History

I will discuss a topic long forgotten in this country--draft dodgers. Yes, I know it's not a popular topic. Those who would single out those who evaded the Vietnam War by flight are now classified as right wing radical hawks. Though the classification is inaccurate, number me among that group. There is a very precise term that applies to those that sought refuge in Canada or elsewhere during the Vietnam War. They are cowards.

We learned many lessons from Vietnam that were applied in the Gulf War. Showing up with the forces, equipment, and will to win was foremost. A close second was rallying the support of the nation behind our fighting forces. In truly a remarkable feat of domestic Machiavellian statesmanship, the administration diverted the bulk of attention from why we were fighting to the need to support our troops. In a protracted ground conflict, the success of this approach may have been short lived. But on this stage, it achieved its goal and the United States conducted a major regional conflict with negligible civil unrest. These were major victories for the administration.

One lesson from the Vietnam War was not put to the test, nor has it truly been learned. That is what to do about those that flee our country when called to service. We didn't have to address this in the Gulf War because the all volunteer force was sufficient to the task. We should not fool ourselves that we will not have to deal with this question again. China has openly stated it wants to be able to defeat the United States in armed conflict early in this century. Terrorism continues to be the strategy of choice for those that oppose our nation, and that battlefield continues to move closer to home. The current demographics in this country may not support the volunteer manning levels that our armed forces currently require. While our country may be blessed with good fortune, we should expect to see the draft again.

Earlier I stated that those that fled the country were cowards. I'm sure that boiled the blood of many that believed that the Vietnam War was wrong. I don't take issue with those that opposed the war. I take issue with those that opposed it and abandoned their country. The men that accepted the call to service and were sent in harm's way did their duty. The men that opposed the war had the same duty to stand for their convictions. They likely would have been standing in prisons and jails around the country, but they would have been standing for what they believed. Imagine how much more quickly the issues of the Vietnam War would have come to light if a large percentage of Lyndon Johnson's great society had been in jail or clogging the court systems on their way there because they stood for what they believed. If the shouts of "Hell no I won't go," had the strength of conviction, the anti-war slogan would have been equally applicable to Canada as well as Vietnam.

Yes, this means that I take issue with President Carter's pardoning of the draft dodgers. Forgiveness and healing were and are essential to a great nation, but his pardon was premature. It disgraced those that served in uniform and who served their conscience in prison. Of course we must welcome home our prodigal sons, but they must come home seeking forgiveness. They must realize that their cowardice cost lives. The presidential pardon omitted this most essential element. Pardon those that declined to go and suffered the legal consequences--yes. They willingly sacrificed their individual liberty for what they believed. Their wounds were different from those that lost an arm or leg--or their lives, but they are wounds all the same. They deserved the healing power of a great country. But to welcome home the coward with neither consequence nor atonement has forever tarnished the soul of our nation.

Why address this issue after more than a quarter-century? Simply because it's a lesson that we don't like to discuss and will soon be forgotten until we face a similar challenge. In this new century, we will be threatened at home. The family of nuclear nations continues to grow and is followed closely by the means to deliver intercontinental missile. Terrorism requires little in the way of technology or training and is an inviting tactic to any group that would advance its cause by attacking the greatest of nations. Over the past few years, the focus on individual success, instant gratification, and a general trend to be self-serving instead of serving others makes the issue all the more relevant. When we are individually challenged with the tough choices that arise from the affinity between war and politics, will we fight for our country or run away?

Spring Forward and Fall Back is the counsel for this weekend as it is once again time to reset your clocks. Officially, Daylight Savings Time begins at 2:00 a.m. Sunday morning and continues until 2:00 a.m. on October 28^th when we "fall back." Most Americans jump the gun a bit and set their clocks before they go to bed. Much like those that remove the tags from their mattresses, there is no viable system in place to strictly enforce compliance with the 0200 resetting of the clocks. Overall, there are few adverse effects from this noncompliance, but there are usually a few that rely upon this annual excuse to be late for church.

