It had worked before, so I was hopeful it would again.
In the process, I hoped buy-in from the boss would help me gain buy-in from my Marines.
Heartbreakingly fast, I realized I would not have buy-in from the boss on this tour. Not only that, but he would work behind the scenes to undermine pretty much everything I would attempt, often in ways that I didn't find out about until much later—just as my predecessor had predicted. I hoped that if I could just show him that the changes could bring success and that success would reflect well on the unit, and therefore, on him, he would come around.
I had the magic combo that 99 percent of the leadership at Parris Island didn't have: I was a woman and I had achieved significant success on recruiting duty before making my way to the drill field.
I was awfully naive.
Just as I did on recruiting, I looked at how hard my Marines had to work and how much time they got off. During the thirteen-week training cycle, drill instructors work a lot of long days. But I quickly learned that because of a shortage of female drill instructors, my Marines were working way harder than their male counterparts.
I know. Everybody act surprised.
Let's break down this organization: I was the battalion commander. My battalion had four companies: a headquarters company and three training companies. Captains head up each of the companies, and the expectation is that executive officers—lieutenants or other captains—are there to assist the company commanders with their administrative tasks.
Within those companies, all but Oscar Company had two series, a series being two platoons of recruits that trained together. O Company had recently gained a third series to afford the DIs more time off between their training cycles—or between graduation of the latest Marines and arrival of the new recruits.
Let's break down the numbers: Since each company had two series—except for Oscar, which had three—each company had between 228 and 264 recruits; each series had between 114 and 130 recruits; and each platoon had between 57 and 74 recruits. Each series was led by a series commander—a captain or a lieutenant, and a series chief—usually a staff sergeant. Everyone in my battalion except my logistics officer was a woman.
If you're tracking, that's up to 1,000 people in my battalion at any given time, including drill instructors, staff, and recruits.
For those who are not familiar with how the Marines are ranked, I offer here a super-basic rank primer:
Enlisted:
E-1 Private
E-2 Private First Class
E-3 Lance Corporal
E-4 Corporal
Non-Commissioned Officers (including the higher-ranking enlisted—drill instructors are NCOs):
E-5 Sergeant
E-6 Staff Sergeant
E-7 Gunnery Sergeant
E-8 Master Sergeant (First Sergeant)
E-9 Master Gunnery Sergeant (Sergeant Major)
Commissioned Officers (including platoon leaders, company commanders, me, my boss):
O-1 Second Lieutenant
O-2 First Lieutenant
O-3 Captain
O-4 Major
O-5 Lieutenant Colonel (My rank)
O-6 Colonel
O-7 Brigadier General
O-8 Major General
O-9 Lieutenant General
O-10 General
If you were a new recruit, I'd make you memorize that.
A drill-instructor tour is a bit different from every other imaginable job: A DI is responsible not only for looking after sixty or so recruits during a 9–5 day but also for essentially babysitting them twenty-four hours a day—to make sure that they're memorizing knowledge and following rules, such as not mixing with the opposite sex, smoking cigarettes, or fighting. There is also a duty drill instructor around at night, to do health and hygiene inspections, conduct training after the regular day has ended, and make sure the recruits are getting enough sleep.
There's always, always supposed to be at least one drill instructor in the barracks prior to the start of the day and after the training schedule is complete for the day. Think about it: There are about sixty people in an open bay, which is basically a large room filled with bunk beds and lockers. The majority of the recruits are younger than twenty-two. There are personality conflicts, bouts of homesickness, and huge levels of stress.
It ain't a slumber party.
But the shortages in female drill instructors and officers made staffing at Fourth Battalion a challenge. We were supposed to have eighteen officers, but we had only fourteen throughout my time at Parris Island.
We were supposed to have seventy-nine drill instructors. We averaged fewer than sixty-four.
Things looked dramatically different between male and female battalions.
For the men, there were generally four or five drill instructors per platoon. That meant that each individual had to fill the twenty-four-hour duty requirements only once every four to five days.
But for the women, we had three teams with three drill instructors per team because we were so short on people. That meant the female drill instructors were standing duty twenty-four-hours-a-day once every other day!
Try to imagine that for a second: Do you remember finals week? When you had to pull all-nighters? Now think about doing it every other day—without the pizza and care packages and light at the end of the tunnel.
I'll bet you never thought you'd feel sorry for a DI.
A good drill instructor can scare the bejesus out of a person while still keeping that person safe and building up that person's physical strength, skills, and confidence level. But it's much harder to do those things without sleep. It's also a lot tougher to control your emotions when you are sleep-deprived, as any new parent knows.
Because we were short officers, none of my companies had executive officers. The company commanders had little relief, and we constantly had to limit time off because of the supervision requirements during the training cycle.
This played out for my Marines’ families in ways that were equally as important. I looked at how many of my drill instructors were married with kids or single parents with kids, as well as where those children were living. We had anywhere between twelve and twenty-three single parents who were trying to work those ten-hour days or twenty-four-hour shifts while they took care of their families, or who had shipped their children off to grandparents or other
