-Military leadership directly impacts troop morale, the success of missions, and overall effectiveness, making leadership often the most critical factor in military operations.

-I was never one to be a micromanager, because then if I'm going to look over somebody's shoulder, then I might as well just do it.

And that doesn't make any sense.

So support your folks, trust them to take care of the mission and come to you if there's issues or problems that they can't handle.

-Your leadership is tested the most when things aren't going well.

You know, if things are humming along fine and you've trained your folks and everything, you know, that's one thing.

But when things aren't going well, man, that is tough.

-But that has to be a testament to your character and the culture that you had within that organization to know what needs to happen next.

And as the commander, you know, you're responsible for the culture.

-We're asking them ultimately to be able to prepare to do is give their life for our country.

Right?

In some of the worst conditions.

So I think that empowering them to be confident and make decisions and give them the latitude to continue to learn and try to be better for it.

There is a level of fear that I think that I had more so of being responsible for these young women.

The thought of something happening to them under my charge was -- that level of responsibility was not lost on me at all.

And taking that job seriously, understanding that this patrol that I'm going to go out on could potentially be my last.

-I see a lot of leaders make the mistake of asking their subordinates or their soldiers, NCOs to do things they're not willing to do.

You know, they'll tell them, "Hey, I want you to clean the latrines."

As a leader, you got to be willing to do everything that you're asking everyone else to do, and you have to demonstrate that.

And so that the absent leader that just expects it all to get done, that's poor leadership, in my opinion.

You have to be selfless more than you ever want to be.

You know, you have to make sure all your troops eat before you eat.

Make sure everybody gets to sleep before you get to sleep.

And that's counterintuitive.

And it goes against your selfish interest, but it makes you a better person to not be that bad leader.

That's my experience.

-Hi, I'm Stacy Pearsall, retired Air Force combat photographer.

And today I'm sitting down with Doug Cochran, Quintino Williams Pearson, and T.J.

Edwards, three veterans who know what it takes to lead during and after action.

-♪ There will be light ♪ ♪ There is a road ♪ ♪ Marching on ♪ ♪ Coming home ♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ Major funding for After Action is provided by the ETV Endowment of South Carolina, the proud partner of South Carolina ETV and South Carolina Public Radio, and by America's Vet Dogs.

-T.J., Quintina, Doug, welcome to Lowcountry Acres.

Thank you so much for coming down and talking to me about leadership.

-Thank you for having me.

-I know you've all had long, wonderful careers in the military, and each of you are from a different branch of service.

So what I'm curious about is what branch of service you chose, why you chose that, and enlisted, officer, et cetera.

So I'm going to start right here in the middle.

Yeah.

You knew that was happening.

Quintina.

-Yeah.

-Talk to me a little bit.

Where are you from originally?

What branch of service?

-Originally from Michigan.

Lansing, Michigan.

I joined September 11th of 2000, so that was my join date into the Marine Corps.

So you can imagine that one-year anniversary, seeing things kind of, yeah, drastically change.

And to be completely honest, I graduated high school.

I tried college for a year.

Didn't work out so well.

And then at that time, my sister had signed up to join the Marine Corps.

And so she was just like, "Maybe we should do it together."

And I was like, "Yeah, maybe we should."

And so we kind of high-fived.

And then we found ourselves on Parris Island, ready to start this journey in the Marine Corps.

So I don't -- Like, no super compelling -- I didn't have anybody in my family that served prior to.

I had an uncle that served in Vietnam.

But didn't have anybody that served to, like, kind of guide me or steer me in that direction.

So much so that family was just like, "Are you sure that's something that you want to do?"

It's like, "Yeah, I'm ready for the challenge."

So 23 1/2 years later, I sit here, retired.

Toughest branch is what I'm told, gentlemen.

You know?

-Won't argue that point.

Not with a Marine that has deadly hands, right?

-Once a Marine, always a Marine.

-Indeed, indeed.

-Retired Marine Quintina Williams Pearson often leaned on her 23 years experience when making leadership decisions for her subordinates, most especially when she served as the first sergeant and sergeant major.

Before rising to the top position, she led an all-female engagement team in the rural areas of Afghanistan alongside male counterparts long before women were officially allowed in combat roles, giving her keen insight and awareness on how best to improve cohesion and communication with the entire command, a talent Quintina still uses today.

-When I graduated from boot camp, I said to myself, "I'll be back here as a drill instructor to have the same impact on other people that my drill instructors had on me."