The Uniform Time Act of 1966 (15 U.S. Code Section 260a) which was signed into Public Law 89-387 on April 13, 1966, by President Lyndon Johnson, created Daylight Saving Time to begin on the last Sunday of April and to end on the last Sunday of October. Any State that wanted to be exempt from Daylight Saving Time could do so by passing a State law. The Uniform Time Act of 1966 established a system of uniform (within each time zone) Daylight Saving Time throughout the U.S. and its possessions, exempting only those states in which the legislatures voted to keep the entire state on standard time.

In 1972, Congress revised the law to provide that, if a State was in two or more time zones, the State could exempt the part of the State that was in one time zone while providing that the part of the State in a different time zone would observe Daylight Saving Time. The Federal law was amended in 1986 to begin Daylight Saving Time on the first Sunday in April. For more background information, read The law and history of Daylight Savings Time. (Information provided by IDEA, the Institute for Dynamic Educational Advancement).

This year I'm planning an experiment. I'm going to set my clock ahead 24 hours and see if I can recover an entire day in the fall. If this works, I'll set my sights on reforming Social Security and Medicare next. Did I mention that the resetting of our clocks this year coincides with April Fools Day. How much more could anyone ask for?

I must commend those Marines that are guilty of hazing I Over the past few years there has been an increased focus upon hazing. Ever since the Mckeon incident at Parris Island 40 years ago, the Corps has attacked hazing with a vengeance. We have punished and discharged countless Marines, many of them with otherwise stellar records, for this conduct we call hazing. Unfortunately, we have treated only the symptoms and have ignored the fact that the root cause of the problem is Corps wide. Those who stand discharged are no more guilty than those of us that remain. The root of the problem is that the making of a Marine is never complete.

I do not condone the conduct of humiliation or degrading another person. It seldom accomplishes anything other than humiliation of all associated. It does, however, temporarily appease the frustration within an organization that fails to recognize that the end state of making Marines is making Marines. The process never ends. Boot camp is neither the beginning, nor the end. While we chase our tail treating the symptoms by punishing violators; we fail to address the real problem. We must reinstate a system of core values, leadership, and mentorship that truly addresses the making of United States Marines.

When do we really begin the process of making a Marine? Is it the day that both feet are standing on yellow footprints? Is it the end of the first phase of recruit training? Is it the moment that a young man loses his individuality in the depot barber shop? I think that we began making Marines long before any of these otherwise significant events ever occurred. We began making Marines the first moment that an individual was exposed to the Marine Corps. Whether this was from a friend or relative who was a Marine, a poster or television advertisement, or the portrayal of a Marine in a movie; we began making Marines with that first impression. The attrition rates on board the recruit depots pale in comparison to that percentage of the American public which simply will not consider duty in the Marine Corps based upon what they perceive the Corps to be. This is both good and bad. For the informed individual that knows he will not abound in such a demanding lifestyle, we have shaped our Corps by never meeting this young man. But in the case of the strong, intelligent, and patriotic eighteen year old who will not consider the Marine Corps because he has a friend that can hardly wait to get out, we have continued the process of making Marines while excluding some of the best candidates. We are lucky enough to find a few applicants whose first exposure to the Marine Corps was positive and continued to be so through enlistment.

The next phase of making a Marine is instilling core values. That first impression of the Marine Corps planted the seeds of core values; however, we begin to instill them only with an individual's first long term relationship with a Marine. Again this may be a close friend, relative, or most likely a recruiter. Were you to ask an applicant on his shipping day, which core value he admired most in his recruiter; I doubt that any of the answers would include honor, courage, or commitment. What you would more likely hear would be initiative, innovation, and loyalty. The recruiter has developed a rapport with his applicant. The applicant trusts him and witnessed his efforts to give him a chance to become a Marine. The value most visible in the recruiter is success.

