From what I gathered, her impression was that the Marine Corps wanted the narrative to be that Kate was a toxic commander and they did something about it, but Gretel wasn't buying that.
On July 2, 2015, Gretel published a story titled “Marines Sack Commander of Female Boot Camp Training” and described Kate's repeated clashes with her leadership over the issue of gender bias and its negative impacts on female performance. Here's a snippet.
Kovach wrote: “Germano…has been outspoken about what she sees as lower expectations for female recruits and a lack of male-female competition at boot camp, which she feels hurts performance.”
And an officer who served with Kate said she “lost her job because of a difference in philosophy about the future of women in the Marine Corps.”
The officer said: “She is the kind of strong-caliber leader the Marine Corps needs. Firm, with high expectations, fair and compassionate….”
In the PR industry, we call this the moment a story starts “going sideways” on you. Clearly there was more to the story than the Corps’ “toxic commander” narrative. I wanted the public to know that.
Gretel also told me that while she was researching my claim, a Marine Corps general called her to tell her that he had served with Colonel Haas, that he thought Haas was a weak leader, and that his one regret was not being in a position to do more to protect Kate. Unsolicited from me, she was getting information from her contacts in the Marine Corps.
In the meantime, the Marine Corps seemed to be doing its best to disparage Kate and was handing out copies of the investigation into Kate's command, which we had not yet seen, to reporters.6 I have no doubt that the Corps expected its negative version to come out in Marine Corps Times and set the tone for the story going forward.
Gretel's story came out first.
My contacts in the Pentagon told me that this had an “unbalancing” effect on the leadership. They started to realize we weren't following the lay-in-the-gutter-and-take-it pattern of behavior for relieved commanders.
I asked several people to speak up for Kate to help us tell her story. They did, unanimously.
I also asked Kate if we should contact her sergeant major.
“She and I have talked about this,” Kate said. “I'm sure she will.”
But when Kate called, nobody answered the phone.
So she tried emailing her as she was heading home to Maryland from South Carolina: “Would you be willing to speak, without attribution, to the media?”
Sergeant Major responded by saying that she'd really like to put this behind her, that she was sorry, and that she wished she could help.
I texted the sergeant major and she responded that she wasn't turning her back on Kate but that she needed to get into recovery mode after everything that went down.
It was pretty clear to me that Judith Iscariot was taking her thirty pieces of silver and going home.
I suspect that the sergeant major had received the loyalty speech from the depot sergeant major, which probably went something like: “This is going South. Germano's a sinking ship. You're either going to stay afloat and be strong for the battalion and the Marines, or it's curtains for you. It's your choice.”
So she did what most people would do and went with the flow.
Marines always want to thump their chests and talk about what's important and matters of principle. But when it comes to standing up to the institution, most Marines will flinch most of the time. It's the rare few who take action and speak out against the tribe.
It was supremely disappointing, but mobbing theory explains why she gave up on Kate.
Loyalty to the institution is important in the Corps, and it carries a tremendous amount of pressure.
Recently, a friend of ours broke the story on the Marines United scandal—in which nearly 30,000 Marines and Marine Corps veterans were cyber-stalking active-duty women and posting nude photos of women they didn't like online—a classic case of revenge porn.
Our reporter friend had served in the Marine Corps but had been out for a few years. He told me that he went to the Corps in good faith with the evidence he collected, but the Marine Corps’ leadership and public affairs officials didn't like where he was going. During a meeting, he said these officials questioned his loyalty to the Corps and asked whether he was a Marine first or a reporter first.
Loyalty.
So much for the Corps’ stated organizational values of honor, courage, and commitment.
Don't get me wrong. I love the Marines, but I want to see the Corps live up to its ideals.
Here's the thing: the Marines and the Marine Corps are two entirely different entities. It took me a while to understand that.
Navigating the media onslaught was tough. It's not easy when your house becomes a glass box, but, in a crisis, you just have to embrace it and use it to your advantage. You have to fight on the ground you are on—not on the ground you wished to be upon.
The media's coverage helped Kate see that she had it right and she wasn't alone. Crucibles like this inevitably make you start to question your own sanity. At one point, she said, “Isn't it sad that the American public gets it, and the military doesn't? The public expects female Marines to be able to run and shoot. I'm not losing my mind.”
For us, this never was about Kate. It was about the greater, higher purpose: creating a better training environment for women so that they could perform better. By increasing female performance, Kate and her team were helping build a more operationally capable Marine Corps. This is obvious. It's common sense. But the Corps leadership wasn't getting it. I don't think they wanted to get it, because it eroded their arguments against integrating ground-combat units.
As we engaged the media, we