-T.J.?

-I'm from the great state of South Carolina, and my father was in the Army, so it was, you know, one choice for me was to go into the Army, and it was only to go in for four years to pay off college.

So I went to the great University of South Carolina and joined the Army.

And then 30 years later, I woke up and said, "Wow, it's been a great career."

-What compelled you to want to stay that long?

-I don't know if your experience is the same, but you fall in love with the people, you fall in love with the places that you go.

Every time the Army sent me somewhere else, I said, "Well, I'm just going to do one more tour.

Let's see how this works."

And then it's like year 11 or 12 and you're like, "Wow, I'm kind of halfway there.

Might as well stick around and have fun."

So it was a great career until COVID hit.

And that was not as much fun.

But just because you're still doing the same mission with half the people that you normally do the mission with.

-So you get out of college and you're like, "I'm going to go to the Army."

What did your dad think when you told him?

-He was super proud.

Yeah, super, super proud.

-Did he talk to you about what career path to go down in terms of occupation?

What was your job in the Army?

-So, he was a quartermaster officer, and he didn't really influence me one way or the other in terms of branch selection.

I wanted something -- I picked up the officer book that you look through, all the different branches, and I said, "I want something that's going to translate from boots to suits."

So I picked the Adjutant General Corps, which is one of the smallest branches in the Army.

Most of my career was all HR related, and it was fun.

-Retired Army Brigadier General T.J.

Edwards was serving at the Pentagon when American Airlines Flight 77 struck on September 11th.

In the aftermath, T.J.

spent hours looking for survivors and coordinating relief efforts.

Ultimately, 125 people in the Pentagon perished that day in addition to the airline passengers and crew.

However, T.J.

used that life-changing experience to reaffirm his commitment to service, the value of good leadership, and the importance of mentorship to the next generation.

When you pick a small field like that, though, doesn't that make upward promotion difficult?

-It is very, very difficult, and you're constantly fighting the stigma -- at least this is my experience -- that, you know, true war fighters are your infantry, your armor, your field artillery.

So, you know, if you're not one of those core fighting branches, because that is the core of the military, the combat power, you have to kind of be twice as good.

I mean, you really have to prove yourself.

Every single new assignment, every single job, you've got to go toe to toe with your combat arms peers.

-That's difficult too.

But I'm a firm believer in this.

And I'll say this before we get to you, Doug, but I'll say this -- for every person that's downrange, putting bullets downrange, for every one person that's doing that, there's like, between, what, 15 and 20 people supporting them in the rear.

And you can't have one without the 20 others.

So and these folks in garrison are just as essential.

You have to have the HR people and the food services and the logistics.

-It's pretty critical.

Everybody has a job to do.

And you want to make sure that if you're on the team, everybody on your team is doing their job.

-So, Doug, what about you?

Where are you from?

-I'm from Maryland originally.

-Okay.

-And... first one in my immediate family to go to college.

And the first one in my immediate family to be in the service, in the military as well.

I was an Eagle Scout, or I am an Eagle Scout.

And one of the things that they do is they have a career day, and they have a sponsor that will offer to take folks around to different career areas and stuff like that.

And I picked the Air Force and being from Maryland, they took us down to Andrews Air Force Base for a tour and that type of thing.

And I had a sponsor that was kind of with me to kind of go through that.

He was not military, but they took us through it and got a tour and they saw Air Force One and, you know, everything.

They took us into a hangar and there was an F-4 fighter jet right there in the hangar.

I looked at that thing longingly and said, "That's what I want to do."

And from that point on, I pursued that avenue.

-Retired Air Force Colonel Doug Cochran was serving as the commander of the 58th Tactical Fighter Squadron at the time of the Khobar Towers terrorist attack in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, on June 25, 1996, a bombing that resulted in more than 500 casualties.

After surviving the blast, Doug led the rescue efforts in the days and weeks after the tragedy.

This singular event reverberated throughout Doug's life and career and helped shape him into the exemplary model leader he is today.

-I started out in security forces because I came in way back in the '70s, when Vietnam was winding down, and they were cutting the pilot force, and they took our pilot slots away that we had lined up already.

And I went into the security forces.

That was my undergrad, law enforcement, criminology, that type of thing.

And then I applied for pilot training several years in a row to kind of get back to flying or get to fly and very blessed, honored to have served, and that seed of service continues even today.