The story continues at boot camp. The objective is graduation--success. Few young men and women negotiate the rigors of recruit training fullly on their own merits. Most must trust in their drill instructors to guide them through this challenging experience. The drill instructor is respected, feared, hated, and loved. Never satisfied, he has given each individual more attention that he has received in the past fifteen years. Loyalty to the drill instructor and the recruit platoon do not come with forbidden speeches, but with witness to the never-ending effort of all involved to succeed. Again, we instill loyalty and success.

We continually debate the program of instruction aboard the depots. Do we need more war fighting skills taught at the entry level? Can we continually diminish the time allotted to close order drill. Is hand-to-hand combat really a necessary skill for all Marines. How many hours of core values must we teach? I do not purport to answer any of these queries. In the business of making Marines, the division of hours of instruction pales in contrast to the example of the drill instructor. We teach 2116 hours of core values, one example at a time. The core values taught are loyalty and success.

It is at this point that we leave the making of Marines to chance. Once a Marine goes to his occupational specialty school, the intensity of supervision and personal relationship with a career Marine lessens significantly. Success is still essential. Marines must pass the examinations and exercises, but there is little reference as to where their loyalty should be placed. In this vacuum, loyalty is often misplaced. It goes to the strongest or smartest peer or perhaps even to someone with no relationship to the school or the Marine Corps. When a young Marine finally gets to the fleet, he has an established set of core values: success and loyalty. He knows that he must accomplish any assigned mission and is ready to do just that. He expects to be a part of something special. He longs for the loyalty shared in the first few months of his Marine Corps life. The concept of loyalty to the Marine Corps lacks substance at this juncture. The newly joined Marine wants to be a part of a team that welcomes and accepts him as a contributing member. He also wants to know that there is someone interested in him that is a little more experienced and will guide him towards success. What he usually gets is a canned set of words from his commanding officer or first sergeant and then shuffled off to complete his check-in. Even if every word is sincere, they quickly put them aside for those of a peer whose interest goes beyond this brief encounter. The newly joined Marine will certainly have a team or section leader to give him direction, but what values will this junior leader instill?

From the institutional perspective, we have made a Marine; however, the process is far from complete. Every Marine must work as part of a team and continue his growth. In practice, however, we often break up teams and expect training and chance to result in growth. In the purest sense, it does. The growth achieved, however, may not be what we desire. The young Marine's team leader is the result of the same system of training and development. He will certainly demand success and will give and expect loyalty from his new team member. He also recognizes that the process of making Marines is not yet completed and will experiment with what he believes is leadership.

Some junior leaders will do very well. They translate what they learned in classes and have seen through positive example into workable junior leadership. Others will struggle. We have truly set up a survival of the fittest environment. The problem is that even the 'fittest' will make mistakes in this process. Some of those mistakes we will categorize as hazing. The commandant declared graduation from boot camp as the singular rite of passage into the Marine Corps. The problem is that this declaration does not address the fact that the process of making Marines is never complete. Marines expect growth through challenge and support. They got this in a very structured environment in boot camp. What they need in the fleet is a mentor. They will find one.

Marines will seek a mentor that provides them with confirmation. It is just human nature to seek those that share our views. Too much support and not enough challenge create confirmation. The mentor that permits this course to continue, deprives the junior of growth. The commandant addressed mentoring in ALMAR 08/96, but this was an incomplete picture--only a warning order. Simply making seniors available to junior Marines is not mentorship. To mentor, one must establish an extended relationship. Mentoring is not a hodgepodge of advice from a variety of seniors. It is its own paradigm formed by the relationship of one senior with a junior. The ALMAR promises efforts that will culminate in the production of a mentoring handbook. The end state must not be the handbook, but mentoring as a common practice among leaders of all levels.

