cool dude, man. He was a good, good dude. Um I worked in the office with yeah, they always called me Dead Cell, but I was the L CPO and he loved me. Um, and he gave me a really good, you know, uh uh recommendation letter when I put info warrant and all that stuff later. But um, two funny things on the CDO job. You're in Africa, man. It's straight out. I mean, there's wild dogs on the base. Like you see them wild dogs out there running in packs at 50 when you're watching National Geographic shit. I saw one day I was out there walking the track and I saw a rat go by me. And I mean that dude, I was like, man, that rat's fast. Then I saw two wild dogs right behind him. That's why he's fast. There's two wild dogs right behind him on base. So uh, but I get a call on CDO. I get a call and it said, hey, a kid get bit by a scorpion out of Tachita refuge. I'm like, all right, well, we ain't got nothing out there. Djibouti ain't got no capabilities to do any of that shit. So I go to the fire department and I say, hey man, you need to go pick up this kid and bring him back to base, make sure he's good to go. And he goes, um, he goes, Well, I need someone that's in charge to tell me that. And I said, I'll tell you how in charge I am. If you don't go right now, you'll be on a flight home tomorrow. So figure out what you want to do. So he went and get the kid, and it was a big scorpion. And you find out, you know, later that big scorpions have don't have near the venom as baby scorpions. But that's the type of training you're dealing with out there, man. Just a kid gets good. He took his gloves off, he's helping villain fences, and um uh he uh got bit by a scorpion when he went to put his glove back on. It was out of the scorpion get out of the heat, you know. So weird stuff. But nothing you ever trained for, man. You're no, you know, just trying to make good decisions.
Gary Wise :I can only imagine. I've been to East Timor once. We pulled in on the ship to do some stuff that was operational, and I remember that watching them sling cows out of a barge onto the pier like cattle, and these horse flies were so big they biting the hell out of you. And I was like, I'm going back down to the ship, bro. I'm out of here. So and I I'd heard about that uh IA at Djibouti, and they eventually they made it be uh one of those GSA tours you can take and do 12 months there, and I just tracked with a couple of the guys and had done it, and it was on my list if I had to go, you know, because you know, back in those days, like, oh, you want to make rake? You gotta go do an IA. So I was looking at that for sure. And you know what's funny is you bring up Jones. I met him when he was at the Naval Safety Center in Norfolk as a chief. That's where he retired from. We're connected on LinkedIn and stuff. And he's still there, right? Telling me that same story. He was telling me he put just fire marshal, and I was I was a at the time I was a mass chief, and I was like, Well, I'm whatever works for you.
Jody Schilling :He put the eval he left from the base with, he put authored two, uh authored two documents, and I was like, everything about this guy says he does not want to do his job. Everything that he puts in this eval, and he thought it was the greatest thing ever. Yeah, just programmatics. But I think he's still at the safety center. That is a good spot for him.
Gary Wise :Yeah, for sure. Like, I get it. So, okay, so you're at Djibouti. Do you go back to ATG Mayport after Djibouti?
Jody Schilling :Yeah, so I go back to ATG, and I'm feeling good because I got the eval, you know, got another com, got base emergency manager, command duty officer of a base in you know, foreign country, all this craziness. And um uh, and I'm thinking I'm good to go. I'm making senior change. So I uh I I I extend as soon as I get back. And you know, Keith Tucker was the detailer. So old Keith gives me the uh the goal head on the thing. Well, I got back in December. It gets up to uh I think results come out in February, right? February or or or March, and I'm not on the list. So I call Keith Tucker and say, hey man, put me on a ship, bro. I ain't staying here for another year as a chief. Ain't gonna help me. I'm looking for ships. And uh I ended up uh getting New Orleans out of San Diego, uh LPD, obviously, no no diesel experience, but um uh but I went out there and uh Jim Honia was the uh CMC. So that was uh a good experience going there as a chief. Um what year did you go to New Orleans? 2011, September 16th. Okay, got it. So the day of uh pinning, 15th, 16th, whatever, uh at the time, pinning day, and of course the HVC volunteered me to be a uh a side boy. From short duty, you're gonna put me on some tight ass khakis and make me look like the clown when I get there.
Gary Wise :Anyway, uh I just not only is it a diesel, but it's also a gator. Yeah, so now you gotta learn ballasting and all that stuff too. Yep.