But it was planted back when I was a Boy Scout, about service and serving your community and your family and that type of thing.

And it just kind of blossomed and grew from that and continues to do so now.

But that's kind of kind of how I ended up where we are right now.

-Doug must have the need for speed because you're a pilot.

You said you ride motorcycles.

-Yeah.

-You have a Ford Mustang.

-Adrenaline junkie.

-Yeah.

-Adrenaline junkie.

-It's so funny because he's so quiet and laid back.

You never would guess that, right?

-Those are the ones you got to worry about, right?

-Yeah.

-Sleeper agent.

-Yes.

Yeah.

-So, Quintina, you said you joined in like September 11, 2000, and then your one-year anniversary, we all know that that was a day that changed everything.

And particularly you, T.J., I mean, a lot of that -- I mean, I'm curious.

I know where I was.

We all know where we were on 9/11, but -- So you're very early on in your career.

-Yes.

-What made you want to stay?

You were a young enlisted person.

Did you have a mentor at the time that kind of guided you through that, that period of time that said, "Okay, here's what we're about to face.

We're going to be a nation at war"?

-Yes.

Yep.

It was Staff Sergeant Rosco Reyes was his name, fine American.

And he had stepped in just off of the depot off his drill instructor tour.

And he was just like, "Saddle up, because we're going and we're going in, and it's going to be unpredictable.

There's going to be things that we don't know.

Training is going to be extremely important, to make sure that we take our training seriously so when we execute our missions in those types of environments that I want -- my goal is to bring everybody home."

And so he was tough.

And I think that that made us resilient and kept us wanting to continue to be the best that we could to serve those in our teams.

-T.J., what was your career like leading up to those moments?

Like, how long had you been in the Army?

What brought you to that -- that moment in time for you?

-Yeah.

So again, kind of young and dumb.

I spent about 10 years at that point just going from assignment to assignment, loving life, loving the people.

And had an opportunity, a real unique opportunity to be a joint chief of staff intern, on the joint staff.

After that year working for General Shelton, I was able to move over to the Army.

And I worked for the Chief of Staff of the Army.

One of the best leaders I've ever met.

His name is Eric Shinseki, General Shinseki.

And so it was just a phenomenal assignment.

I got to travel as an intern, got to travel with the general, and got to see kind of how the sausage was made in the Pentagon.

And if I start to tear up, I know Sergeant Major's going to get me with the knife.

-I got you.

-But it was a tough day.

It was a beautiful day, September 11th.

And Flight 77, American Airlines, hit the building.

And it was a shock.

It was still, you know, it's kind of tough to talk about.

I lost 13 real close friends.

It basically hit our side of the Pentagon.

So, made it out, got around to the front of the building, and tried to pull people out, but the fire was so intense that we weren't able to really go in.

And then every time we got close, there were all these rumors and people saying, "Here comes another plane."

And so we'd have to back up across the highway.

And it was a defining moment for sure.

And it certainly made the war on terror personal to me.

You know, really great people were taken too early from us.

There were people that, again, just wonderful, wonderful friends with families.

And they didn't walk out of there.

One of my friends worked for the three star, the highest general officer that was killed, General Tim Maude.

His name was Kip Taylor.

And I think all they found of Kip was his wedding ring and one of his fingers, because he was at the point of impact, and his wife was pregnant at the time he was killed.

And just really, you know, the stories go on and on, but it made me feel like, wow, you know, why did I make it out?

You know, what is my purpose?

So kind of gave me extra motivation to try to make a difference.

It refocused me, if you would.

It made me probably more committed, as a result.

So sorry.

-No, no, no.

Don't apologize.

Ever.

How do you go from that experience right back into what would be seemingly like everyday command work?

-Yeah.

You know, it was really tough.

And part of it, it's a good news, bad news thing.

Because it hit the Pentagon, we wanted to show we were resilient.

And you can't mess with us, you mother truckers.

You know what I mean?

And so we immediately continued to do the mission the very next day.

I mean, my office was gone.

Most people, basically we moved the operations over to another part of Alexandria, Virginia, and we just picked up work like nothing happened.

And that can mentally mess with you, too.

-Absolutely.

-I was going to ask.

-The pressure t maintain that.

-But we didn't -- You know, we're not going to show, especially in the military, we're not going to show that you hurt us.

In fact, Project Phoenix, I think it was called.

We rebuilt the Pentagon in a year's time.