Problems arise when we do not teach our junior leaders how to mentor. We compound them when our own example does not demonstrate mentoring. Mentoring is not simply being available to subordinates. It demands that we must understand them. To truly understand we must listen. Too many young Marines have sought their mentorship from those other than their chain of command because they only received a pat, shallow answer from their immediate leader. Were the problem so localized, it would be dispatched in a matter of days. The absence of mentoring extends well above the very junior leader level into the staff noncommissioned officer and commissioned officer ranks. Too often we rely on initiative, persistence, and chance to produce a quality leader as if these factors alone were a standard recipe. They are not. Some will thrive in such an unstructured environment, but many more require the guided expertise of seniors. There are plenty of times when Marines should be challenged without qualification. Simply give them the "Message to Garcia" and let them figure out how to deliver it. Other times demand more guided counsel and support. There is no set mix.

The task of balancing challenge and support is not a one time act. It is a continual, time consuming process that demands knowledge of each Marine to be mentored. While one Marine may be like another, no two Marines are alike. I have seen hundreds of platoon commander's notebook entries that record boot and gas mask size without singular mention of a Marine's personal goals, ambitions, or interests. Hundreds of NCOs will tell you that they are only concerned with how well an individual performs--that they don't want to pry into private lives. To mentor, we must know our Marines.

The same group that does not want to pry must also wrestle with the dichotomy that something is missing in the growth of Marines. They do not see that it is their mentorship that is absent. Some will seek to fill the void with humiliation and hazing, believing that something similar worked in boot camp. Rationalizing such actions is easy for all parties. Something in the process of making Marines is missing and if no one else will do something about it, then I will. In cases of hazing, the real question is not why did one person haze another or a group, but why did those subjected put up with the abuse? The answer is the same. They expected something else in their growth process--in becoming a Marine--and did not get it. They associate loyalty with those acting in their behalf, or at least what they perceive as their behalf. if one of their leaders exercised some ritualistic humiliation upon them, it must at least build character.

Does this rationale justify hazing? No, but it is a very condemning statement on each of us tasked with the leadership of our Marines. These acts of hazing are in direct response to our lack of action in the mentorship realm. Marines expect to be challenged and supported. They expect their leaders to know the right mix of the two. Only growth satisfies Marines.

Our stated core values are honor, courage, and commitment. I contend that we ingrain success and loyalty in our indoctrination process. Both loyalty and success are essential in our profession. I would do nothing to lessen their importance in the making of a Marine. We must, however, recognize that our stated core values must be taught in the same manner if they are to truly become our values. They must be a part of our daily example. An annual class only serves those seeking to appease a political audience. Real core values must be mentored. Each Marine requires personal attention.

The starting point for such mentoring is the sponsor. I have seen a hundred fold improvement in the relocation support available to Marines. I have seen no growth in true sponsorship. Many units assign sponsors to inbound or newly arrived Marines. Some send letters and other materials. Some units even have the sponsor take the newly joined Marine through his complete check-in process. Very few units teach their Marines how to be sponsors. The sponsor should be a peer of the newly joined Marine and should assist him in all of the things previously discussed. He must also be sure that he conveys the values of the unit. The fact that the sponsor walked a new unit member to the supply warehouse is less important than what they discussed on the way. If the sponsor explains peer-to-peer that drugs are not tolerated, or that nobody goes on liberty until all weapons in the platoon are cleaned, or that he can hardly wait to get out of this unit; then he has already set some expectations for the new join. If the newly joined Marine hears enough of the disparaging comments, he will likely look outside the chain of command for growth.

The sponsor is the first act of mentorship. He sets expectations and goals in a peer-to-peer mode. Yes, what the company commander or first sergeant has to say is certainly important, but if the sponsor does not convey those same thoughts, they will be soon forgotten. Too many commanders spend too many words addressing their philosophy with newly joined Marines when all they should really say is "Welcome." The Marine has met his commander and can remember everything he had to say. He can then get the extended message from the sponsor. Commanders must spend more time with those assigned as sponsors and mentoring their junior officers and staff noncommissioned officers if they really want to have an impact upon new joins.