Jody Schilling :So I uh I get there and uh we were there for about two months, and then we deployed with the Marines. And you know, obviously you're underway those two months training up, getting those Marines on and off and doing some different ops. So I was underweight pretty much the whole time I got there for the first nine nine months. Um that was a really good ship for me. You know, I was LPO because I was senior to the HTC by years because I'm A chief real early. Um but uh a senior chief was coming in uh like a month after I got there. So I was like, damn, you know, I'm I'm I'm LPO for or LCPO for one month. And uh the HTC's running Decad. So he goes, You gonna take Decad? I said, I'm not taking anything until that HT or the DCCS gets it, gets here because I'm not fixing all your mess if he take if he's taking it, you know, because then he's gonna blame it on me because now I'm the DC you know guy running Decad for a month. So you'll run it, he gets there, if he doesn't want it, then I got it. Well, Larry Larry Lopez, he had just showed up from uh 18 months in Afghanistan and made chief and senior chief out there somehow. So he was a 16-year first class. Next thing you know, he's the 18-year senior chief. So uh a little bit of quick advancement for Larry. So he's a little bit out of out of touch with uh a lot of the shipboard stuff. And he's like, no, bro, you can have it. All right, sorry, I'll take that. So I got Deckett, um, and we deployed, and I'm just doing my thing, you know. I uh Honey's got a really good handle on uh the Marine Navy uh cohesion in the mess. So good the fact that uh the first time I walked in there and the Marines were in there, they knew our first names. And I was like, I don't even know who this dude is right now. He knows my first name, and then he knew Janie's name, the HTC, and then he knew the next guy's name. I was like, these dudes are all memorizing our names. We don't know shit, but we're working, and they're sitting there, you know, who's this dude? Okay, yeah, you know, whatever.
Gary Wise :Uh and they're super excited to be in the Chiefs mess, right? Like, I I'm a gator guy, I've been a lot of gators. I'm a CMC for USS Ashland LSD 48 as well. And I will tell you, the Marines, especially the gunnies and the mass fighting off, they love being in the Chiefs mess and they want to participate, they want to be a part of it, and and they're and I love them, dude. I love the raids. And I think another thing was them having to learn how to be back on the ship after going to war and after doing the whole Iraq-Afghanistan thing. That was a that was a unique wake-up call because a lot of those guys you were meeting had probably already done tours downrange, yeah, right? And now they're trying to be on ships and trying to figure out how to be a senior NCO on a ship. Yeah, so yeah, I love them.
Jody Schilling :They um we did a couple different really good events with them. One was in Hong Kong, and and I mean, it was really the best of four deployments I did with Marines, two, two in the wardroom, two in the um, two in the mess. It that was the best one just for like the cohesion part of it. Um the next one was a little bit different on New Orleans, wasn't as good. Uh, James was gone. Um, but the New Orleans for me was a really good uh ship, you know, based on like the way that R Division was set up. R Division was really big. You had a lot of guys in the R9, you had a lot of DCs, HTs, MRs were kind of separate from us, but still with you know, Deckett and all that stuff, you still got to work with them quite a bit. Um, and obviously battle stops was always uh something that was going on that we were dealing with. Um my main objective on there that that first appointment was to lose weight because I got there, you know, 220 or something. I got down to like 175. I mean, it was insane treadmill all the time. And uh I didn't get I didn't um I didn't stand no watch because I was kind of getting ready, you know, decade and all that, kind of getting used to the ship or whatever, not an excuse, just was what it was. And um uh I'm I make senior. So um at the end of the deployment, you know, as soon as we get back, you know, we got back like June 1st, they put it on June 2nd or whatever, right away. So that was really cool because I never even got an eval there. And I felt like I might not be getting the right eval with um other people haven't been there, you know, and uh they're just getting their time, their credit for what they've done longer than I'm doing it. So I got I felt lucky for for a change and and got uh selected at that point. Um but I had already put in for warrant. So because I was like, man, I'm gonna chief for eight years, they don't want me, that's fine. I'll put in for warrant, that's 25% every year. Um well I'd make senior, now I'm thinking that you're older, they're taking me. Well, they told me kick rock, so I didn't make warrant the first time I put in. Um but uh I was still happy because I made senior chief, and you know, that right that's that's a good sword to fall on if you have to. And um uh I was happy with that. Um so we went back in, we went into the yards, um, and uh, you know, did our whatever you do for yard periods and stuff like that. We got to go to Seattle Seafair uh after that, coming out, and then we we geared up for another deployment with uh with the Marines, and um uh we did a second deployment with them. Uh I put in for warrant again with a waiver, 18-day time uh higher tenure waiver or whatever, too much time and rate waiver. And I got selected um for warrant on that ship. So that was pretty cool. Uh I I the the chief engineer is the one that made me put in for warrant. He was a um former ENC LDO. They put LDOs on the L on LPDs, maybe even on LSDs as well. Um and uh