-Yeah.

-Just to show that, you know, you're not going to mess with America.

-Yeah.

I want to pause right there on that mental note.

Because, Doug, you went through quite an experience with one of your deployments.

Can you talk to me a little bit about your deployment that kind of changed your life?

-My deployments were during -- post Desert Storm during the '90s.

We were -- After that wound down, we still had a presence in the area to enforce the no-fly zones both north and south over Iraq.

And that was UN resolutions that were to protect the folks on the ground from Saddam bombing his own people, whether it be the Kurds in the north or the Shias in the south, kind of a thing.

And I had two tours in the mid-'90s during that one.

During the second deployment, I was honored and blessed to be selected to command the 58th Fighter Squadron, which was the squadron that had 16 of the 34 kills during Desert Storm.

They had half of the air-to-air kills for the Allied forces at that time.

And, as I say, blessed and honored to be working with such professional warriors.

It's unbelievable.

In every AFSC, which is the specialty codes in all areas, we were two days from redeploying, went in about 10:00, just prior to 10:00 in the evening, a tanker truck was spotted just outside our compound, which was not on base.

We were in a civilian apartment complex with fencing and, you know, some barbed wire, concertina wire and double jersey barriers that separated us from the rest of the apartment complex there.

So, you know, to get on base and get to where our unit was, you had to go through about four checkpoints, I think.

We had received intelligence that, you know, the threat level had been raised because six months prior there had been an explosion in downtown Riyadh.

So the intel we had was the threat level was rising up.

And, you know, and we were buckling down and increasing security and stuff like that.

So when I talked about the security forces had lookouts on the top of the apartment complexes of the base, so they immediately said, "That looks suspicious."

And they sound the alarm.

Three minutes later, this truck explodes with the equivalent of between 25,000 and 30,000 pounds of TNT, which is -- it was about 5,000 pounds of C4.

We were about 300 to 400 feet away from ground zero there where the explosion occurred.

But the building right in front there, we had three the first three floors of our folks that lived in those areas, and we lost 12 airmen, brave warriors that -- Almost ready for the Kleenex.

This is always a tough topic to talk about.

That night and the total loss, 19 brave airmen that night, about 500 wounded total, windows were blown out for a three-mile radius around that.

And they heard the explosion 100 miles away in a different -- actually down in UAE, I think is where they said they heard that.

Very difficult, chaotic scene, as you can imagine.

I was cleaning up my room to hand it over to the next commander that was coming in there.

And I was at my desk but the window was right here.

And when the explosion occurred, that window totally explodes.

And I kind of go flying across the room there.

And, you know, they had these little aluminum louver shutter kind of a thing that was on there.

And, you know, they say time slows down when things like that happen, whether you eject out on an airplane or, you know, whatever the case may be, it was almost like slow motion kind of thing.

And these blades were twirling around in the room as, you know, glass is flying and you're going over and, you know, so the first thing is, "Okay, what just happened?"

You know, it all happens -- You're thinking faster than you think you are.

And you go, "What was that?"

You know, and I go, "That was a bomb."

I had no idea where the blast had occurred or anything like that.

So we were evacuating and getting the rooms clear as we go down the stairwell, and I was so pleasantly surprised to see they were doing the same thing for folks on the bottom to come.

We met halfway and we got everybody out except one person was injured.

We go out into the parking lot there to, you know, have the flight doc and his technician doing some quick triage on folks and see what's going on when somebody comes running from what turned out to be the location of the explosion saying "They're coming through the fence.

They're coming through the fence."

And I said, "Oh, no."

So we were on the edge of the compound.

So I said, "Let's move everybody to the center of the compound."

So we're grabbing everybody that we possibly can to get them moved.

And as it turns out, it was local civilians that were coming to help.

But at the time, people didn't know.

-And that Clausewitz fog of war thing.

-Yeah, I guess what it all boils down to is what I learned was your leadership is tested the most when things aren't going well.

You know, if things are humming along fine and you've done everything that you're supposed to, and you've trained your folks and everything, you know, that's one thing.

Motivating them, you know, getting the vision going, get everybody, you know, together.

But when things aren't going well, man, that is tough.

-But that has to be a testament to your character and the culture that you had within that organization to where they knew what to do.

You know, they had the space and they had the wherewithal to know what needs to happen next.

And as the commander, you know, you're responsible for the culture.

So.

-Well, thank you for that.