The next step in the mentoring process is the development of the junior leader. We must teach him how to mentor. We must teach him how to recognize growth, retreat, and confirmation. The mentor must know how to spot stagnation, and how and when to balance challenge and support to again produce growth and development. We must teach listening--not listening for weakness of argument so as to immediately interject an issue resolving counter point, but with a sincere desire to understand. While most of these techniques can be wrapped into a single hour's class; they will not become intrinsic to the nature of Marine leadership unless they are practiced at every level of command. Leadership by example survives. Today's problem is that we have too many leaders setting alternative examples. Examine your own Marine Corps experience. Do not the leaders that act instinctively out of conscience stand apart from those that meter their every decision with how it could affect their careers. We have had too many of the latter over the past several years and it is indeed time for the pendulum to swing the other way. We must focus inward and restore selfless leadership by example. Once we do this, mentoring will become second nature.

Many of our junior leaders struggle with what is good leadership and what is hazing. This is especially true of our young NCOs. We expect a magical transformation to occur when a Marine is promoted to corporal. He is to take charge of Marines who previously were his peers, but we give him no workable tools with which to complete the task. He struggles, always mindful that he must succeed. In this unfamiliar role, the distinction between leadership and hazing become blurred.

When does a specific action move from one category to another? Too many have become timid or cynical when it comes to leading junior Marines, especially those whose performance is marginal. Too many rationalize that if they cannot imbue discipline through the fist, these marginal performers have no chance for success. The chances for a marginal Marine to grow are less dependent upon the threat of physical violence or humiliation than they are on the joint expectation of success shared by the Marine and his leader. This expectation comes from knowing how to mentor. Some leaders fear commending a Marine for good performance until that Marine has proven himself a sterling performer in every respect. This is the surest way to bring growth to a halt. Tell Marines when they do a good job in a certain area and then challenge them even more the next time. Tell them when their performance is substandard and give them the assistance they need to improve. Those leaders that won't do this are simply afraid to practice real leadership. These Marines pretend to lead by portraying a hardened image, but they are simply scared.

To some, this business of mentoring sounds like the 'touchy-feely' sort of thing that most Marines avoid as not macho enough for them. They feel that such practices only serve to soften our Corps, that such a personal interest in individual Marines erodes discipline. These perceptions reek of ignorance. Really getting to know your Marines requires a lot more courage than recording a few superficial facts in a notebook and presenting an imposing demeanor. When you share the personal triumphs and failures of your Marines, you realize that you are truly a stakeholder in their lives. Somewhere over the past several years, we have lost this quality as a Corps. We concurrently opened the doors to hazing and humiliation as substitutes for selfless leadership and mentoring. Is it any wonder that some Marines seek refuge in gangs where they can count on loyalty from the group? Should it really surprise anyone when a Marine is only looking out for himself? Are we truly surprised when junior Marines are caught punishing other junior Marines? We instilled success and loyalty as our de facto core values. We believe that the process of making Marines is continuous, then we justify our impersonal leadership by tracking performance, correspondence courses completed, and schools attended. While we appease our consciences by calling these ministerial tasks leadership; the mentoring vacuum claims more victims.

If the values espoused by our institution are to be reclaimed in the lives of our Marines, we must act. The course of action is not unique. We simply must return to our time honored traditions. Even before we captured leadership in traits and principles, one more experienced Marine invested his time in the growth of another. My congratulations to those we have punished for hazing. You saw a need to continue the making of a Marine and acted. Your aim was true but your course was wrong. It is now time for all leaders to step forward and reclaim their rightful positions in the making of Marines. We must recognize that the process of making Marines never ends and that we develop core values one Marine at a time. Honor, courage, and commitment are worthwhile ideals. Only daily example and a guiding hand can translate them into our core values. The future of our Corps is at stake. It's time to get back in the fight.