“I'm relieving you for lack of trust and confidence.”
I hate to do this.
I'm a big fan.
As I sat there, it didn't make any sense. It didn't jive with any of the meetings I'd had with him before that. This was the guy who came to see me on four separate occasions between January and May to tell me to keep doing what I was doing. “I know you're having problems with your boss,” he told me. “It's my job to fix colonels. Keep doing what you're doing.”
I think he expected me to fall apart when he relieved me of my duty.
I didn't. I'd had months to prepare. I wasn't going to give them the satisfaction of crying in front of them.
I know I'm not perfect. There were times when I did, in fact, roll my eyes when I got frustrated with some of the Marines. There were times when I interrupted people when they were giving me excuses. But none of that is a sign of a bad commander who doesn't care about her Marines. I knew they weren't firing me for my performance, for “lack of trust and confidence.”
He asked if I had any questions.
I demanded an immediate transfer to Washington, DC. I'll never forget the shocked expression on the general's face.
I wanted to be with Joe. I wanted to be home. I wanted copies of the investigations. And I wanted all of that immediately. I asked for approval to go on leave. I wanted to drive far away from Parris Island. When I had said my piece, I stood abruptly. I had no need for their words. As I turned my back on them and left the room, they had none.
At the crazy, pink house, I packed what I needed and began the drive home. It was only then that I fell apart, distraught. Once again, even with Mr. Fitzwizzle demanding attention while curled up in my lap, my thoughts grew dark.
I thought again of killing myself.
Looking back on it, I feel like a coward for feeling that way; but, even now, it's hard for me to imagine anything worse than what I had gone through.
I can't express to you how horrible I felt. My whole identity was tied up in the Marine Corps, and the Corps said I was an abusive failure. I cared about nothing more than promoting my Marines, and about making sure they were safe and supported—from recruit command to Fourth Battalion. Everything I had been working toward for the past twenty years had been for the Corps, and all of a sudden, they told me I was the worst leader on the planet, and they said it in a very public way.
Normally, the Marine Corps sends out some vague announcement about it being a “lack of trust and confidence.” But before I received copies of the investigations, the Corps had not only sent out a detailed statement regarding my relief but also had released the investigations to the media. That's highly unusual. Even the media were shocked. The brass worked hard to publicly make me look like a tyrant.
Any time you get relieved of your command, it's horrible. But if you're a commander, and you're relieved for abusive behavior? The only thing that could be worse is to be fired for dereliction of duty after causing Marines to be killed.
I had rolled my eyes.
They thought I wasn't going to fight back.
They thought I would abandon the progress we had made, and that I would desert the female Marines just as the opportunity arose to show how much they could achieve. I think the leadership at the Pentagon believed that, after I saw my tattered reputation in the morning newspapers, I would crawl in a hole and die.
They should have known better.
I'm a Marine.
Kate,
This is your old EWS facad [faculty advisor], Sumo. I have just read about what happened to you. Let me know if I can help. I don't know the whole story and really only see the tip of the iceberg, but I believe if you were a male there would be no issues with anything you did or didn't do.
By the way, I don't jump to the aid of all my old Marines just because I hear about them in the paper. You are the first.
Hang in there and stay true to yourself.
Respectfully,
Sumo
Colonel Thomas K. Hobbs, USMC
Marine Attache, DAO Tokyo
As I worked to show that female recruits held to higher standards succeeded at higher rates, the Marine Corps worked to show the Pentagon that female Marines only held back the men.
Why?
The Marine Corps leadership did not want women in the infantry.
According to Marine Corps leadership, women in what I would argue is the Defense Department's most elite branch could not be trained to meet high standards in marksmanship, physical fitness, and leadership. As I was showing that they could, the Marine Corps put together a study to show that they could not.
This is why I was fired.
Just as I took over Fourth Battalion, the Marine Corps began its gender-integration study. Women would participate in teams with men to perform combat skills. The integrated teams would compete against all-male teams. The catch? The women had been trained in Fourth Battalion—before I got there and before anyone expected them to succeed. They started at a disadvantage.
Still, I had hoped to participate in the study, and I remember being surprised, at the time, that nobody reached out to me. I was, after all, conducting the Marine Corps’ initial training for female recruits. If you want female Marines to succeed at higher levels of training, it seems as if you would want them to come out of boot camp strong.
Oh. Right.
I made my first mistake at Fourth Battalion by coming at the role from a position of logic. I thought about success from a traditional standpoint:
