I decided not to be negative about it.
“Okay, this is progress,” I thought. “Maybe the general has already begun mentoring him.”
In hindsight, I realize the general may also have questioned Colonel Haas's lack of documentation about my performance and attitude. It's hard to fire a lieutenant colonel without backing yourself up with paperwork.
Looking back, I think Colonel Haas was even angrier that he lost the fight with the general to fire me.
In the middle of January, he called me about November Company's CO.
“Okay,” he said. “You can fire her.”
I had three recruit training companies in my battalion, and Oscar Company went gangbusters with the new training goals. They blew off the roof with their numbers. They bought into the program, had good leaders in key positions, and understood what it would mean for all Marine Corps women if our female recruits were to excel in boot camp.
After Colonel Haas finally allowed me to fire the old company commander in January, November Company also started making progress under the leadership of the new company commander, although we still had some abuse issues to sort out. Some of the old commander's DIs were not happy about her relief, so I was waiting it out until, one by one, they transferred to a new duty station and we could change the culture in that company. I hand-selected the new company commander—a strong and engaged leader—and I knew her enthusiasm and positive mental attitude would be good for her Marines.
Overall, I felt like things were going pretty well.
However, Papa Company had a first sergeant who compensated for being a female Marine by being super-aggressive and tough as nails. Earlier in my career, I had also fallen prey to the idea that I needed to compensate for a lack of testosterone by being harder and tougher than my peers. Fortunately, after my recruiting-command tour, I realized I needed to focus on being comfortable in my own skin. Unfortunately, Papa Company's first sergeant had never matured to that point. As I said, she controlled her CO and made it clear to the enlisted Marines that the company commander wasn't really in charge.
You would think that the company commander would have been embarrassed by her lack of authority, but she cared more about being liked. She planned to marry a company commander from one of the male battalions, and she spent more time planning her wedding than supervising her Marines. During intramural soccer season, she regularly rushed off early to make it in time to practices and games.
Apparently, the soccer team needed her more than her Marines did.
So her first sergeant took over for her, running Papa Company.
I started working with them both to hold them accountable for improving the climate within their company. Because the first sergeant was so harsh, recruits didn't benefit from some of the new battalion changes. She showed no empathy. If a recruit said she was sick, the interaction with her first sergeant would leave her believing she was weak. If a recruit said she was sore from PT, she got no stretching tips. She instead learned that she was weak. If a recruit struggled learning to zero her rifle…You guessed it: Weak.
The same went for Papa Company's DIs.
It was so bad that one of their Marines was admitted to a psychiatric ward. She said that she was so distraught about how she was treated within her company that she wanted to drink herself to death.
Members of Papa Company also struggled to make progress with their numbers.
Still, I didn't think their company commander was failing. I just thought she needed to be taught and mentored. It never occurred to me that she wouldn't finish her tour successfully in May. But I would have been wrong to look the other way at the problems in her company.
Especially after the fistfight.
A sergeant punched a staff sergeant.
Punching other Marines at work is frowned upon. Punching Marines who outrank you can end your career.
To compensate for the lack of staff sergeants assigned to Fourth Battalion, we had several sergeants serving as senior drill instructors. When I took command of the battalion, I wanted to ensure that the strongest leaders were assigned to key leadership positions like the senior drill-instructor billet. The senior DIs, who wore black patent-leather belts, rather than green belts, to signify their leadership status, played a critical quality-control role in that they were not only there to lead, mentor, and train their drill-instructor team, but also to ensure the recruits had a person they felt comfortable going to regarding inappropriate conduct in the platoon—by other recruits or by drill instructors.
I wanted to make sure we chose only the most trustworthy leaders for the role, so we implemented a board-selection process. Candidates went through an oral examination in front of a group of more senior and experienced officers and enlisted members of the battalion. The board members asked basic knowledge questions about recruit-training regulations, but they might also ask how a person would deal with a specific situation or leadership challenge.
Our career-progression boards helped to ensure that only the best NCOs filled those senior DI slots, no matter their rank. We had some good sergeants do a great job in senior positions. It also allowed us some relief from our shortage of staff sergeants since we had plenty of sergeants in the battalion.
But that didn't last. A few sergeants who had been placed in senior DI positions in the male battalions got in some trouble, so the regiment developed a policy that prohibited sergeants from serving as senior DIs if there were staff sergeants available. So, if we had a poorly performing staff sergeant and a great sergeant, the staff
