In the meantime, I told Colonel Haas I would not recommend the previous first sergeant for an end-of-tour award. He knew all of the problems—I know he did, because he had to sign off on the investigations into her drill instructors’ bad behavior. He knew she fought with her company commander, quit twice, and couldn't function well enough to serve in a leadership position. Not only that, the stats for the company during her tour as the first sergeant were below average.
Despite all of this, without talking to me about it, Colonel Haas gave her an award. She retired with full honors and a ceremony.
In my opinion, she should have been sent home with nothing but her discharge certificate; but that would have required him to acknowledge that what I was saying was true.
In any case, after the new first sergeant and new company commander arrived, we saw progress in November Company. The old drill instructors still had some control, and those who liked the previous first sergeant didn't much like me or the changes I made. When you've had someone in charge of you for two and a half years, and they told you to be hard on the recruits and to show them who's boss, it's hard to change your habits and mind-set. I pretty much had to wait until they left. But as new drill instructors replaced the old, things improved exponentially, and the new company leadership team was a resounding success.
I continued to wait it out. The bad apples would leave. Colonel Haas would leave. Most of my Marines were doing great work. I had one more year before I retired to make significant progress.
And, there had been signs that, despite some negativity, my Marines’ morale was high and they enjoyed working with me.
One morning in early March, as I moved between pride in my Marines for all they had accomplished and a sense of dread about Colonel Haas's desire to fire me, I walked into my office and almost fell over laughing. My Marines had filled my office with crepe-paper decorations and “Happy Birthday” messages. But the best part? Some of my Marines had placed about a hundred plastic cups full of water all the way from my desk to my door so I had to go through an obstacle course to get to my desk. I was rolling—just laughing so hard, like someone had released a pressure gauge. That was my forty-third birthday.
A week or two later, Brigadier General Williams had a reception at the Marine museum on base. I mentioned I had just had a birthday, and he asked how old I was. I told him I was forty-three. He started joking with me about my age, and I showed him a picture of the ocean of cups in my office and told him how fun some of my Marines were to work with.
“See?” he said. “I knew your Marines didn't hate you.”
Whaaat?
Although the birthday prank had taken my mind off of my worries about Colonel Haas, I now knew better than to relax.
Even though I had been avoiding Colonel Haas, I had apparently been on his mind.
In March, shortly after the reception, my battalion—and only my battalion—was notified that we would be inspected by the Commanding General's Inspection Program team, led by the depot inspector general. This was a highly unusual occurrence, since for at least the previous decade, no training battalions had been required to participate in the inspection program. They were essentially exempt. And now, all of a sudden, we were given forty-eight hours’ notice that we would face an onslaught of inspections of all of our administrative and training programs.
It might not seem like a big deal, but it switches up your whole world—throws your training off and changes the mood of the battalion to something resembling pure panic. Everyone knew something was up in Fourth Battalion. Why else would we be selected for this type of invasive, all-out inspection?
At the time, I didn't think it was too weird that we were the only battalion inspected. I figured it was possible that the regiment had been notified by the depot inspector general that they needed to choose a training battalion to inspect, and we had been picked out of a hat. Anything is possible.
And, fortunately, even though we had so little notice, we were ready. When I had arrived at the battalion in June 2014, I made my officers go back to their inspection checklists for their respective areas of responsibility to learn what they needed to know and ensure we were following regulations by the book. I figured that if we were following regulations and everyone knew the regulations applicable to her daily tasks, whether related to safety, administration, supply, or training, we would better serve the personnel in the battalion. That is a Marine value—brilliance in the basics.
I think Brigadier General Williams just wanted everything to go away at that point: He wanted Colonel Haas to leave. He wanted the new guy to come in. He wanted to conduct the inspection and disprove Colonel Haas's suspicions that things were screwed up at Fourth Battalion.
We passed the inspection with a 93 percent, which is really good for a training battalion. We shocked them. Unfortunately, it also seemed to anger Colonel Haas. I believe that he had selected us for a reason: If we had failed the inspection, he could have said, “She's a terrible leader. Not only is she mean to her Marines, she can't even pass an inspection.”
In other words, I think this inspection was a way for him to justify firing me.
Just as I started to think I was losing my mind, the inspector general who conducted the inspection for General Williams told me, “Keep doing the things you're doing because I hear good things from your Marines.”
Once again, just like the birthday water cups, it showed that most of my