he's like, Yeah, you you know, you probably need to put in for warrant. Um, and I did. So I think I got you know selected, fortunately to get selected, but uh he was a beast. Dave Elmer was a dude, you know, if there's a flood, he's down in this space. I'm like, hey bro, get out of here, man. It's like no, I like this shit. He's down, he's down Lieutenant Commander trying to put on a you know a soft patch or something crazy. Yeah, and uh and when we were coming back from that uh first deployment, um he's like, I'm lighting off water mist. I was like, Well, I've never seen it lit off. He's like, Well, I don't care. They said at the school you could do it, so we're doing it. They just went down and hit the buttons, man. No, nothing on it, no, no uh socks, nothing. We're just lighting off water myths. I'm like, this dude is out of his mind. One of them was actually in the bathroom down in the uh entry room, so it cleaned the bathroom pretty good for him. You know, there's silly stuff like that. But um uh one of the underway times after that, I showed him uh I showed him every A triple F. Every A triple F had uh station had exposed wires off the SOPVs. You had seven stations, probably 40 SOPVs, so three wires on each. So you're you're talking, you know, 120 wires. I said, we are going to jail. We are done as soon as ATG gets here. So we put them all in the jobs and they came and fixed them with shrink wrap or whatever they did. Um, so I gave me some street cred with you know with him with that stuff. And then um uh one day he calls me down the CCS, we're underway for something, and he's like, hey, uh you ready to light off uh uh countermeasure washdown in eight minutes? I said, uh no, I'm not. He goes, uh he goes, Larry didn't tell you, or he's you know, senior didn't tell you. I said, no, I no one I didn't know anything about it. He goes, Well, we're lighting it off in eight minutes. I said, Well, you know what? If I had about 12 minutes, I'd be fine. So we're gonna run about five minutes late. And I went up there, got all my people that quick, and we went and did it. And uh he was like, no, well done, senior, you know, whatever. Uh, anyways, we got it done. Larry, it just slipped Larry's mind, no big deal. Yeah, but something crazy happened on um on Pearl Harbor, and the DCCS wasn't on the ship. He did something and wasn't coming back. So I'm like, man, I'm the new senior chief. I'm going, I'm going to the Pearl Harbor, and they're getting ready to go right through the training cycle. So I'm figuring as soon as I get over there, I'm in it to win it. I'm they're not gonna they're not gonna take me back. So I go to the Chang and I said, Hey, when do I go to the Pearl Harbor? This was funny, it's still Dave Elmer. And he goes, You ain't going nowhere. I said, Well, you know, Larry's like three years senior of me or whatever. He goes, 'Yeah, but you're the one that does all the work, so you're staying and he's going. So I was I laughed about it. And then uh, of course, immediately Larry's like, 'Hey, can you come over Monday and Tuesday and demonstrate Halon and that you know, all that stuff?' So I went over there and helped, of course, and took a couple of my, you know, my my my good guys because he didn't know anybody over there. And the ship already had kind of a bad reputation from the DCCS. But we went over there and smoked it. And I remember, you know, the ATG guy was there, and uh, I was doing one of the spaces, Ox One main one. I said, Hey, you go get that time delay off of hazmat right now. And the guy goes, We're doing hazmat next week. They the ATG guy go, I go, Well, this is. This week, and we're doing main one right now, and I'll get you a new time delay before next week. So uh I think they kind of figured out, like, all right, well, we we better just get this shit done. This dude's for real. So we got through all that. I made the exo making copies of the Halon station light off stuff because he had come down. I said, I need seven copies of this. Sent him off because I don't have a copy machine. I don't I don't got access to nothing on the ship. You know, I'm just there as a freeloader for two days. But um, yeah, we got through it for him, and then uh Larry stayed over there for a little bit of time longer, and then um I don't know if he came back or not. Not because I think he might have transitioned to shore duty or something, I believe.
Gary Wise :I think he went to ATG after that, didn't he?
Jody Schilling :He might have, yeah. Larry might have gone to ATG San Diego. Yeah, he's he's got a job on Air GS 12. He's a good dude. Larry is a good fun dude. Um and I'm going to San Diego um coming up uh at the end of the month for DCCM Almada's retirement. Nice. So he was on Halliburton with me. I was his first C daddy. And uh I made him RPPO, and I used to send him down to uh to uh Halliburton supply. And I said, just sit in that shop and don't leave until he approved the parts. Like, what? I said, you just sit and supply until they approved the parts. I don't care if it's all day. And they would get to him, like, hey dude, what are you still doing in here? We told you no. He goes, Well, Chief said I can't leave until you approve the parts. So you're gonna have to approve the parts, or I'm just gonna be here. And it worked, man. It ended up working. They would just approve the parts, and Almada was always a likable person, too. You know, when they seen him, it's like you, you always got a smile on your face. People like you. Almada is just like that too. So he's he's super uh well liked. But uh he asked me to go out to his retirement and um uh and speak, so I'll go do that at the end of the month.
Gary Wise :That's very special, man. That's awesome. So you after New Orleans, now you're a you're a war, you commissioned on New Orleans?
