Leadership in the U.S. Marine Corps: A Conversation with Spencer E. Scott

Welcome to Brungardt Law's Lagniappe! In this episode, we talk with Spencer E. Scott, retired Sergeant Major U.S. Marine Corps, who shares with us his experiences and observations from serving for 30 years among the few, the proud, the Marines.

This podcast is hosted by Maurice A. Brungardt.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:02

Hello, welcome to the Brungart Law Podcast. This is Maurice Brungart, and today's guest is Spencer Scott, retired sergeant major from the U.S. Marine Corps. And this podcast is dedicated to exploring what makes for good practices, policies, and laws that enable effective decision making and leadership, and vice versa. What makes for good decision making and leadership that enables effective practices, policies, and laws? So, Spencer, welcome to the program. Appreciate you being here. Tell us a little bit about yourself, your last assignment with the Marine Corps.

SPEAKER_01: 0:40

Well, first of all, I'm honored to be a guest on your show. Thank you very much. And just for the audience, when it comes to the laws and the procedures, I don't know how much I could contribute to the conversation there, but as for leadership, uh as a Marine serving 30 years in the Marine Corps, reaching the rank of sergeant major, and then my last billet assignment being with the Inspector General of the Marine Corps, leadership has been a cornerstone of my evaluation, my participation, and really what I've been doing for what I'd say was the last 15 years of my career. Because once you get to a certain level, you become a member of the leadership team, and then on the enlisted side, once you're there, you rarely ever leave that billet.

SPEAKER_00: 1:23

So tell us a little bit about, for example, when you got started with the Marine Corps, back to when you were a young man and what motivated you to uh join the Marines.

SPEAKER_01: 1:34

So, all through high school, uh there was no intention for me to do anything in the military. My my mother was anti-military as any anti-military person could be. My mom was like the leading the charge of that. But it was a true draw to me because of the college benefits, because of the skills that I would have learned there. I'm from Alaska. I graduated out of Bartlett High School in Anchorage, Alaska. You either did two things once you graduated, you either worked on the slope or you worked on the cruise lines, and so my my thought was to join the military. I've always liked the challenge. I I did a lot of research my senior year in high school to see the billets and the jobs that were available through all the different branches. Uh Anchorage, Alaska is very big with Army and Air Force, so I had a lot of friends who were Army and Air Force. Uh I didn't know anybody who was a Marine. I didn't even know anything about Marines other than what was in the movies, and the challenge was what drew me to it. Uh I didn't get a door knock from the recruiter. I actually went to the recruiting office myself. I asked them to be infantry. I wanted a five-year contract because, in my mind, that five-year contract would allow me to do any of the specialty MOS's in schoolhouses and pay back that that school time and actually serve four years, which my goal was to be overseas the entire time. So I kind of went in there with an ultimatum to the recruiter saying, I want five years, I want overseas, and I'll be willing to do any job I'm qualified for. At the time I had very high ASVAB scores, I had very high GPA in high school. The only thing I didn't have was money to go to college. Scholarships would have got me through my freshman year in college, but after that, there was no way for me to afford uh going to uh college because of the funding that I would give my family. I I helped pay rent and do things like that. So the recruiter talked me out of a five-year career choice from my contract, saying that it'd be better if I just did four years because that allowed more doors to be open at the end of the four years. He guaranteed me overseas assignment. I was really excited about that, and then uh after I presented him my ASVAB scores and I took the little test inside the office, I was qualified for a lot of different things. Um as a kid, there was a veterans day at one of the schools I was at, and the Marine, so each teacher, or there was different teachers who stood up and talked about the Marine Corps or their service as a veteran. The Marine simply stood up and said, It was the hardest thing I've done, it was the most rewarding thing I've done. While I was doing it, I was challenged every day, and I didn't like it. But now, I truly value what I what it I went through to accomplish the thing. So that kind of stuck in the back of my head. And I didn't know, again, I had friends who you know whose family was career Air Force, career army. I I uh enlisted and officers. The the girl I went to prom with, her dad was a colonel in the Air Force, and so I was able to talk with them. None of them had that same passion. To them, it was a job. And although I wasn't, you know, looking for a complete lifestyle change, I also wasn't looking for a job. Because if I wanted a job, I could have stayed in Anchorage and worked on the northern slope. Um so that's what drew me specifically to the Marine Corps. Uh when I when I told the recruiter that, and he he offered up different jobs, I was like, well then if that's the case, you know, what's the hardest thing you've got? And he was like, Well, hardest thing we got is the infantry. And I was like, well, sign me up. So I did. I I I signed up for um I forget the code, it was like Yankee 3 or some crazy thing, with guaranteed overseas assignment, um, and I was really excited about that.

SPEAKER_00: 5:24

Do you think the Marine Corps has maintained or instilled that same level of passion since your time?

SPEAKER_01: 5:34

I think because of how we've changed as a society, the the the way you know that average American is right now, uh, we are we are a lot more knowledgeable, we have a lot more access to information, whether it's true information or not, you know, it's just information. Um that has changed uh uh everything that we that we talk about. Specifically in the Marine Corps, the amount of information that's available to that young enlisted right now was not the same amount of information that was allowed or or available to that senior officer back in 1993 to 1998. I'll just use that as a as a first kick because that that was really my my first tour. Um and you didn't have it. You you had what was in front of you. It's it's the example of right now you're holding a copy of you know your local newspaper. That's your information. That's what was available at that level to the average senior officer in Charlie Company 13 Kanye Bay Marine Corps Base, Hawaii at the time. They had just that snapshot of the pie.

SPEAKER_00: 6:48

Okay.

SPEAKER_01: 6:50

Emails wasn't that big of a deal, you know, there was a lot of limited information, so you relied on that chain and that flow of leadership and and information from the highest level down. So if you weren't really in it, you were just localized. But now we're we're we're a key stroke away from global knowledge. Now that same young enlisted sitting on firewatch in Kaneo Bay right now, he can see what's going on within the Marine Corps aspects in CENTCOM, in Southcom. He can see the those future assignment locations of you know Europe, of anywhere in the South Pacific, and he can get a feel. She can see what is going on down there, what's impacting the lives or or the missions in that. And I think that's really the change. So as much as I'd say yes, it has changed, it has. It's changed because of the level of information. And when when you have that information and it's all available to you as a leader, you become more uh cost and fear adverse. You s you see all of the different things that could happen because that's what's out there in the information spectrum. And so you're more adverse to that risk decision. To where, you know, 1994, they they were like just take the squad out on the range, shoot 300 rounds. We we had a we had a staff sergeant, we had a chief warrant officer, and a platoon of Marines that was just having a day being familiar with their weapons. It wasn't a fun shoot. Don't don't take it as that, as like we just went out there and wasted rounds. We just hiked out to the range and we did that. Now you can do that today. I remember distinctly doing that multiple times when I was with 2nd Battalion 8th Marines. We I had a phenomenal weapons guy who uh Sergeant York, and he he could shoot anything and teach anybody to shoot anything. So we would do range days, but it wasn't the same because you know you had the level of cost analysis, you had the level of risk analysis, you had all that stuff that went into it, had to be cleared at the highest level. To where I remember the chief warrant officer literally walked out and he was like, Hey, see that tree line? We're gonna cut some of those trees down. So I need you guys to use those five, five, six chainsaws and start shooting those tree branches and start shooting those tree trunks. And you know, that that to me was the difference.

SPEAKER_00: 9:15

Okay. So when you entered basic training, uh, I haven't had the privilege of uh being in the military, but when you went in, uh, it's my understanding, uh, the refrain for the Marines is every Marine's a rifleman, so there's one basic tenant of training. But when you went through your initial training, was decision-making leadership already taught at that level? Or did that come later?

