My people started earning awards, which not only feels good but also shows up on their performance reviews and in their records for promotion. We became the district's top recruiting station for quality the first year. By the second year, we were the region's top-quality recruiting station, and we took Recruiting Station of the Year in my final year.
It was good for the Marines.
That was my job as commanding officer. I gave quality of life back to my Marines, and we worked together to make them successful. They stopped getting into trouble, and when it was time for them to go to their next duty stations, their families went with them, intact. It wasn't always easy, and it tested my relationships with my recruiters at times.
But when we started tying performance to metrics, things changed. Attrition went down. My recruiters had more time off. And we graduated committed, tougher, faster, stronger Marines.
See? Easy-peasy.
That's the best kind of awesome.
Kate,
I wanted to let you know how proud I am of you. What you have done bodes well for all service members, not to mention my Army 2d Lt daughter who starts field artillery school today. If you ever need to talk, I am available. Keep your head up high. God Bless you.
Semper Fi,
W. Lee Miller, Jr. [my 31st MEU CO, and the best boss I ever had]
MajGen USMC
Chief of Staff, USSOCOM
I learned something else at the recruiting station—something that perhaps should have been obvious at several points along my military career, but that I had been blind to.
Now I see it everywhere.
Throughout my career, I believed that if I were tough—if the women within my command were strong—they would be safe. Bad things wouldn't happen to them. They wouldn't be harassed. They wouldn't be assaulted. They wouldn't be belittled.
They wouldn't be raped.
Looking back, that's a great source of shame. I believed this: If you're tough, it won't happen to you. If you're tough, they won't treat you that way. I put that pressure on my female Marines. I feel terrible about that.
It comes, in part, from military training. It's part of our culture; and it encompasses a whole series of issues. The first, and probably largest, is that if you show up at your company and you're one of a handful of women, you already stick out like a Marine in a bunny suit. Chances are, you're going to work hard to fit in by trying to be like one of the guys.
When you are the minority in a hypermasculine culture, it is an almost-impossible task. You try hard to fit in, even if it means denying help to or affinity with those of “your kind.” We tend to stay away from those who are known as being “trouble,” which can include any woman who makes an accusation of sexual harassment or assault. If a female Marine is known for dating around, we assume she could have avoided bad situations by “behaving better.” She's the drunk girl. She's the too-friendly girl.
She's the weak girl.
This is the very definition of victim blaming, right?
It plays out in other ways: If a female Marine is seen as a weak link because she isn't a strong performer or is a “problem,” and an accused assailant is well-liked within the company and known for his strong performance, why would a commander go out of his or her way to thoroughly investigate a harassment accusation? In the military, the commander decides whether to investigate allegations.
Here's the thing: If women are trying to fit in and be one of the guys, they're not working to mentor each other. We're not reaching down and lifting up. Part of that is also a matter of numbers—there aren't a lot of us, and certainly not in leadership positions, as I talked about earlier.
But some of it is being blind to a problem if you feel that it hasn't affected you directly, personally.
That's exactly why the #MeToo online campaign hit so hard in late 2017: Women everywhere had assumed they were the only ones who had faced harassment, or that they hadn't, in fact, faced harassment, because being catcalled or asked out by your boss or badmouthed by coworkers is so common that it is seen as normal. #MeToo showed them they were not alone, and that those behaviors are bad and should not be tolerated.
But I had tolerated it. I hadn't called it out when it happened to me, and I didn't look for it to make sure it didn't happen to the women in my command. I am responsible only for me, but I was not the only one who didn't work to beat it down.
In fact, sexual-harassment briefings in the military can be places for jokes or denigration of women. Commonly, the man becomes the victim. “Don't shut the door behind you in an office if you're counseling a woman, because she might accuse you of harassment.” “Watch your back with women you're dating: She may later accuse you of rape.” Or there's the chestnut about how many he-said/she-said situations are really about a woman later seeking revenge, so she reported the guy she had willingly slept with.
Does it happen? Sure. Occasionally but not usually. And just like “date rape” on college campuses, we shouldn't be putting it all on the woman, blaming the victim. We sure as hell shouldn't believe it's a woman's fault if she is harassed or assaulted, because she drinks or goes to a party or walks by herself or dates. It's the assailant's fault, period.
But most shameful to me as an officer is that senior women in