Jody Schilling :Yeah, I commissioned on New Orleans, uh, you know, obviously at the end of my tour. I actually put Almada's hat on him. He made chief that year. He was instructor of the year, uh, 2014. So September 15th, 16th, whenever they did it, I put his cover on for him. And then 15 days later, I commissioned and left to go to knife and fork school up in Rhode Island. Um, my former Chang was now the detailer for warrant officers and um uh and whatever. And I had already taken orders to the New York as a DCCS. I was going back-to-back ships, then I was gonna go to ATJ or whatever and retire, hopefully make master chief in the mix of that. Uh got my EL letter, you know. So I had another EL letter, I was gonna get a back-to-back EL letter. I got to New York right away, run deck it, whatever. And um uh he goes, Hey man, I know you couldn't go, you you can't go no more as a senior chief. Would you go there as a as a DCA? I said, Absolutely. So he called the DCA and said, Hey, do you want to miss three months of deployment? And the guy's like, Yeah, I'll go back home because they're already geo batching in in Mayport, their whole families were back in Norfolk. He goes, Sure thing. So I did like a 48-hour turnover with that dude. He was back home and I'm on the ship getting ready to deploy. Yeah, we deployed within seven days of me getting there, and uh that was that was the new york out of Mayport.
Gary Wise :That's I was gonna ask you that. So that was that was when they had the gators in Mayport. Yeah, was is was is he the CMC at that time? Did you know the CMC?
Jody Schilling :Yeah, it is, yeah.
Gary Wise :He was the CMC, okay. So how was that going and being a DCA on an LPP 17?
Jody Schilling :So I knew my job, right? Because I the only thing I didn't have a lot of experience with was ballasting because they made the DCA do it in San Diego. Um, so I had to do the ballasting pretty much right away, but I'm a math dude. I'm all I had to do is look at previous ballast loads, and it wasn't that hard to figure out. Um, I did the ballast demos and all that nonsense when I had to. Um, but it was good because you know I knew our division. And when we got underway for deployment, maybe 48 hours in, I still hadn't even ran a drill as DCA or any of that nonsense. And uh we did a report of white smoke up forward uh in front of repair two. So I run down, take over, you know, this is a DCA school uh responsibilities, financial officer, whatever. And um uh and the kids on the radio, and he's like, I need DCC or DCA up here, man. We got a we got a Bravo fire. I'm like, there's no fuel up there. And I I'm not even I don't even pause. The XO and the CEO are there, they don't even know who I am. I haven't even checked in with them yet. And I said, Chief, put on an SCBA. It was DCC Montoya. I said, Chief, put on an SCBA and go tell me what we got because that kid's full of shit. And those two were like, whoa, like, who is this dude? You know, how did this dude get here? Where's this guy from? But anyway, he went up there and he's like, Hey, uh, sir, it's a frozen fan. I've already uh secured the power, you know, we're good to go. Uh, I'm gonna get the electrician up here and we'll we'll tag it out, get it ready to rewire and all that. And then the CO, he was an aviator, so of course he was scared shitless because he was like, I'm never making anything else ever it is. You know, he don't even want to be on this ship, he just ended up probably having to get stuck with those.
Gary Wise :Trying to do his deep draft tour.
Jody Schilling :So he uh he uh he's he talked about it on the one MC. And uh New York turned out to be a really good tour for me. I extended a year there. Um got you know, got another year out there, got my swole pin, got my OD. Uh I didn't go into combat. I avoided that. I pretty I was, you know. Um I I think one of the things that helped me on New Orleans really understand the engineer plan. I was I was special scene anchor eyes, I was at DCCS. Uh the ENCM would go into the space, so if something happened, he could fix it, you know, because from CCS he's handicapped. But I did special, I did special evolution EO forever on that chip on New Orleans. But fast forward back to New York. That was where I got a lot of my calls I had to, and and you know, got introduced to the wardrobe. Um, I did not get along with Shane. I didn't, you know, because I was trying to get the um, I wanted to get the four sailors, you know, uh junior sailor of the year, sailor of the year, uh, senior sailor of the year, and then whatever the four. I wanted to get E3, E4, E5, E6, Sailor of the Corps uh awards, and he didn't want to do that. And I was like, it just cost us an extra plaque, you know, four times a year. It's and you'd recognize another sailor. He's like, well, E4s can beat E5s. I said, Well, they never do, you know. E5s are works under suits, they don't lose to E4s that are you know uh special workers. And I and I went to the XO about it, and I went to the CO about it. And long story short, when he left, he got an he got a calm from that chip. And uh he could be tight with you, he could be your best friend. I'm not mad. Everybody gets along with everybody different. Um, I think he thought I sold out, you know, whatever, like that. Um but uh that and then we introduced it right away, and we started doing the Forbes sale to the quarter instead of three. So whether I was right or wrong, I I I got it into the CO's head.
Gary Wise :And you said this was the chief engineer that was pushing back on you on this?
Jody Schilling :No, that was that was his.
Gary Wise :Oh, the mask, the CMC, yeah, that was his. Oh, okay. I missed that. I thought you said that was the Chang, and I was trying to figure out why the Chang came. So you had the idea for the fourth sale of the quarter competitive season, and the mask didn't want it. Oh, yeah, you were all in his weedies, yeah. So you were all in his week, yeah.