SPEAKER_01: 9:46

No, I think from from the moment you you step on those yellow footprints, right? The the the famous yellow footprints for all the Marines, whether you go to San Diego or whether you go to Pendleton or uh I'm sorry, whether you whether you go to San Diego or you go to Paris Island. Yeah, the idea there is that you're being told who to listen to, you're being told who's in charge. And there's a scale of that. You have a senior drill instructor, you you have a junior drill instructor, you get assigned to be in squads, you get assigned to be team leaders, you there's a scribe, there's people that are automatically assigned in these roles, and and for that, you know, getting off the bus in San Diego and stepping on the yellow footprints and seeing the drill instructors just rush you, you still I still can pick out who was the one that was in charge, who was the one that was given the assignments all the way down because it's it's thrust upon you in leadership. And even through the process, when you have other recruits at the time directing you to get your uniforms, directing you, you know, to stand in line to get your haircut, to do all that stuff. There's people that are trying to instill in you the instant obedience to orders to somebody that is in a leadership role. And I I think that's one of the greatest things. You know, that's that's a marine ethos that we all need to hold true to is that instant obedience to orders. And I use the word ethos generically, and I know there's there's different terms of that out there and what it means. But for me, that's the core of uh what kept me in for 30 years.

SPEAKER_00: 11:24

And do you find that training, that ethos, is the same today, or it's changed?

SPEAKER_01: 11:33

It's it's still instilled into our training pipeline. You know, we still have that experience that we that we go to. The the challenge with that is is now I think again, the information is out there. Like I the the idea of instant obedience to orders has a direct correlation with the punishment or the adverse action of not listening instantly. And so you don't know that you know a journal instructor can't throw you off the third floor of the barracks. Not that that was the threat, but you know, that was the stories going in, like, oh, I can't believe you joined the Marine Corps. Their journal instructors throw people off the balconies from my friends that had uh army family.

SPEAKER_00: 12:20

Yes.

SPEAKER_01: 12:20

Like that that's not the case, but you didn't know that. You just knew that you had a very intense individual who was determined to teach you, and no matter what you wanted, you knew you were gonna get taught. And so that that knowledge of the limitations, that knowledge of what can really happen, takes a certain percentage of our population and it causes them just not to be afraid of it. That that adverse swing of the pendulum, they they don't pay attention to it. They see it as smoke and mirrors, but that's what they're fixated on, and so they don't learn, they don't uh what I would say transition. Because the whole purpose of the Marine Corps, my opinion, basic entry training from the moment that you get onto the yellow footprints until you get to your first unit. That whole pipeline, for some, that's over you know, 18 months. Some it could be up to two years, depending on what they're doing, before they get to their uh initial unit, their permanent duty station. That whole process is to indoctrinate you into the Marine Corps lifestyle. Not a job, not getting you through basic understanding of your practices, but to truly get you into a Marine Corps mentality where that lifestyle now has changed, which is a benefit to being in the Marine Corps. And for me, I could take anybody from any background, from any walk of life, any economic level, put them on the yellow footprints with the tried and true training that we have through the Marine Corps boot camp process, breaking them down to be equals. Not no matter what, you know, you had back in your mind bigotry, racism, uh, lack of knowledge of other lifestyles. Didn't matter. Because now you had a bunk mate, now you had somebody there that was equally with you. And then you built from that. And that was the true core of what the transition meant. It didn't matter where you were, who you came from, what was going on. When you finished your entry-level training, you were a Marine. That's it. Like you don't have to finish that. I wasn't I wasn't an African-American Marine, I wasn't a white Marine, I was this, I was a Marine. Male, female, Marine. And that I don't think has changed. I think the challenge with it is that again, you have the outside influences. So those outside influences, which is education, some some percentage, let's say the majority of the percentage, that's helpful for. It allows them to anticipate it, it knows the limits. But there's that smaller percentage that will use that against the system. That is where I see the change. Change is not in how our drill instructors are, not how the Commandant and the Sergeant Major of the Marine Corps, not how the master gunnery serves who are controlling these pipeline processes. They're still focused on the same thing that Chesty Polar was doing. But it's the user now that has seen the little areas that they can, you know, not maybe put all the effort that they want to do in. And I'm not going to say circumvent the system because it's really hard to circumvent the system, but lazy enough to get by.

SPEAKER_00: 15:33

Understood. Speaking of backgrounds among your group, describe some of your peers in that initial class.

SPEAKER_01: 15:42

We had we had an individual, and he sticks out just because his name was like 27 letters, and in it's not the correct thing, but in my mind it's like Zan, Banana, Perry, Agua. And he barely spoke English. I don't know what nationality he was. But he was he was he was there because that's his life dream was to be a Marine. He encountered a Marine. Uh, I want to say he was from Central America or South America. But he encountered a Marine that was on a unitas. And then that was what drove him to be a Marine. So it didn't matter. It didn't matter the challenge. He was a guy who didn't get any sleep because he was trying to learn not only just the uh additional language skills, but he was trying to learn the process of doing what he was. Uh and, you know, I I believe he did phenomenal after he got out. His his MOS was more of a technical MOS, uh, mechanic side of the house, I believe. Uh so to where I stayed on uh the West Coast to do infantry training, he ended up going, I believe, to uh I believe he went to North Carolina to learn how to be a uh mechanic at uh Camp Johnson. I just knew he went to the other coast at the time. But uh so again, I there was other examples. There was an individual there who, you know, as far back as the first day of the Marine Corps, somebody in his family had served. From from a very uh established family in Virginia, and every person and all sides of his family had served in the Marine Corps, so he was our go-to guy who knew all the stuff, you know, the little tricks of the trade, what what it meant to be phase two. You know, why why do we have to roll our sleeves like this? Because all other branches at the time rolled them like that. He was the guy that we talked to on that. And, you know, uh to the question, the the rest of them, all of us understood, as soon as we were formed into our platoon, that there was a hierarchy. But the benefit with with our training is that everybody gets fired. Right? And and they and it could be for the craziest thing, but when you have uh a collection of people that are from all walks of life, and and you gotta go stand in formation for five minutes to go do something without moving, and somebody moves, well, that's the leader's fault they're fired. And so over the course of time, everybody got fired, everybody got in that. And so the joke in the a lot of the old school you know jokes was like, oh, I was a guide in boot camp. Yeah, everybody was a guide in boot camp. Oh, I was a squad leader in boot camp. Everybody was a squad leader in boot camp. And what it did is it put you into a leadership position to make you do those uncomfortable things. You know, tell everybody to get out of the head, tell everybody to get up, tell everybody how to shave, you know, to do these billets. And so as we cycled around, it was interesting to see, you know, I bring up uh Z. He he was a phenomenal leader because it was as if everybody was learning with him. You know, the individual that had the history of Marine Corps service in his family, he he was not because it wasn't about, I would say it wasn't at the level of every person in the squad. He already knew everything. So you couldn't tell him anything. So it didn't matter the the balance of the day. It only mattered that, well, you know, my my brother, who's a corporal serving on the air station, you know, in Iwakuni, he knows this. I'm like, yeah. But we're talking about the grinder, you know, and preparing us to go to, you know, shoot week. That's that's what we're talking about. So I I don't know if exactly that answers the question, but I think in that that melting pot of people, those two stick out the most just because of the different ends of the spectrum. And there were there was countless individuals on the in the middle. Uh unfortunately, none of us really got assigned together. So as soon as that as soon as graduation hit, I I can't remember anybody that was in my same boot camp platoon that went over to the advanced infantry schools with me. I can't I can't I can't remember them. And I don't think there was a lot that were on the buddy program back then, which is different now. So now if you and I were 18 years old and like, hey, let's join the Marine Corps, we could sign in for a buddy program, and and at least through the entry-level pipelines, we could stay together. Gives a little bit more of a bonding thing, but you know.

SPEAKER_00: 20:18

If it could be said, what did you find to be perhaps this is only in hindsight now, but one of the most rewarding aspects of that initial training?