Again, I was blessed to have such a wonderful group of folks that just pulled together and made things happen.

But to this day, including myself, we still struggle with this, with this incident.

But the heroes that, you know, gave their all, they were willing to go to these places and at all points of the earth to support and defend our Constitution, our way of life, our country.

-Well, we talked about pre-9/11.

Talked about 9/11.

Now, you were out in Afghanistan.

Can you talk to me a little bit about -- you talked about your mentor saying things are about to change.

You were getting ready for it.

Talk to me a little bit about what life was like for you in those years.

-My deployment to Afghanistan was with the female engagement team.

So we were an all-female organization that essentially bolted on to infantry units and the half of the population, women and children that were kind of typically put off to the side, male infantry were unable to engage with those people.

So they assembled these FETs is what we were called.

And so we partnered up and we were embedded with these infantry units, and we did all the stuff and the things that those infantry units were doing, and we were like -- so you had the Lionesses in Iraq, and then the female engagement teams were kind of the equivalent, but with a little bit more specific training.

So Lionesses were just assembled from like, okay, how many females do you have in your organization?

How many do you have in yours?

Can I get a couple of them?

Yeah.

Ready?

Go.

And then they realized what we were able to do and the information that women and children had, and just trying to build relations with those people that they needed women out there to be a part of that.

So there is a level of fear that I think that I had more so of being responsible for these young women.

I was a staff sergeant at the time.

And I was their platoon sergeant, and the thought of something happening to them under my charge was -- that level of responsibility was not lost on me at all.

So making sure that our training was good to go, making sure that our equipment and making sure that the relationships that we had with our male infantry counterparts, that that information was good and the information and products that were being fed up to the leadership was beneficial to battle commanders that were going to potentially use that information to influence how they operate within the battle space.

To see such selflessness from young women, to want to make a difference and to do something that had never really been done before and taking that job seriously, understanding that this patrol that I'm going to go out on could potentially be my last.

We were up in Marjah, Garmsir, kind of in the southern part of our area of operations, and things were heated during that time as far as IEDs, as far as the insurgency and drug trafficking, people trafficking.

But I think where we made our money with a lot of that stuff was the relationships that we built.

So we worked with NGOs, a lot of USAID, trying to help build communities that have been just completely shattered by the Taliban.

And so we had interpreters that would embed with us.

And they were not military.

So they were civilian, mostly Afghan women from the United States that had raised their hand to come and participate with us too.

It was a hard life for anybody, let alone bring a civilian in that has no military training at all but is a crucial part in our ability to execute our duties.

-Well, even the internal military -- Let's talk about the military culture at that time too.

-Absolutely.

-Even today.

But can you talk to me a little bit about what the military culture was that you were facing at that time?

Because there was a reason why there was a gender segregation and a need for -- What was the team called?

-FETs, Female Engagement Team.

-So why?

-I think that they realized the value in having us be able to engage with that half of the population.

And the dynamics were there weren't women in infantry like they're starting to integrate now.

So it was a bunch of women from jobs ranging from intelligence to communications to logistics to every supporting element within the Marine Corps.

The biggest challenge was credibility off of the jump, being looked at as, can you guys keep up?

And one thing I can say is we did.

We showed up.

And it was gratifying to see when they think that, "Okay, this patrol is going to get them," and we are in chest-deep water and rifles over our heads, and we're, "I'm right there behind you."

You know?

Just to see their resiliency and just their sheer determination, if nothing else to prove people wrong that we are valuable within this organization in my original capacity and also here.

And coming out of that deployment on the back end was more of a challenge, I think, than I had originally anticipated.

But I must say, though, that we formed tight bonds and relationships with our male counterparts.

And we proved to them that we are worthy of being here.

And we -- our contributions are valid and they are integral to what it is that you're doing at this patrol base, at this forward operating base, at in any capacity here on the battlefield.

So it was a wonderful experience.

Definitely challenging kind of coming back, trying to find out, like, how do I integrate with my family now?

You know, I've seen some of the most horrible things.

How do I come back and act like I -- you know, you come back a totally different person.

-You do.

-And that was probably one of the more challenging transitions for me, was to figure out, because I wanted to keep my kid close to me all the time, because I'm the only one that can protect him, right?

And so that was challenging for me to come back to, because war is indiscriminate.

Everybody is impacted, was impacted.

And it wasn't just, you know, "Oh, I knew somebody that was there that day" or that experienced that thing.