Jody Schilling :And I can't well, so they did it on New Orleans, so I was like, hey, we did this on New Orleans, this was a good thing. He's like, I'm not a fan of it. That's what he said, yeah. And uh, you know, they ended up uh he ended up knocking heads with the CO about other stuff, I'm sure, because they wouldn't have gave him a that that that award for no reason, but you know, he went on the B2 fine.
Gary Wise :Yeah, I I don't know that much information. I will tell you that Izzy did well for me and my family when he was the detailer, man. Yeah, he took good care of us, and so I've got nothing but good things to say about him, but I can say that after having been a CMC, I I can imagine that whole dynamic happening and that whole conversation, and then knowing you and and hearing your passion, how passionate you are about things, right? And of course, you're a warrant officer, but you're also a deck plate guy. I can see how that whole thing is is transpired.
Jody Schilling :Yeah, and it so he didn't he, I'm sure it you know it it kind of burned him up a little bit, but I went to him first.
Gary Wise :It wasn't like it was no, it's his program, right? That's his job to make sure he gets his SOQ stuff done. On the reverse, I have had that exact same conversation, and the biggest challenge I would say from his perspective is getting the damn packages in, right? Yeah, it's like pulling freaking teeth, bro, to get the packages in. I used to have to walk around the ship and like basically threaten my department L CPOs, like, bro, I need a I got to the point where I made the packages so simple that it was not overly complicated because that's a problem, they're all overly complicated, right? And what really matters is the board, not the package. Yeah, we all know these kids, right? We all know these sailors. We're not gonna BS anybody with packages that are all the same words every time. You're just copying pasting, bro. Like that don't work. The board is what matters, but I can see that. So after new new after doing the New York, now you're doing two LPD 17s. Are are you staying on the like as a warrant officer? Where do you go? Do you got to go to another ship up to New York?
Jody Schilling :Yeah, so it's it's five years, even though I just came from three years. Those years, those years didn't count from New Orleans now in New York. And uh, you know, I'm a ship dude, I don't care. I'm immune to that pain. I uh it doesn't not matter. So I want to stay in uh Mayport, and there's one job as chief engineer on a PC. So I said, I'm taking that. So I called a detailer day early. He goes, That job is not available, you're not in your window. I said, Okay, I'll call you back in 24 hours. So I called that back 24 hours. He's like, Okay, you're in your window, and he gave me the orders. So I go to Chang School and then go down and take that job. Uh, but the the problem was the ship's supposed to be made for Norfolk won the bid, so we're back up in Norfolk, living on a P Town base in barracks, geo-batching for a year of my 18 months there. So that was miserable. Um just for you know, family dynamics and all that. And and I ended up just renting uh renting an apartment because I told my wife she comes up, I'll rent an apartment. If not, I'll just stay in the barracks. And she came up because our house down in in Jacksonville was paid off, so it wasn't like it was two payments or anything like that. And her mom just stayed down there and kind of kept that one running while we were up there, so it paid off. Um, and honestly, that tour was good for me, you know, being a chief engineer, having way more responsibility than ever. Uh, even though a small ship, you still have all the same programs, you still have to pass by the same dress. And, you know, I looked through the books, and the guy before was an ENCS, and that dude was squared away, man. Unbelievably squared away. Mince, uh, can't remember Vince's last name, but super squared away. And he'd want to go walk the ship every day in the yards. I'm like, Mince, we walked the ship twice. There's no hull, there's nothing on the boat. I'm not going back over there. The engines aren't there, the generators are not there. I'm not going to look at it again with you, bro. And he's like, Well, uh, I'm going. I said, All right, Vince, you have a have a good safe walk. You know, I just was not doing it, you know. And um uh but when I got to read some of the stuff, man, they passed one out of 10 DC drills and got recommended to move on before I got there. I'm like, how does that happen? Yeah, and none of the halon lights worked, you know, it's just uh, you know, you get back in there next thing you know, you're a DC CS again or DC, you know, whatever, doing your job. I'm in there changing, I'm in there changing uh halon hoses with uh Dre. Uh, if you remember uh DCCM uh from the Bahamas, he plays uh I can't remember his last name, but Dre, Andre's his first name, but we called him Dre. But he's a Mapport guy for the most part. Um, plays a lot of music, um, but good dude. And uh he he came and helped me. It was me and him on a Sunday doing all the halon bottles. I had no DC one, and then they give me a DC one. The first thing he does is almost knocks himself out with a PKP bottle out of the PKP rack on the on the shipyard. I was like, this is like uh, you know, uh Comedy Show Central or something. This is not happening, man. This dude's a complete goof. Um, but whatever, you know, just shit happens. And then I got a little good DC one. Um the influence I that that made that job fun was I got five guys' EL letters that were three were E5s. So I got three E5s EL letters and you know, two first classes. I got a DC one and EL letter in like 45 days, and I wrote him such a uh a dynamic evalve after he got three straight P's at um um SERMAC. I said, dude, I need to get three straight P's at CERMAC, man. What are you doing over there? That's not effective. You know, it's not that hard, bro. Grab a door or something, man. Do something, powder coat something. But um anyway, uh uh he makes chief off that eval. And I wrote like he showed up to his ship at you know 48 damage control readiness and had it at 95 within 48 hours. Then you know I wrote all this craziness, qualified to yell in 41 days to help the watch, you know, all that stuff. And he makes chief, and then he just picked up senior chief. So he's on the fast track. Uh now.