SPEAKER_01: 20:31

I think for me it it's it's different. Uh one, I didn't have a father figure in my life, so you know, it was always me. I took care of my little brothers, I took care of a lot of things around the house. So when somebody, we'll call it the drill instructor, stepped in and was, you know, literally teaching me how to shave, was was yelling at me because I wasn't running fast enough. Now, now keep in mind, I I was a jackrabbit. I I used to run really, really fast. I was a really good runner, cross-country, sprints, hurdles, and that was my my my thing. My stress reliever as a kid was to go running. And in Alaska, if you're gonna go run to your neighbor's house for me, it was running you know three or four miles. So that's what I did. So I get to the Marine Corps and they're like, you gotta do three miles. Like, this is nothing. But to push you to go faster, to push you to do those things, to get you on outside of your comfort zone, and then to pat you on the back when you do it right. You know, that was a rarity. So those moments were not only was I held accountable for the mistakes, which I was used to, which the average person is used to. The average person, you can yell at them and they'll just they they've been yelled at before. You you you can you can do all the negative side of the house for the failures. But it's interesting to see, and even today, you know, how many people will respond to the positive side of the house. And that's what sticks out. You know, the the drill instructors, as as scary as our green belt was, I don't remember his name, I but I see his face in my dreams. He was just so angry all the time. But when we passed and and won a little drill thing, that him coming through and just looking at everybody and saying, Hey, you did a good job, life-changing. Memorable. I mean I'm saying so. I hope that answers the question.

SPEAKER_00: 22:18

Let's shoot forward, going from the very start now to the very end. Tell us about your last billet, your last assignment.

SPEAKER_01: 22:26

So I was selected through a board process to go and serve as the sergeant major for the inspector general of the Marine Corps. Uh not many people want to do that job, to be fair. Um, it it requires you to travel a lot, it it required uh a personal skill of being able to look at somebody who's not doing good and telling them that they're not doing good. People who are not used to being told that, because you're you're inspecting generals, you're inspecting higher commands. Um the Marine Corps does the inspector general process different than all other branches. Instead of waiting for an issue to happen, they have an inspection program where they they look at what's scheduled for that year, and they look at the units that have had different levels of inspection but haven't reached an IG inspection, and then they schedule those. So you could predict when you're going to be inspected by headquarters marine corps, by the inspector general of the Marine Corps, just because you haven't been inspected in three years. But it is it's not because you've done something wrong. It's simply because of your time. To where others, in in my billet as the uh sergeant major, I tried to get as involved with the other branches IGs as I could, right? And so, you know, the the Sergeant Major, the command sergeant major for the Army IG was really good at when he was in town sending an email out, hey, let's let's link up. So we'd usually link up at the Navy Yard, which was nice because we tried to do it quarterly, but really it didn't turn out quarterly, it turned out almost semi-annually to get all of us together at once. And it was always interesting to hear how they approached their billet, because their billet was reactive. Something was to happen, a report would come down, then they would use the resources and they'd go. Tour ours was proactive. So when I told them that I just, you know, showed up at a unit to walk across to see the barracks to do a deep dive in this, they their first thought was, well, what was wrong with the barracks? Well, what was wrong with the finances? Well, we're well, nothing. We just wanted to uh check the pulse. And I and I'm and I'm being very simple in the explanation of it because I really didn't know the details of what they did on a daily basis. I just knew that the way I did business was different than the way that all the rest of them did business. So I loved the billing. I absolutely loved it. Like I think my favorite rank by far was sergeant in the United States Marine Corps. A sergeant, you're in charge, but you're young enough to forget, you know, so you can have all the fun in the world, you can take the squad out, you could take the platoon out, you can do things like that. So, in you know, happy memories of of shaping somebody, seeing them accomplish something, patting them on the back, sergeant by far was the best. But overall, when it comes to the visibility, when it when it when it came to the accomplishment stuff, my time at the inspector general's office was the best. You know, I I literally would fly out to a unit, there would be a read-ahead, I would get on the ground, I would not announce myself to everybody because once I I did that once and they they like staged things. It's not the point of me coming out. Um but I was able to go through. I was able to talk to the Marines. You know, it was it was one thing that the master gunnery sergeant uh who I worked with over there, me and him were as thick as thieves, peas and carrots, peanut butter and jelly. And I'd ask him, hey, because he'd been on the team longer, like, do you have history with this area? And you know, to his credit, he always had some some weird type of knowledge, like, yeah, the chow hole over here is is always running out of you know clean utensils. So the Marines are complaining about having to use plastic stuff, or the barracks over here is always out of hot water, or you know, there was always something that he had historical data about. So we just go, just start walking. And it was let me let me tell you this really quick story about Master Gunnery Sergeant Jason Surratt. My battle buddy as the IG. We're walking in California. Uh, we're going to a meeting with another senior enlisted. Not on the sergeant major side of the house, but on the master gunnery sergeant side of the house. So an E9 that he had known that had some questions on a policy and a procedure, that Jason wanted to go and address him directly. You know, this is you know the highest level of knowledge. We're gonna go give it to him straight from the mouth of the babe. And this young Marine was just like walking on by, not looking happy. And I always try to beat the people to the greeting. So I'm like, hey, good morning, Marine, how are you? Of course, it's like, oh, living the dream. And and Jason was like, What's going on? And and the Marine made a comment about something in his room, and Jason's like, I don't believe you. That's not true. And the Marine was like, No, it's true, Master Guns. Now, to a young Marine, a master gunnery sergeant, and a sergeant major are pretty intimidating. So they don't want to talk to us. They usually wanna wanna avoid us at all cost. But we had a good personality. I think Jason and I worked really well together, and then the Marine was was brave and was like, no, I'll show you. So we ended up we ended up walking to this Marine's barracks in California. It had to do with something and uh not important, but what is important is that we went through that Marine's room and there was an issue. Absolutely there was an issue. Uh but it wasn't a big, big issue, but it was an issue that had been reported time and time again. Because the the young Marine, this young man's corporal, had history of how many times we reported it to the barracks NCO and this and that. So we just Jason and I go down, you know, Mash Guns and I go down, we we ask the barracks NCO, you know, what do you do when somebody reports this? And he's like, well, I report it to the barracks manager. What is the barracks manager? He's probably in his room. Could you go get him? I would say within like 20 minutes we had the entirety of the chain of command down there. Curious on what we were doing conducting an inspection. And we weren't doing an inspection. We were just looking at an issue, identifying it, you were pulling a thread. The Marines? Oh, I remember all the young Marines that were there. We were happy that we were there. Sergeant Major. You know, the the leadership, they were not happy that we were there. And you just got that feeling like we had overstepped our mouth. But as I was reporting to my authority, to my boss. We knew, everybody knew I was in the area. Everybody knew that's what we did. We didn't we didn't violate anything. And you know, for two plus years, that was what I tried really hard to do. I wasn't trying to be sneaky. There was no uh, hey, I gotcha moments. I never not told people that I was going to places. But if I was at a chow hall, or if I was walking next to a smoke pit, if I was running PT with the Marines, and they said, hey, this is an issue, let me see it. Let's go. Which every good leader in the Marine Corps does. Please, I I I want the listeners to know that that a good leader doesn't look at the Marines and say, Oh, well, they're not in my platoon, I'm not gonna go that. A good leader goes. A good leader passes somebody in the exchange and says, What's going on? Oh, I got I got an issue with this. Well, let me help you out. Regardless of what unit that person is in. And I think that's that's what kept me going in the Marine Corps. Is that every person I came into contact with had that belief. There's only the few smaller percentages that were like, oh, that's it's not my Marine, or that's that's not your area. Those guys are the ones that are in it for the wrong reasons.

SPEAKER_00: 30:21

The in between, from your moment stepping on those yellow footprints that you had mentioned, and to your last assignment. So you you've had a diverse uh career in the Marine Corps. Uh you've been a Marine Security Guard watch standard, uh, you've been a Marine Security Guard detachment commander, uh, you've done multiple combat tours, both Iraq and Afghanistan, right? Um so that in-between part, uh what reflecting what contributed what did the Marine Corps give you that contributed to your ability to make sound decisions to lead appropriately?

