In the meantime, I marched along with my recruits for every single Crucible hike. In fact, because of our training cycle, I ended up doing the Crucible hike every two weeks, hiking from start to finish, because that's my job as a commander. The male battalion commanders only had to do the hike once a month. Had he actually participated in training events, Colonel Haas would have seen that the battalion commanders from First and Second Battalions had no issue with the integrated hikes.
Anywhere else in the Marine Corps, it would have been expected for a regimental commander to participate in training events regularly. We are raised to believe that leaders set the example for their Marines to follow, so participation is critical. As a regimental commander, he never did a Crucible hike with his subordinate commanders, until the month before he had his change of command.
If he had hiked with us, he would have seen how Kissoon treated his subordinates, and how those subordinates treated their recruits.
If he had hiked with us, he would have seen how Kissoon treated me in public.
It was a long hike, so we had rest stops where the recruits could get a piece of fruit and some water or Gatorade. The commanders would gather to chat. Josh wouldn't acknowledge me—wouldn't say hello, particularly if his Marines were there. Imagine if you were one of his recruits: You've got your male commander who won't recognize a female commander in front of his men. What do you think those men thought?
This certainly wasn't the first problem I had with Kissoon.
Three months into my tour, Colonel Haas went on leave. His executive officer was unavailable, so he had Kissoon fill in for him while he was gone. Normally in the Marine Corps, the most senior officer automatically fills in as the acting CO. Kissoon totally had him fooled. Another commander, whom I liked a lot, was also prior-service and had arrived on the depot before Kissoon.
But Haas picked Kissoon to be acting regimental commander. We clashed for the first time during a “pick-up brief” before new recruits arrived at our battalions.
Before every class of recruits was picked up for training, the DIs and officers were required to complete refresher training on the Recruit Training Order and safety requirements and procedures. At the end of the refresher training, the regimental commander told us his expectations during what was called his pick-up brief. Not every graduating class at Parris Island had female recruits, but Kissoon had been assigned as the acting CO when one of my female classes was getting picked up for training, which meant that he gave the pick-up brief comments to the drill instructors and company staff members for Colonel Haas.
About twenty minutes after the pick-up brief, I got a phone call from one of my company commanders who I thought was amazing—she'll be a general officer one day if she stays in. She led Oscar Company.
“I just wanted to let you know that, after you left, I had a really weird run-in with Lieutenant Colonel Kissoon,” she said.
She said she was standing in a passageway with Kissoon after he made his comments for the colonel, and he was joking with her and another Marine.
She told me that he had made comments about how everyone knows how it is at Fourth Battalion, with all that drama. In other words, the women couldn't get along with each other and were too emotional to be able to train properly—like we were all PMSing and, therefore, couldn't be expected to excel with a rifle or on a ruck march. This attitude reverberated throughout the regiment: Why bother with proper guidance or have high expectations if the women's hormonal imbalances can't be overcome? She told me, “I didn't really feel like I could say anything.”
I wish she had said something to defend the female recruits and staff, but I could see why she was uncomfortable. “All that drama” is passive-aggressive and hard to define, so it's hard to respond to. I find the best way to combat passive-aggressiveness is directly: “You should come see our training. Our women are kicking ass,” or, “I think you'll find that, with proper training and leadership, there's no more drama in Fourth Battalion than in any other battalion,” or, “Gosh, sir. Our marksmanship scores last cycle were record-level. What were yours?” Instead, she said, she laughed it off. And that makes sense, too, but, as a result of her laughter, he thought it was okay to talk that way. Still, I was glad she told me about what had happened, and I told her I would give him a call.
I can't say I looked forward to it. But I called him.
“Hey, I just had a call from one of my commanders,” I said to him. “I wanted to clear the air on something so we don't have any issues as we move forward.”
I told him about everything we had been working on, and that the company commander he had spoken with after the brief had been part of it and had incredible integrity. I told him that despite Oscar being the largest company in the battalion, she was leading Fourth Battalion's top-performing company. I told him I was doing everything I could to improve the training and performance of my female recruits, to make the Marine Corps stronger. Part of that change, I said, had to be eliminating the perception on the depot that Fourth Battalion was the Fourth Dimension and that because we were all women, that there was a lot of drama. Out of nowhere, he started yelling at me, cussing.
I remember taking a deep breath and saying calmly, “I'm sorry you feel that way. But we're all focused on making our recruits the strongest they can be, and