Gary Wise :How about the PC? Did you guys what's the deployment like on a PC? Do you guys deploy it?
Jody Schilling :So I get C sick quite a bit. Um, so that was what that was about. Yeah, getting C sick. Yeah, I get a big difference, man. So um we went down to uh what happens this ship could do with like 36 knots, but they said it had half thinness, so we'll go on deployment to chase drug boats, and our max speed authorizes 15 knots. So we're off the coast of uh Cuba. You're out seven days, you gotta come back in and refuel. You stay in overnight and go back out seven days. So seven-day trips, not too bad, whatever, but it was during COVID. So you couldn't go to the base and buy anything, you know, everything was restricted. You couldn't go to any, there is no ports, but you know, you just pulled.
Gary Wise :I was naval based for arms TMC at that time. We were the only port open in the whole Pacific Theater, bro. Uh trust me, that was a goat rope.
Jody Schilling :Yeah, so you know, I sat on the I sat in a hotel two weeks before the two-week uh get ready to go on deployment, and then I sat on the boat for two weeks in port while the other team sat in the the hotel. So I was on the boat for a month before deployment anyway, um or or restricted, whatever you want to say. But uh, no, it was a good tour, man. I I uh I liked it. We decommed that ship. I know on the last three days up to Philadelphia, I roulped about seven times, you know, because it was rough weather going into Philly, so that was miserable.
Gary Wise :Brother, I used to always take out my own meccrazine, my own, my own medication underway. Yeah, trust me, people don't understand how I I respect the grit it takes from you to sustain a career in the United States Navy, knowing you got seasick the whole time, because I did that too. Yeah, and it was that was the first thing I told my commanding officer on the CMC. I said, day one, start this engineer here right now. I get seasick, so I will be where you need me to be, and I will be there when I gotta be there. But outside of those times, I might not be around, depending upon how bad the seas state is, right? And yeah.
Jody Schilling :I I remember the second CO came and we got underway, and uh I was Ralph and uh so he asked one of the lieutenants, like, hey, what's up with the Chang? Is he drunk? And the guy goes, Oh no, he gets seasick all the time. The guy was like, Oh, okay. So it was funny because he thought I was drunk. I'm like, I didn't drink it, you know. I ain't drinking underway.
Gary Wise :But so after you finish that tour, then you're you're probably getting to the I mean you would when did you retire?
Jody Schilling :I retired November of 23.
Gary Wise :Okay.
Jody Schilling :So this is this is this is uh this was around March of 21. And I already have my exw. I got it when I was in Africa, but they denied the uh the waiver. So I have to go back to um I I ended up tearing my rotator cuff and my right bicep. So I I deployed with that. I didn't care. I said I'm deploying, I'm not getting off the ship until I'll take the I'll get the surgery after. So now, but now I got to go to uh EXW school again, and this one's way more advanced. You got to carry bodies off the field and stuff like that. I got a torn rotator cuff, torn right bicep, and I've only been out of surgery four months, and it takes about a year to heal. Anyway, so I go through that school, I'm going to Bahrain to be the maintenance officer at NESG2. And this, I'll try to, I see your time's running. So um I get there, and the Mark 6 boats are already getting ready to be sundown, basically decombed. And so what I started doing was I had about six people, and I had uh them all enrolled in in college. I had guys going over to ships to get quails, um, engine men that didn't have YL calls and stuff like that. And then, you know, um other other goals, same for this, same for that. And I got it all on a board. The old CEO leaves, the new CEO comes in, and he comes over, and and we're in the warehouse, man. It's you know, we got an AC room, we kind of hooked it up, me and a mass chief, Sean Etheridge, real good dude. And um uh he comes over and he's looking at the board. He goes, What is this? I said, This is where my people are at. You know, I got this guy on this boat, this guy on this boat, this girl's doing this, this girl's working on her package for officer, or whatever. And he goes, Uh, and and have the idea that I was going to work in civilian clothes and leaving by noon, getting there at nine, leaving at noon. Like my day was great. And that guy goes, I need you in the building. I was like, What? And that was it, man. Then I was over there every day from 7:30 till like 1800. I was ops, you know, AOP. So now I'm, you know, uh board getting um getting uh and bar security teams on USNS ships and all that nonsense. So doing some bunch of crazy stuff. The uh the gun mounts for the 240s went down. I went over to uh FDRMC, got an HT2 to fix them, and then they were all 360 swivel, and then one of the gun ranges went down and there's a you know conics box, and I'm like, I can fix that. And the suffo goes, You can't. And I said, No, I can. You're saying I can't, but I know I can. Um, and the CEO's just like you know, looking at me, it's like, you know, Jody, what do we got to do? I said, sir, I'll take an electrician over there and an ET and we'll get that fixed. And um uh suffo is still saying no, and I'm still saying, I don't care what he says. Finally, Suffolk figures out the things aren't under warranty or 30 years old, like because uh the British company that worked on them said we'll we'll charge you forty thousand dollars. Thirteen dollars later, we had a good gun range. So with a good ET and a good uh and a good uh electrician. So we got that up. And I mean, that was kind of you know, I just kind of looked out for people, did whatever I did over there. Um, did a lot of TSP training, stuff like that, and you know, got guys on boats that needed to get the calls that they needed to do to get advanced and stuff like that. So it was a good experience, but it was definitely like my second time being totally out of what I would normally be doing. Um, and then my last tour was uh they wanted me to be OIC at the schoolhouse for just engineering over at Mayport. And um I said, I get out, I'm going on Skillbridge, man. I ain't doing that nonsense. Get lost. And uh so I just went over there as a pseudo instructor, and then four months later I went on Skillbridge, and then I retired at the end of uh November of 23. So that wrapped me up.