SPEAKER_01: 31:09

The examples and the actions, if I didn't make a good decision. Right? Again, that and it's not fire and brimstone, but if you don't have a right count of personnel, you risk losing somebody. If you don't have uh a clear plan of attack, you risk losing somebody.

SPEAKER_00: 31:31

And so that just to be clear, losing somebody you mean loss of life.

SPEAKER_01: 31:36

Yes, loss of life uh or loss, right? So there's there's different examples that I could fill an entire podcast about. Um famous examples of where lack of accountability resulted in a Marine being left.

unknown: 31:53

Right?

SPEAKER_01: 31:53

You never leave a Marine, no one's ever left behind. But there's examples in training environments or in admin environments where Marines were left. You know, there's a big case study. You could you could your listeners could listen and Google it up about uh 29 poems. And I'm not gonna go into it, but the the idea is that you never want to be that person. And if you do get identified as being that person, you're like as a young Lance Corporal, I I remember going through a fire team leader board. So I had all of my squad leaders, those squad leaders in the platoon at time, there's three squad leaders and a guide that put me through a day with two other individuals, so there was three of us, of evaluation. Yeah, it was all in-house. The lieutenant knew nothing about it, the staff kind of knew about it, but three squad leaders and a guide tested us if we were going to be good fire team leaders. And it and it had to do with our previous actions. I I was standing at parade rest while one of the squad leaders was talking about my actions on a range in Okinawa and how I did this and how I did that. And because it was good, it was identified as being good. If it was bad, it was identified as being bad. You know, and that stuck with me so that when I did become a fire team leader, I I held my Marines accountable the same way. When I became a squad leader, I pushed to have fire team leader boards and we did it. When when I was a guide. When I went out on MSG duty as a watchstander, you you have immediate repercussions if you mess up out there. And it was it was hey, you you screw up, you go home. There's there's no room for error in certain billets that you that I was in, you know. But in the same time, the leadership, the the first major transition was as an infantryman in Charlie Company 1-3, Connor Bay at the time, air station Hawaii, you would get lifed out, which you know get yelled at, you get screamed at, you would have, you know, all the different punishments that you can imagine was was there. And it would happen wherever you were. Didn't matter if I was at the exchange, didn't matter if I was walking, you know, to church in church clothes, if I was doing something wrong, somebody called me out on it. Well, now you you take that same person who grew up in that style of leadership in the Marine Corps, and you put them in a suit and tie, surrounded by department of state employees, career state employees, who know that you're only there for a short period of time, and try to convince them that their access to the emergency door to have a cigarette causes multiple alarms to trip. You can't scream at them. You can't go down there and life them out, you can't take them over to the tree line, you can't shake them about, you know, wall-to-wall counseling. There's there's none of that. You've got to explain to them in a very professional manner. And it and it was the RSO that I had in my first duty station in Djibouti Djibouti before Camp Le Migner. Um, she had a plaque. Diplomacy. And there's a lot of other RSOs who have this plaque, but that's the first time that I really saw it. Um Diplomacy. The ability to tell someone to go to hell and have them look forward to the trip. And of course, you know, the phrase is being belt-fed. I was a belt-fed infantryman, my first duty station, Djibouti-jibouti. I was the only infantryman in my entire detachment. We had every other shape and size within the staff NCO and the five watchstanders. I was the only infantryman, so I was high strung, I was high stress. But to me, I was normal, and they were lazy and lackadaisical. Right? And so you we we molded together. We we took, we, we shared, and and it wasn't it wasn't a bad process. But it was a process like every single new environment. If you go into a new environment thinking that you're gonna shape that environment, you're the outlier. You're you're you're you're wrong in that. No matter what job you do, no matter what lifestyle you're you're choosing to go into, because I say the Marine Corps is a lifestyle. It's absolutely a lifestyle, and it takes time to adjust. If you go in there bullheaded thinking that I can just be who I am and I don't have to change, not at all. You can keep your same core values. Marine Corps core values have not changed since 1775. But our communication has changed. And so a good leader, a good person in any industry, the first thing they learn when they go into a billet, when they go into a spot, is the communication key. What is it to communicate here? Every environment has a different way of communicating. Charlie Company 1-3 with my squad leader, it was on your toes, pointing at your chest, screaming and hollering. Tour as a Marine Security Guard, serving in Djibouti, Djibouti, serving in Moscow, Russia, serving in uh Berlin, and finishing it up in Albania, opening up that embassy, it was not screaming and screaming, because some of those embassies were high-threat posts. So if you showed an emotional outburst, if you showed an inability to control yourself in a way that lacked clear communication for an audience to understand, you no longer had that job. So learning how it was to communicate, and to be clear, expressing my the importance of not opening the emergency fire door to the secretary in Djibouti was absolutely different than expressing the emergency fire door to the motor pool in Moscow, Russia. Same problem, different people, total different communication was required. And had I not adapted to the environment, I don't think I would have been successful.

SPEAKER_00: 37:45

With that in mind, what would you identify as traits that you observed over your time that for you reflected good decision making, good leadership, whether they were coming from a someone above you in rank or equal in rank, uh a subordinate, or even if it was outside the military from your times uh working with other government partners.

SPEAKER_01: 38:19

So in the Marine Corps we have the 14 leadership traits that's that's beaten to our heads. And it's it's from day one. Most commands have them painted on the steps. You get the you know, JJ did tie buckles, and that's what you do. That's your answer on the boards, and that's what you look at when you talk about evaluation of leaders. And, you know, the the questions are always like, What's what's the most valuable trait that we have? And I I I will go off book, yeah. And I'll say what I gained by by the diverse upbringing I had in the Marine Corps is that integrity. You have to have integrity. A leader who goes in and knows what they know, and he or she admits that they don't know everything, and it doesn't have to be a subservient, and you're you're not releasing or relinquishing your power, saying, Well, I don't know what's going on here. But someone who is truly, you know, centered on integrity within what they do. Those are the people that you march through the gates of hell with. Those are the people who taught me the most. Because it wasn't the it wasn't a an ego trip in in the idea of balancing one thing or the other. It was me knowing that if if I caught them, not being correct, I could tell them. And and their integrity would say, well, you know what? Scotty's right. I did that wrong. So I'll correct it. Not who the heck are you, you can't tell me you're right or wrong. What do you know, this, that, and the other thing because of your subordinate and I'm the superior or or or the other adverse effects that go with that, you know? And of course there's a time and place to have those conversations. Um and I believe that every leader that I've encountered would appreciate you telling them at the right time and at the right moment. You know? When it's not the right time. When it's not the right moment. And you have to make that judgment call. If you didn't establish yourself as being an honest individual, if you if you didn't show your Marines that integrity was key to your decision-making process, they will hesitate in the execution of that order. Because they'll wonder why you're making it. And you see it echo in combat. You get you get into a sniper fire, right? So you're you're on patrol, you're in Afghanistan, you're at the Southern Cross, and all of a sudden someone starts shooting at you. And then that somebody who starts shooting at you stops shooting at you, and it's no longer fully automatic fire, it's no longer grazing fire, it's a single pop shot with you know the poppy seeds popping around your head. You telling that squad, hey, I need you to get up and move this way. I need you to get out of cover and do this. If they don't think you have integrity, they're gonna hesitate.

SPEAKER_00: 41:25

Let's go slightly on a tangent here. So I brought this up the other day uh in another interview during part of my career with diplomatic security. You know, we did program uh post security program reviews, right? Um and working with a colleague, also a former Marine, um, there was one particular post, and uh he had shared uh that with this particular regional security officer. Um he was a little lacking in the interpersonal skills, and uh when my colleague had engaged with him and had asked, you know, are you participating in some of the social events? Like are you going to the softball games that the Post organizes? And this particular uh regional security officer said that that's not my job. My job is to run the security shop, right? And uh my colleague uh said, Well, let me ask you this then. If you're not out there on the field, so to say, playing with others, and they don't see you out there, how do you expect them to listen to you in a moment of crisis? So, with that in mind and going back to, you know, uh what you were sharing with us before about integrity, but also honesty and approachability, uh, I think uh all of that lends itself to engendering the trust. What are your comments or thoughts about that? That you know, there there's the one side about yes, exercising the responsibilities of the position, but there's also the side of being able to connect with people.

SPEAKER_01: 43:30

And that that's what I would center on, you know, Maurice. When when you said that, my my heart was like, oh, what a doucheback, right? Like, it's not his job. And and I I'm not gonna say to the point of, hey, if he doesn't go out and play softball, the people aren't gonna respond to him. That that's not where I would go with that. Where I would go is that he's not gonna know how to communicate with them.

SPEAKER_00: 43:51

Yes.

SPEAKER_01: 43:52

If all I see is you in this environment, and that moment of chaos is any environment. Yes, it's not a controlled space, it's it's not a it's not a friendly environment, right? You it's it's chaos. And so I I would want to go out and and see my fellow people and my subordinates in in a softball environment. I'd want to see them in a chaotic environment. I would try to get them uh up or down, heart rates, just to know how I'd have to communicate. Because when I'm in the zone, like I mentioned running before, when I'm in the zone running, I ran a marathon at one point in time and where the finish line was up a hill, and there was this individual who was doing nothing but trying to be helpful, but all I heard was negativity. Because at that moment, where where my body and my mind was focused on getting to the next 500 yards, I didn't want to hear how there's bananas and there's this. She was trying to do something very nice, but in the end, the all I could think about was just pushing her off the bike. Like I didn't I didn't want to hear it. So I think she learned from that. And then, you know, towards the absolute end, she wasn't encouraging me with different things at the finish line, she was talking about my stride. She got into my head in the rhythm.

SPEAKER_00: 45:12

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01: 45:13

That was helpful, right? So so I think about that when I think about how I want to communicate and influence those people around me. And uh your drive to be connected with the people to which you would hope to lead. Because you could be in a leadership role and not leading.

SPEAKER_00: 45:34

Yes.

SPEAKER_01: 45:34

You know, the the joke of the Marine Corps, you know, that's senior Lance Corporal, not a leadership billet, but you want stuff done in the motor pool, you talk to the senior Lance Corporal, right? Because that individual, he or she knows how to tell everybody what they need to hear to get it done. Vice just coming in, snapping the fingers, pointing the fingers, and saying this, this, that, which has a time and place, which I totally agree with. But sometimes you also need that connection, communication, and just trust of the subordinates and your co-workers to to say, okay, well, this is why he's saying it that way. This is why she wants us to do this. So let's get it done. Okay.

SPEAKER_00: 46:14

During your time, uh, obviously in the in the Marine Corps, did you any pick up uh or identify recurring themes that always led to mistakes? Poor judgment, bad decision making, bad leadership, and it's like I see this over and over again.

SPEAKER_01: 46:39

You know what the I I think for me there was not a singular characteristic that identified the bad leadership decisions. And maybe I was just lucky, and and you know, there's I I was very lucky in the people to whom I got to have as mentors, you know, individuals out there that just are world renowned within the Marine Corps of being oracles and and you know, the Sherpas to get us up to Everest. And they took me under their wings and I was able to do that. So within that, it was identifying that young leader early and the bad habits. And and you know, sometimes uh people would categorize the bad habits as being, you know, all the same style, being, oh, they're too eager, uh, or or you know, they're just not listening. But I I don't think that there was one trait that stood out amongst the people who you know historically were known to make bad decisions, other than having bad advisors. The one theme that that I could pick out, e even in my last tour at the office of the inspector general in the Marine Corps, you want to see a bad general? I can point out three bad staff NCOs, those advisors, that that general had at a younger age. You want to see a bad staff NCO? Who is just a horrible senior staff NCO? I could point out a lieutenant that just didn't guide them, didn't didn't support them. And and I think that was the trend. You know, your advisors are the people who you may not be happy that they're telling you that your breast thinks, but you look forward to them to telling you that your breast stinks. You know, that it's not a good idea. The devil advocate that that will go in there and purposefully start the argument behind closed doors. This is good, this is bad. That that command team that sits in the room and just twiddles their thumbs trying to think of ways to argue with the boss so that the boss hears point-counterpoint. You know? The the people who didn't have that, who didn't have that free communication, behind the closed doors in the appropriate time and space, those are the ones who made the bad decisions, who made those mistakes. But the Marine Corps is different in in the idea that I would say 90% of my career, that zero choice came from Scotty. If somebody was telling me to do something, and I did it. And if it was a bad decision, we made that bad decision a good one. If if I was directed to do something and it wasn't the right way to do it, collectively we educated the person and said this is the right way to do it. And you can think of admin, you can think of you know, training, you can think of operations. I was at a schoolhouse for two different commands, um, one as a first sergeant, one as a sergeant major, and you know, curriculum, student development, instructor skills, uh, master trainer syllabus, all those things. Boss can come in and say, hey, I want to do it this way. And you're like, eh, yes, we will get the goal done, but we're not gonna drive down the street the same way that you're driving down the street, and here's why. And you know, I can't I can't think of one commander that I served with that was just so adverse to counsel. I can't. They they all were willingly open to it. Now, we could get a bunch of other senior marines in here, and they could probably tell you different sides of the story, but for me, I was lucky in that.

SPEAKER_00: 50:32

Your assistant Chloe here wants to make her presence known.

SPEAKER_01: 50:36

Yeah, a little stinky dog.

SPEAKER_00: 50:38

Um what would you say are some perhaps of the deficiencies of the Marine Corps? Of the military in general.

SPEAKER_01: 50:52

Yeah, so in in comparison, the deficiencies is recognition on the idea of what it means to have done a good job. I say that one of the number one deficiencies. In my opinion, the reason why we lose so many Marines every year who don't choose to re-enlist, who don't choose to continue with their commission, it's because they don't feel a worth. They're not being recognized. And it's not an award. It's not a Navy achievement medal hanging on their chest. It is sometimes as simple. And I had a commander who absolutely proved this. Phenomenal man. First day of school, I'll never forget. First day of school in that area, everybody with a kid, they had to get their kid to school. Because we were in a schoolhouse. We're in an environment that, you know, it wasn't chaos. It wasn't this. I mean, chaos with the students, but he allowed everybody with a kid to take their kid to school on the first day of school. That sent a ripple. Like when he first announced that, I was like, sir, you're crazy. This what are you gonna get from this? But it was because he saw us taking all the time, because you take time away from family when you're serving in the Marine Corps. Commanders, sergeant, senior enlisted, they know that. He was trying to give it back. And he would give it back in other ways. And so it was that recognition. It doesn't have to be a medal, it doesn't have to be monetary. Sometimes it's just bringing somebody out of formation and saying, look, look at this guy. Look what this person did. Look what she's doing. You know, give her one. How you recognize somebody is truly based on that individual, right? So you can't know that if you don't go play softball with them. Right? I can pat you on the back, and that is not good enough for you. I could say you did a good job, and I'm so proud to be serving with you. And you're like, lip service, the guy's just painting the fence, as the saying goes. But if I happen to make a home-cooked meal and share it with you, all of a sudden, to you, that oh, now I've made it. We broke bread. And these are just random examples of the throwing out there. But I wouldn't know that if I didn't play softball with you. I didn't communicate with you, if I didn't try to be genuine in my communication with you. Communication's two-way street. I gotta know what pushes your buttons, good and bad. You gotta know what pushes mine good and bad.

SPEAKER_00: 53:16

Input and output. Yep. Here's a a question that I had thought of uh specifically for us. Do you think some members or particular groups within the military itself should be held to an even higher standard than their peers?

