When I look at the email objectively, I see a lieutenant colonel emailing a major (a slightly lower-ranking officer) to say, “Hey, we've noticed these trends, and we want to help make it easier for you.”
In September, Haas approached me at a meeting and basically said, “I was contacted by one of my peers who is mad because they feel like you're trying to tell his recruiting-station commanders how to do their job. You're being too direct.”
Up to that point, I hadn't had a lot of one-on-one interaction with my boss, but I didn't think we had a terrible relationship. It was awkward, but I thought that was because he was a super introvert, not because he thought I was a terrible CO.
It was the first time he said, “You're being too direct; you're being too aggressive; you're being too abrasive.”
I made the mistake of blurting out, “If I were a guy, you would never be telling me this.”
At that point, it was just him and me standing in the former food court that he now used to give his speeches to the company commanders, staff, and drill instructors prior to each new recruit class.
I watched his face turn red, and so I tried to go with logic.
“Well, sir, correct me if I'm wrong,” I said, “but I briefed you when I first got here that I wanted to build a bridge to the recruiters so we could increase the number of recruits that we're graduating. If you read the email, there's no ill intent there.”
That was the first time I think I ever made him angry. Before, when I disagreed with him on the duty issue, it was cordial, and he had even told me that he admired me for being willing to disagree. I understood I wasn't going to win, and that was it. But this time, he got mad. He was so passive-aggressive that he wouldn't say anything, I could just tell he was angry: There's not much you can do about the tomato face.
He later said that that was the beginning of the end for me.
Why? He essentially tried to put me in a corner to tell me I wasn't allowed to talk to the recruiting-station commanders.
He tried.
But, to me, this was a matter of principle. I told him that when I was selected for the job it was because someone on the selection board had thought my prior recruiting experience would be valuable at Parris Island.
“If you don't allow me to communicate with the recruiting-station commanding officers because you're afraid of what they might say to their colonels,” I told him, “we're missing the institutional perspective, and that's wrong.”
In other words, don't let little battles stand in the way of the Marine Corps’ mission.
By the end of a thirty-minute conversation, he said, “Just make sure you CC me on the emails.”
I did. Every single one. I sent probably two hundred of those emails in an eight-month period. He never came back and said, “Maybe you should word it differently,” or, “You might want to tone this down.” In fact, he never once even responded.
Hold that thought until the investigation. He apparently did.
This conversation was my first inkling that I was perceived differently by Haas because I was a woman. In each previous assignment, I had always dug in and worked hard. All of my performance reviews up to that point in my career had been stellar. I liked my co-workers. I enjoyed my job. I was known as a go-getter, and my opinion had been respected.
This time, I was aware I'd lost a battle. I knew he was not going to be a champion for big change. He was more concerned about having to answer the mail when he got complaints from his peers than in ensuring that all recruits were as tough and as strong as they could be before they got to boot camp. I knew it would be a challenge to work with him.
But I didn't realize I had, in his mind, disobeyed an order not to communicate with the recruiting station COs. He never counseled me. He didn't say, “Don't do that again.” Prior to this interaction, I didn't feel like we had a strong partnership or that he had my back, but I didn't feel like I was in trouble, either. I also felt that, because he had explicitly said to copy him on future emails, we had reached an agreement that it was okay to continue communicating with them as long as I kept him in the loop.
I felt like I was doing things for the right reasons. I continued to focus on that.
For example, when I first arrived at Parris Island, I had to brief VIPs when they came to visit. These included members of Congress, educators, journalists, and senior officers. They would come down to Parris Island, get a dog and pony show, and come out going, “I love the Marine Corps.” The Marine Corps has always been exceptionally good at the dog and pony show. You know—the cult and all.
Oorah and stuff.
We did these events called “educator workshops,” for which we bring in teachers from all over the nation. And a lot of the teachers are anti-military for their students, or they're sort of borderline. It makes sense, right? They see the kinds of kids who typically serve in our wars. In their view, it's not the rich. It's not the well-educated. It's not kids who have other opportunities.
These teachers have seen years of war with young people dying—their young people. There's a bigger conversation to be had about why we ask the very young, rather than those with life experience or other options, to serve. However—and I believe this with every bit of myself—the military can be a place of great opportunity and great pride for an awful lot of people. And it's honorable. It's a promise we make for the greater good. That's