Gary Wise :Very cool, man. Quite the quite the journey, brother. Yeah, and did you how did you stumble into Edward Jones? So
Jody Schilling :My buddy, I told you Hector, the one who's gonna get out and go be a real estate agent. Uh ended up staying in the Navy, making uh um NTC C S uh recruiter. And I had a I had a good amount of money in TSP, but I couldn't do anything with it. I couldn't add any money to it, which you can now, but I couldn't then. Um so but now if you if you got the the right disability percentage, you can still add to it, which at at that time you couldn't. So I said I want to be able to put money into it, which I still haven't, but um and have control of it. So I give it to Hector, he's already at Edward Jones, but I'm telling him what to do because I've been investing since like 2001. And he's like, man, you should you should probably look at that, look at this job, man. It's a good job. And I had already sat around for a year. I looked into a bunch of different jobs. Carnival Cruise Line offered me a job, the post office offered me a job as like a rural route carrier. Carnival Cruise Line is only like 80,000. And I was like, I'm not moving to Miami for 80 grand. And then uh Rural Route Carrier, I had a big truck and I got a Cadillac Blackwing, so I'm not gonna be driving that delivery in the mail. Um and uh Argos, which was a cement factory out there, they were gonna give me an entry-level position on a night shift. And my wife basically said she'll leave me if I take that job because I've never been home anyway. So uh so I ended up just kind of you know vegging out for about a year, and then uh Hector said you should do this, and that's what I did. Uh and one of my masks actually held me back for a while. So the making the the uh making the um the diplomas to get kids in, it said that uh on there it said false enlistment and something else, and my masks did not say that. So that that might have been the original charges, but like 13 recruiters got in trouble at the same time at that time. So anyway, I'm calling everybody. I know a dude at the FBI, I know a guy LAP, know a guy retired detective, NYPD. I'm calling all these people. Um everybody's telling me kick rocks, you know, we don't have that information. I'm like, well, where's the FDI get the report from? And they're like NCIS. I called a dude at NCIS and I sent them all my paperwork. And this took like three months because I had I went the wrong route the whole way because nobody knew the right answer. Um, and that guy he goes, give me a week and I'll get back to you. And he came back with it and he goes, All right, I see where you're none of this stuff happened. You never went to court, you never went to jail. Because it was it was like an arrest the way it was written. And I was like, that never happened, man. You know, I didn't even get busted down. But uh anyway, that's how it got cleared. And I got through their background check uh with no other issues, and then started all those classes series six, series seven, si, uh state license, life insurance, all that.
Gary Wise :That's very awesome, man. All right. Well, hey, as we land this plane here, Jody, I'm gonna ask you some questions, rapid fire, and you're not gonna don't nuke it, bro. Just go ahead, all right? Got it. All right, here we go. Um looking back on your career, right? What was your let's go ahead and go this way? It's Saturday night, you're on the ship. Are you looking forward to pizza or wings? Pizza. Pizza, okay. All right, bro. I got two places I can use you burning or the working party. Which one do you want? Well, burning or working party? Working party. Yeah. You can always hide in the working party. All right, and we're gonna watch a movie in the mess, bro. It's either you're gonna be De Niro or Pacino. Which one do you want to watch?
Jody Schilling :I like them both, but I'll go uh Pacino. Pacino, okay.
Gary Wise :Looking back on your crew, what was your favorite duty station?
Jody Schilling :Um, recruiting was my favorite duty station. If you go ship New Orleans, man, I had a lot of clout on New Orleans, and that was really a good ship for me.
Gary Wise :All right.