SPEAKER_01: 53:36

Absolutely. I I firmly believe that. So Which which would those be? If you have the authority as as a commander, if you can sign a piece of paper to incarcerate somebody, if you can sign a piece of paper to dismiss somebody out of the Marine Corps, you could sign that administrative separation, you could sign that uh confinement order, you have to be held to a higher standard. You have to. Because that order, that process has to be equal across all levels, right? You can't you can't have an isms in there. And so when it comes to sexual assault, when it comes to the individuals that are looking at those cases, when it comes to those board members, and then all of a sudden they're found to have done something that is illegal and moral and ethical, that that throws it into a tailspin. And and so when I talk to the young commanders, like I was lucky enough to be able to address young commanders, newly promoted lieutenants, uh, all the different things that I have done in my career, and I I count you know my time addressing those groups as being the most valuable and letting them know that they are expected to sit on these boards. And I'm talking, it's a different process, and I'm sorry we went off on a tangent here, but when you have an accusation of a sexual assault, it goes into a different process. It's not as simple as as uh a DUI. It's not there, there's there's different boards that happen. And you have these individuals that sit on these boards and they evaluate the events that take place. I need them to be completely, I'm gonna say, free of doubt that their judgment is the correct judgment. And if at any point in time their judgment is identified to be flawed by the system, not by the individual, then they absolutely need to be removed. I firmly believe that. And it's a controversial thought, right? The young Marine that the young service members, right now, if they are listening to this, they're like, ah, he's full of garbage because the sergeant major gets this and then nothing happens to him, but the Lance Corporal gets this and they get an NJP and loss of rank. Punitive punishment. However, it is determined. There's a balance in that within the hierarchy of things. So, yes, I will take a Lance Corporal. I have unfortunately witnessed non-judicial punishments where the individual loses rank. It's never a good thing. Even if it's warranted, I would say it's never a good thing. But it's the right thing. Because you know what? That young Lance Corporal who's now a PFC, that sergeant who's now a corporal, they have an opportunity to learn from that, show from that. And they'll say, oh, there's a zero-defect mentality because we have uh high year ranks right now. You can you can only stay in the Marine Corps so long at this rank, to where, you know, decades ago they'll tell you, well, I had a sergeant who was in for like 20 years, or, you know, the veterans way back in the day. But the idea here is that they still have time to recoup because a general can look at their performance post-punishment and give them a waiver to stay in. But they have to be worth it. Now, that sergeant major who doesn't get NJP'd, he definitely doesn't not retire. That individual, that you know, that that officer that did the bad thing, they they don't get to stick around for another few years. That has an impact. Because now they have to tell people why I got out. Now they say you don't have to, but you have a DD214. I'm looking at somebody's DD214 and I see 18 years and six months. My first question is, what did you do? You made it to the rank of gunnery store, you made it to the rank of major, and you're getting out. What happened? And I don't think there's a corporation in America that doesn't ask that question. I don't think there's a business on the planet that doesn't look at somebody who is close enough to that retirement phase. Different retirement system now, but who's who's at that time market's just like, well, why didn't you stick around to get retirement?

SPEAKER_00: 57:53

So you had uh mentioned uh sexual assault. Let's touch briefly upon that because women uh are now serving in more and more roles in the military, in the Marine Corps, uh and there may be listeners out there who they are going to have, you know, sisters or daughters uh entering the military. From your experiences, um what has the military done? Uh has it done enough? Is it doing it the right way? Again, there are so many nuances to this, but you know, the the military's approach to addressing sexual assault. Uh and when we look back, uh I went through some of the reports, and it seems like on average, uh the Department of Defense receives about approximately 5,000 reports of sexual assault harassment on an annual basis.

SPEAKER_01: 58:54

So I I would say that my first four years I never saw a female Marine. Right? And and I'm not saying that that's good or bad, I'm just getting context-wise.

SPEAKER_00: 59:07

Yes.

SPEAKER_01: 59:08

We didn't. In boot camp, uh they they they weren't being trained in San Diego. They were being trained all in Paras Island. So we didn't have to worry about that. But counterparts, when I got to the fleet who were in Paris Island, were like, yeah, uh, we were told not to look at them. They were a different being. So there was always a barrier there. So it was it was it was initially ingrained in us that it's a different line. That they they are different, and you have to treat them as different. Now I get to MSG duty, where we have female marine watchstanders. And I I had, you know, in in Moscow as my second post. We had, uh I want to say, at max, at one point in time, we had seven females in the detachment. They were no different. Than the males, other than their genetic makeup, right?

SPEAKER_00: 1:00:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:00:04

But it was harder to see because you have annual training classes. You have physical fitness that you gotta do. Now I can get down and I can uh I could perform different exercises and it and it's not weird, right? And and I'm not gonna say like wrestling, but you can you can do close quarter combat male to male and you get in all these different things and hand tech hand-to-hand combat techniques. But then you get a female there, and all of a sudden, you know, the things from my first four years flash in my head, like, oh, whoa, I can't, I can't even touch you. I can't even I like and the next thing you know, you know, her name was Blair, beats the crap out of me. Because she was just a a very uh she had just a phenomenal individual, and she knew the techniques and she knew how to do it, and and and she beat me up. And after a while, it was sparring partners, and it didn't matter male or female, but talking with the friends that I had from that detachment, talking with the female friends, it was harder because what is too much? Right? When is it comfortable to tell somebody that they're uncomfortable? I think when it's the same gender, you have a little bit more of a of an acceptance to be honest about your feelings. But for whatever reason, when it came to, again, solely my own example, not having to not not having an opportunity to co-work with the opposite or or or with uh another gender, then all of a sudden having it right there in my face, you you want you you you were very hesitant. It was hesitation, and you're like, oh, what's right, what's wrong, I don't know what to do here. And talking with them, that created its own problem. Because then it wasn't as if they were being treated equal, they didn't know how to receive certain type of inputs. Um and then you you do have the relationship, the individuals that think, oh well, clearly we're gonna have a relationship because it's just me and you here. You know, we're we're doing this, we're doing that, and you know, individuals, male and female, having that romantic relationship does deter from the readiness of the unit. It has an impact because now there's just questions of the people around, it's questions of themselves. Am I gonna make that call? You know, and when I talked, when I addressed the students at Fort Leonardwood when I was the first sergeant there, I didn't matter if I was addressing females or males, because at that time we still separated in barracks, females and males. We still separated in classes, certain things. This was all the female class. I was like, this doesn't make any sense, right? But we we worked through it. I just need you to be comfortable and honest with yourself to communicate it because harassment and assault, there's different definitions for that.

SPEAKER_00: 1:03:14

Yes.

