He ranked me last.
None of our achievements at Fourth Battalion mattered, even though they were historic for the Marine Corps.
Nothing mattered.
When my Marines failed to correct mistakes, I had documented everything to show that I laid out my expectations to them, trained them, observed them, and attempted to improve their performance. He didn't have any documentation to support his review: No counseling statements. No memorandums for the record. No notes saying, “I spent time with her this day, this day, and this day to make sure she understood my guidance and my desires for her leadership.”
Nothing.
He had no tangible evidence to base his perceptions on. It was all based on complaints from individuals who were seeking out something that they wanted for personal reasons—individuals whom I had counseled and issued counseling statements to. As revealed later in the investigation against me, it turned out that Marines who didn't like me (because I said they had to do their job the way I said they had to do it) would go to him and say I was being mean or unfair. That's all he had to back his decision to rank me last.
For Colonel Haas, there were no specifics on why I was considered substandard, even in the performance review.
There's more.
Despite being well aware of the unusual dynamic between Colonel Haas and me, Brigadier General Williams signed off on the report. He's the one who said he saw what was going on—the one who had asked me to wait it out.
He wrote:
An active commander who sought every opportunity to improve the operating results of her command. Fully engaged in the details of recruit training, she contributed to the improvement of initial marksmanship qualification rates by coordinating with WFTBn to ensure their efforts complemented each other. Maintained regular communication with recruiting stations to ensure they were aware of any challenges their recruits encountered. Focused on improving processes and outcomes, she developed a staffing structure to ensure the most capable leaders were in senior billets.
Average.
Not only that, he praised me for keeping in touch with the recruiting stations—something that came out in the investigation as a mark against me.
Two days later, after consulting with Joe and my sergeant major, I requested mast. I had asked Colonel Haas to have a mediator present in our meetings, which he had denied. I made the request again to Brigadier General Williams, but I also asked that a new command-climate survey be conducted, one that would require every Marine to participate using his or her own individual passwords. And I accused Colonel Haas of creating a hostile work environment by subverting my authority and allowing my subordinates to go directly to him to complain about me. I also laid out the case for gender bias at Parris Island due to segregated boot camp.
My request mast application had to be routed through Colonel Haas so he could ask if I was sure there was nothing he could do at his level to resolve my complaints. Of course I said no.
I handed the envelope to him, and then watched as his face turned bright red.
It was clear that he was pissed.
When a lieutenant colonel requests mast because of a bad relationship with her boss, including accusations of gender bias and a hostile work environment, that's a big deal.
As I mentioned earlier, my husband, Joe, had retired from the Marine Corps a few months before all of this, but he still had close friends and colleagues working in the commandant's office. As I was dealing with Colonel Haas at the regiment level, Joe was hearing about meetings and briefings happening all the way up to General Dunford's level. I wasn't being investigated for misconduct. There had been no official complaints about my behavior. But I was the subject of conversations by the most senior leaders in the Marine Corps at the Pentagon. And the crazy thing is that these conversations were about how they could get me out of Parris Island.
That's bizarre—like Alice in Wonderland bizarre—for a couple of reasons:
No one at that level should have cared at all about what was going on with a lieutenant colonel in charge of a battalion. It would be like the president of the United States’ cabinet worrying about a staff aide for a county official in, say, Nebraska. Battalion commanders are important to the people who serve under us, but our problems typically get handled at the local level—by the commanding general of the recruit depot, for instance—unless somebody dies or there's an abuse scandal.
No action should have been taken until an investigation into my request mast complaints had been opened, conducted, and completed. The point of an investigation is to have an objective report of a situation. In this case, it should have determined the actual facts in the situation, as well as who, if anyone, was at fault. In lieu of an investigation, all we had was a command-climate survey indicating that I rolled my eyes, and a company commander's fear that I was going to withhold her end-of-service award (which I had already signed off on); yet the Commandant of the Marine Corps—the highest-ranking officer in the Corps and a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff—was already involved.
More than that, Joe heard rumors that the commandant and his senior Marine lawyer were trying to figure out how to get rid of me, no matter what.
We hoped that the request mast would somehow save me by allowing me to tell my side of the story.
The next day, I was at Page Field, where we conduct Crucible training. Despite being on pins and needles while waiting for a reaction by the depot leadership to my request mast, I was out observing my Marines and watching how the recruits were doing. My cell phone rang. It was General Williams.
“I've got your request for mast,” he told me. “I want you to know I'm concerned. One of your Marines says she's afraid of reprisal.” This was odd, because