Jody Schilling :Bahrain's good real.
Gary Wise :Okay, what was your favorite Liberty port?
Jody Schilling :Um, I like Hong Kong. You know, I've been to all of them, Thailand, Philippines, all over South America, but Hong Kong was always good.
Gary Wise :Um I like it. What was the most challenging qualification you ever earned throughout your career?
Jody Schilling :Um I think I had to study quite a bit for the uh swole pin. Now they don't have to get it, but you know, my combat, I didn't have no combat uh experience, but I studied it all standing on E out. So it was all right. So, but yeah, swole pin.
Gary Wise :And I'll tell you to that point, you know, one of my favorite things when I was a CMC was going up on the bridge and just hanging out with the captain and the XL and stuff because people would be like, Mashi, you're up here again. Like you guys understand, I didn't grow up coming to the pilot house, right? Right, I would go up there, get the draft sign, and go back downstairs. So it was kind of nice to be up there and seeing all that cool stuff, you know. Yeah, so I could I could relate to that for sure. Um, you never did a tour overseas. Well, you didn't buy rain, right?
Jody Schilling :I did buy rain in Djibouti, but not like Spain, not traditional.
Gary Wise :So if you ever had the chance to do it again, would you go overseas or would you go stateside again?
Jody Schilling :I'd go Spain. I like that base, Roger, yeah.
Gary Wise :Yeah, go Spain, got it. All right, do you have a personal leadership philosophy?
Jody Schilling :Um I think when you when you talk about leadership, what what a lot of leaders fail to realize is when their people are doing good, that means that leader is doing good because the people ain't doing it by themselves, but sometimes they don't take the time to look at it and they're overanalyzing and they're trying to do more and more and more. Hey, if your guys have got the wheels grease and it's moving, you're doing something right.
Gary Wise :So, yeah, definitely. All right, so in the Chiefs mess, we got deck plate leadership, institutional technical expertise, professionalism, character, loyalty, active communication, and a sense of heritage. Those are our those were the guiding principles from the Chiefs mess. And out of those ones, which one was your favorite?
Jody Schilling :I think deck plate leadership because when you're you're with your people, they see you give, you know, you give a shit. You know, if you're just saying it at quarters and then you're going to go hide or you got watch and you can't be there, especially when I have questions or when they have uh problems or concerns, and you get to know your people, and knowing your people is is really what's important.
Gary Wise :So for sure. And when I think deck plate leadership, that's leadership by act like action, like by example. Yep, it's not just telling them what to do, it's actually being down there doing it with them, you know. For sure. All right, would you rather lead or follow?
Jody Schilling :Always lead.
Gary Wise :Always lead. All right, brother. That's it, man. Do you have any save grounds or alibis?
Jody Schilling :Uh what I'll say is this I this was a philosophy, and I wrote this down because we didn't get a chance to uh talk about it. We went in so many different directions. I think the process for sailors, you take a below average sailor, you make them average. You take an average sailor and you make them good. You take a good sailor, you make them great. You take the great sailors and you make them mass chiefs of warrant officers. And I think that's a process, you know, that might be that first ship, that second duty station. It doesn't all happen overnight, but that's what leadership is is making your people better on a daily, weekly, monthly, yearly basis, and making those guys uh achieve what they never thought they could achieve. So sometimes it's a long process.
Gary Wise :I love it, man. I love the framework of it too, because I I can apply that to a bunch of different things in life and it shows somebody just the logical progression, right? Yeah, and I think we all looking, we're all looking for a way to quantify and qualify what we're doing because especially for the hard workers, because they're working their ass off, but it's like, how do I say what I'm doing? Because I know I'm doing a lot, but how do I qualify what matters, or how do I quantify what I have done? And that's whether me as a husband, me as a father, me as a teacher, me as a chief petty office, like all these different areas we're all looking for growth, and someday we get to be old fuckers, old people, and we should figure out like, did I do good? Right, and hopefully, you got a whole bunch of people in your life that can say, like, call you up and say, brother, can you come speak in my retirement? Like, that means you did good, bro. Like, that means you did good. That's like one of the biggest honors in the world, man. Um, thank you very much, bro. And I'll tell you what, that North Star you gave me got put to a lot of damn work. I leveraged that damn thing until I bought my own again in the future. I got the updated version, but I was always that guy rocking the North Star and studying and preparing and working my butt off to make rake, you know. So thank you for investing in young DC3 wise. And you know, here we are now talking about life.
Jody Schilling :So I made some copies of them and passed them on, so they're still floating around.
Gary Wise :That's awesome. Well, brother, good luck to you. Thank you for everything and just keep staying in touch, man.
Jody Schilling :Yeah, you're close enough, man. We'll get lunch one day.
Gary Wise :Oh, yeah, I'd love to do it. All right, brother. I'll talk to you later.
Jody Schilling :All right, boss. Have a good night.
Gary Wise :Bye, bro. Bye.
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