SPEAKER_01: 1:03:15

If you don't know those definitions, you don't know what to call it. And so education at the very entry level, I think, is key. We did not have that in 1993. Wasn't something that you got taught. We have that now. So, in that respect, I think clearly defining it and explaining it to the audience as a whole. Because it's in my experience, I don't just need to tell that to 18-year-old Scott who's on the yellow footprints today. I also need to tell that to Sergeant Major Scott, who's been in the Marine Corps for 30 years. Because those definitions mean things. Yes. And when it comes to our sexual assault response, there was a time frame in the Marine Corps where we swung really hard to where everything was really bad. It didn't matter. If you were accused, you were guilty. If you were guilty, the commanders didn't want you, the sergeant's major master guns didn't want you, and you were branded. And it could have been a simple mistake. And I'm not gonna talk specifics because I've had to deal with specific cases. But in the example of me teaching you how to drive, if you're driving a manual vehicle, I am not gonna touch you on your shoulder to get your attention in a vehicle that prohibits us from communicating verbally because of the noise and because of what's going on. I'm not gonna touch your shoulder because that could impact how you manipulate the steering wheel, it could impact how you shift the gears. What I'm gonna do is I'm gonna hit you on your thigh. Now, to somebody who's never been hit on their thigh before, that's immediately assault. And it's another gender. Didn't matter if I'm male and the person who touched my thigh is female, it didn't matter. In that example, without knowing the definitions, without clearly communicating what you're doing, that could be perceived as an unwanted touch. So that unwanted touch would brand that individual. And we had a phase in the Marine Corps where that that was a career enter. And to say everybody was walking around, afraid to make that, afraid to call that. I had very good staff. There was there was phenomenal Marines that I worked with as instructors, as cadres, as you know, master trainers at that particular schoolhouse, male, female, uh, gender regardless, you know, sexual preferences regardless. There was we we had a good mix of everybody who trusted that we could communicate it clearly. And so we did, and and I think I think that's a lot better to see what was happening at the schoolhouse in Fort Leonardwood, Missouri for the Motor Transportation Instruction Company, and to remember what I went through in 1993 in San Diego. And granted, infantry training is different than the motor tea training, hands down. But even defining what is right and what is wrong, we're doing it better now. So I say it is it is in a better swing. Whoever, if there's somebody out there listening and they're like, oh, we've got it hand down, we don't. It it always needs to improve just because communication always needs to improve. The the idea of definitions need to improve. And if there's one incident, that's one incident too much. I'm not looking at a zero incident. I I'm not I'm not looking at a piece of paper to say I want to have zero uh because that's the goal. No, I I want to have zero because that's better for the people, right? Chasing a goal is what I'm saying is the wrong thing. Getting people to act right and treat each other right is the goal. Now, IG side of the house. To say people chase the goal of zero, that's a real out that's a reality. There are certain individuals that that you know you you come across, they're not interested in the people effect. That's secondary to them. They're interested in the zero report effect, they're interested in the zero number. And I think that's the wrong goal. And I hope I'm explaining it right. One is looking at a stat, trying to fight a stat. One is looking at the people and trying to help the people. I want more people focused on people. They're the programs, the initiatives that are coming out of Quantico, that is coming down from the Commandant, these are new initiatives. Now, granted, I've I've been retired for a little bit, but on my way out the door, those initiatives were people-based. There was a time frame where they were number-based. The number-based approach is wrong. To tell a commander that their goal is to have zero reports, to have zero sexual assaults, yeah. But if that's all you're saying, that's the wrong way to communicate it. You want zero because then your people are better people.

SPEAKER_00: 1:08:06

Form by substance.

SPEAKER_01: 1:08:07

Yes.

SPEAKER_00: 1:08:11

Interesting. Um, and also the military is doing better because this is also the military adapting to changes in society, um, adapting to new ways of doing things in the military. Um so, you know, I, as an outsider, it sounds to me it's a bit of growing pains. And these things take time. Uh mistakes are gonna be made. Uh but it also seems that the military is doing what it can. It's an evolving system, uh, from what you're describing, um to to address uh these unfortunate incidents. Speaking of women in the military, having done a tremendous amount of time, having served in in combat, no speak to our listeners about the value that having women in the military brings to it.

SPEAKER_01: 1:09:20

Well, beyond just the the value of the different genders, the the value of of different ideas. I I want to have and and and I got in trouble, uh let me say it a different way. I was talked to by a sergeant major when I was a young staff sergeant because I made the comment that I don't care about the individual's sexual preference, where they come from, religion, height, color, or creed. I care that they can do a job. And and that that upset that particular uh sergeant major at the time because obviously uh he had different opinions, wrong opinions. Allowing a diverse collection of thought, allowing a diverse collection of people to build a force means that that force is going to be better. If if you look at, you know, and just just to take a page from George Lucas, right? If everybody's a stormtrooper, you're you're not getting any diversity of thought. Now, granted, you have a great force that's gonna, you know, march into the the battle and do what you tell them to do, but what if you don't tell them to do anything? When when that moment of chaos hits, that the plan goes crazy, what are they gonna do? Are they gonna know exactly what you meant by these particular communications? Is this order and this guidelines and these you know briefs, are they gonna be able to adapt to that and know what you mean? Are you gonna be able to communicate it clearly? No. They'll stand still. History has proven that. You know, uh and I'm not gonna go into that in my my theory is the better I have at diversity, and people don't like that word for whatever reason, but when I look at a unit, and if I see only one particular thing, I want to add something else. Yeah. So that I can get a better foundation, so that we can get better, you know, the the idea of everybody has to have the the same in and I mean I'm being very uh I this is not a realistic example. But if we all came from the exact same background, the exact same state, the exact same time, then when we got into a challenge, we would all have the ideally, we'd all only have one way to get out of it. Vice, one of my favorite commercials for the Marine Corps. Not the dragon slaying one that everyone's talking about because the one Marine found the sword and that's a big deal, and that's what got us in. We all want to slay old dragon. No, there was a commercial that came out about ten years ago for the Marine Corps, Marine Corps recruiting commercial. And what it did is it showed young individuals from all backgrounds, from all genders, from from all make, and it was to a beat of a drum. So it showed, you know, the the young female in the inner city, it showed uh the male playing football, it showed the female in in in uh Iowa out on a cornfield. It it just picked different parts of America, and it picked like eight different people, all of them greatly different. And then it showed them uh drilling in the Marine Corps. Like the final thing is that they all stood in line. And I'm like, that's what you want. I I want to have an individual, regardless of their their gender, sexual preference, I want them based on their capabilities. And if that is the standard, then we'll be good. And well, someone in in another conversation that I had recently was like, Whoa, when you look at how you know how people are built, when you look at the science of the human body, a male's body can do this, a female's body can do that. And I'm like, well, sure, that's why everybody has to have that same physical standard. If we're talking physical standards, yes. But in times where I have gone and done the crazy things and seen the crazy patrols, and you're you're going over the mountains in Afghanistan, you're marching through the deserts in Iraq, having the female lioness teams assigned to the unit, having the female Motor T operators out there in the trucks, I can tell you that yes, as much as our bodies are different, it's still the will of the person. And to where one of the arguments from the person I was talking to earlier in the week is like, well, I can't put uh you know a 70-pound pack on a female and and have her go the distance that I can have a male. I'm like, well, what male are we talking about? Now, yes, through the what through the process identifying individuals that have the capability to doing that, that's the key. To say blanket statement, well, because of the problems that we have with this particular thing, then we're gonna we're gonna draw the line in the sand to say no for everybody. I don't I don't I don't agree with that. I think that yes, having been in a schoolhouse, having seen the impact of heavy loads on different bodies, there there is a body type where me doing a McCree, which is a forced march over a certain amount of time with a certain amount of distance, that destroys certain bodies. It's easy for someone to say, well, it's susceptible to the female body because of the way their hips, there's yeah, but I can also look at other, let's say, uh, groups of body styles where it has the same impact. So am I going to outline all that? I don't think so. I think there is a capability that you have to look at.

SPEAKER_00: 1:15:13

In terms of standards, do you think the military, the Marine Corps has no, even if it was at a moment in time, lowered its standards to achieve or pursue diversity?

SPEAKER_01: 1:15:30

Um I don't think that it has that the Marine Corps specifically has done it with a specific goal of doing X. I think we have think tanks throughout throughout my time. Like again, early 90s, you you did your you know 20 plus miles forced march in a certain time frame. We hiked from Pakaloa training area down to the to the uh uh shipyard because it was required. You you did four laps around Kanyoe Bay because it was a Mercree time and you're being evaluated on your ability to do that. Uh one of my first Mews, we we we hit 12 miles in the desert of Egypt just because we needed to prove to the Mew commander that we could do 12 miles in the middle of Egypt. And okay, well, when I look at the shift of where our standards are, the physical standards, how we test that, I believe in the science of it. Now, I also believe that every system has its flaws, and to where I can't think of any time in any of my combat deployments where I did more than 20 miles with 30 pounds on my back. No, I can't. But you know what I can think of? I can think of going up to the LPOPs in the mountains between Afghanistan and Pakistan, and it being like one mile, but it feeling like 50 miles, and I definitely had more than 30 pounds in my pack because we had to get up there for a seven-day long-range patrol. So that standard, as it has changed, we no longer do McCree's. That's the whole point with that, right? Yeah. The idea of what I would call a McCree has changed. An evaluation for the combat readiness of a of an infantry unit within the United States Marine Corps is an evaluation that has changed. And it has changed because it needs to change. Um, the standards though, like hurting our backs because we were doing sit-ups. So we changed to crunches. Crunches does this, now we're doing planks. And the the learning curve for our physical evaluations has changed in the amount of our learning curve for electronics has changed. I'm not a physical fitness expert. Um, but I believe that the people that advise the Commandant, and when the Commandant says this is what we need to do as a service, I I believe that he's right. It's gonna take time for that to be acceptable, but just for the biggest for the audience, those people who may be listening that are Marines from the old school days, remember when we could kip? So I could get up on a pull-up bar and swing my body like a crazy person and you know do a gazillion pull-ups. But am I really doing pull-ups? Because I can't kip on the side of a ship. I can't kip on the side of a pickup. I can't I can't kip when I'm trying to get over a wall. And that was always the thing that I would tell the young Marines about, because yeah, uh I I set a record in boot camp for the most pull-ups, because I did over 50 pull-ups. They weren't real pull-ups, Maurice. I was kipping. I was swinging like a pendulum. Like these muscle ups that people do, minus the the high bar.

SPEAKER_00: 1:18:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:18:52

I could teach you how to do it. It's just manipulating your body weight to get over a bar. I just knew how to do it because I was a rock climber. And I weighed like 98 pounds back then. That didn't help me when we were in my first deployment to Australia and I had to get over a reef wall. Because I couldn't kip over the reef wall. I needed to use pure upper body strength. That didn't help me when I was trying to get in and out of the zodiac past the surf zone, because you can't really kip underwater. So, to the old school people, oh, we got rid of the kip, that's BS. Well, it's because we identified that that really wasn't a true testament of our upper body strength. So now all the changes that we do, we are getting better. There's still you know the differences. I know uh a young Marine who could put almost any of the listeners to shame on a pull-up bar. This this young lady is just uh physically fit. And yeah, can you can you credit her growing up in gymnastics? Can you credit her doing it? I could. But I could still say that there's a female out there that does twice as many pull-ups as I could ever do. Legit. To say that all females can't do the same standard, I I disagree with that statement. When you use all, when you use that word all, in any regards as a leader, when everybody, it's not true, not everybody. Not everybody. You ha you have to understand that. People have to understand that.

SPEAKER_00: 1:20:28

Speaking of standards and leaders, what are your comments or thoughts on former Major General James Matt's guidance? Do no harm.

SPEAKER_01: 1:20:41

Um in the wee mornings of sunrise in one of the deployments I had, I had a young platoon commander. And we had countless conversations of this. Right? Because we were we were still doing, you know, weapons cachets, we were still doing the long-range patrols in Afghanistan. And for every village that we went through, if we did harm, if if we did more than what was necessary, if we did it in a way that was determined by the locals to be over, he would say that we've created two more terrorists. So in his communications with us as a platoon, right, the do no harm concept is you you you want to go in, you want to have people understand the process, the point. But a lot of times you can't. So what you do is you minimize your impact on that area. You don't you don't level the city because of one sniper. In doing so, and and and and I'm I'm not trying to overstep my bounds here, but I also think of it not just in a combat zone. If I have an administrative punishment that I have to impose on somebody, why do I always have to use a heavy hammer? Hmm. There's other ways to do it. And and and the concept of to do no harm. Uh you don't spray and pray when you get shot at. I I have never witnessed a Marine simply close their eyes and pull the trigger until the magazine's empty. Maybe again, I've been very lucky with the people that I've served with, with the units I've been at. You just don't do that. You you know your target, you know what lies behind it, and you try to eliminate that threat. So to do no harm means that I'm only going after that threat. I'm I'm not gonna, like I said, you know, blow up the whole town because of the one sniper. And and in that, I I think that is good philosophy. You you don't want to salt the earth as the Romans did, just to prove that they could. Because that just creates more bad guys that that no longer have any respect or not necessarily respecting that example either, but that look now as at you as being the enemy.

SPEAKER_00: 1:23:08

As we come here uh to a close, any particular guidance uh you'd like to give to those that are in the military or considering a career in the military?

SPEAKER_01: 1:23:22

You know, I get I get to travel around now that I'm retired. I get to talk to families that I I I haven't talked to before because just, you know, second-third cousins, if you will. And they uh they always tend to ask me, you know, what what would you give to to the person who's getting ready to join the military? And I say, well, you know what I'd give them? I'd give them the same advice of the person who's getting ready to to sign a three-year contract with Walmart. Same advice that I'd give them to uh going down and and and joining that union to get that union job that they're gonna be stuck with paying union dues for you know X amount of years. Know what you're getting into. Don't don't ever look at that new assignment, that new billet, that new job, that new change in your life believing what somebody has told you. The people who do that, the people who get into those situations, they end up regretting it. Because I promise you, no matter what you're doing, I don't care if you win the lottery tomorrow and you think your life is set. Win the lottery tomorrow, a unlimited amount of dollars. Within the next year, you're gonna have a crappy day. And when you have that crappy day, you're gonna start internalizing those thoughts. And you're gonna think about the things that got you to that crappy day. When I talked to the Marines at the schoolhouses, I promised them that they were gonna have plenty of crappy days. Plenty of days where they're just staring at the darkness of the sky, wondering why they are there and what they did. And I would hope that at that moment it's because they made the decision, that they didn't listen to somebody else, that the promises that were provided, and everybody jokes about recruiters of all branches, everybody jokes about headhunters within different corporations and you know, different entities of the DOD and the DOS, and well, this is what what I was not promised. Yeah, well, you're promised than what you're looking to get out of. Think about that. Spend the extra three minutes in that quiet place, you're in your safe spot, and think about where you're gonna be in five years by making the decision to do that job, to change your life in that way. And if in five years you have that goal, you're going into that change of environment, you're going into that new place, at least with your eyes open and focused on something.

SPEAKER_00: 1:25:49

And if there happens to be anyone serving at a much higher level in the military or government listening to this podcast, what would you ask them to keep in mind as they're making decisions leading that's gonna have an impact on the entire organization under them?

SPEAKER_01: 1:26:12

I served with a a number of phenomenal generals. There's one that sticks out the most when you ask me that question. And uh for anybody that has ever served with them, they'll know the quote. I I would ask to them to take a walk around the fighting position. Take a walk around the fighting hole. And and what was meant by that, not just in the military side of the house, but in the corporate and federal, don't forget the basics of just taking a walk around the shop. Taking a walk around the bullpen. You know, when the general said that, it was on the idea that he would never forget that level of singular focus of attention of that fighting position and what it meant for the two people that were in it. The lower level, the the guy in the mailroom for corporate America, that that new agent in the Department of State. What's what's the impact of that decision gonna have on them? And if you don't know the answer to that, or if you don't care to know the answer to that, then maybe you're not as good as a leader as you think you are. So always take a walk around the fighting hole. Always take a walk around the position. You know, before you make any great change when you try to implement something, know what ripple effects are gonna take place. And if you don't know, ask. So that's what I would say.

SPEAKER_00: 1:27:47

Spencer, I deeply appreciate this. Uh you've given us a considerable amount of your time, uh, and I'm sure this is going to benefit at least someone out there, uh, whether it's just in their individual life or if they are in a position of responsibility, even immense responsibility. Uh so on behalf of the listeners, but especially myself, I deeply appreciate your willingness to uh share your experiences and thoughts.

SPEAKER_01: 1:28:13

No, thank you. Appreciate it.