It's utterly devastating.

-You talked culturally, T.J., about, you know, right away you got into a new office and you put on a brave face, and there was no time for mourning.

-Mm.

-I don't know about your experience, Doug, if it was the same way.

But there's this cultural attitude of just pressing forward.

And I think when you're in a leadership position too, there is this idea of putting on that brave face and just pressing on as if nothing happened.

So my question for you as leaders, whether you're a noncommissioned officer or a commissioned officer, how effective was that?

Is that something that you advise leaders today?

If you could go back and talk to your younger self, would you change that?

How do you view the world through your eyes now, knowing what you know?

-I think the Global War on Terror, if I could, I think it, you know, shined a bright light on the stigma of not seeking help.

I think the military in general is much better than it was ever.

In fact, now we embed behavioral health specialists with units, with combat units.

You'll have stress teams that go out and check on troops.

We've learned a lot of lessons, but, yeah, the macho culture, I guess, if you will, or, you know, "Hey, put it in a compartment and set it aside and deal with it later."

You will deal with it.

You will deal with it.

And you'll probably deal with it by drinking too much, by going through a divorce, by doing all kinds of unhealthy, you know, habits.

But you will deal with it.

And it takes that to wake you up.

And it did in my case.

You know, I was very successful going through the military, but, you know, mentally, I still had baggage that I compartmentalized.

And so I would tell my younger self to, hey, you know, go talk about it.

Go seek, you know, help if you need it.

Don't try to be stubborn.

Don't try to compartmentalize because it will -- It'll bite you in the ass.

-I agree 100%.

Exactly.

And obviously our situation was pre-9/11 there.

And there are plenty of services offered up for survivors and, you know, and families and those kinds of things.

But there was a lot of reluctance on I noticed from the troops that their security clearances would be jeopardized if they went and talked to somebody about something like this.

And no matter how often you try to encourage folks that it's okay, there's still that stigma that was attached there, that they knew somebody that had come forward to talk about it or something.

And so, you know, we had initially had mandatory debriefing sessions available.

And then from then on, other services offered.

The Air Force really stepped up, I feel, and hopefully the family members feel that way to support families in the aftermath of this.

Many of the survivors did, probably what I did, was compartmentalize it.

And before you go flying in a single-seat airplane, before you step into the jet there, you clear your mind of any distractions.

We call it shoving it in the map case.

There's a little map case we put our publications in, so we shove it in there.

Well, what happens over time is that map case gets full and it starts to get bulge, and then it will explode at some point.

And sometimes something as traumatic as, you know, situations that we're sharing with each other right here is enough to, you know, break the bubble and bust, and, you know, and it could be something catastrophic.

Sadly, we still have a very high suicide rate.

We have a very high homeless rate for our veterans out there.

And we need to keep working on that and keep working at that.

You know, to encourage folks that there is help out there.

There are ways to talk yourself off the ledge, kind of, you know?

And I put it off, I put it off, I put it off.

I didn't, you know, take advantage of some of the services and stuff like that, but I didn't realize that it was eating at me so often.

You know, several years right afterwards, the anger and the guilt just would be overwhelming at times.

The anger at cowards doing what they did and the guilt in not bringing all your folks home, that's still... -Yeah, survivor's remorse.

-That's still there.

The guilt part.

And the troops that, you know, that I've talked to over the years, you know, have tried to encourage me and said, you know, "There's nothing you could have done to change that."

And that may have been so, but my primary mission is to take care of the folks because they're the ones that are doing the mission.

You know, it's the old adage of, you know, mission comes first, but people always.

-Mm-hmm.

-It transcends all branches of service and position.

-Absolutely.

And then who's doing the work?

It's the folks that are out there on the line for us.

-But you know that your troops are still looking at you to set the example as leaders, right?

-I think it was such a meat grinder, especially post-9/11.

I mean, people were going on 6-, 12-month deployments, coming back a few months at a time, and then they're right back into workups to prepare for the next deployment that it just never was a good time to unpack and deal with a lot of that stuff, because "I'll take care of that after the next deployment."

And I think that we've educated ourselves culturally as an organization, that mental health and how that bleeds into so many other facets of your life.

Like, if this one thing isn't good, it automatically affects and impacts every other aspect of your life and performance.

And I don't remember conversations or being like that that was a consideration as much when I was coming up.

But now, like, that's a huge factor.

There wasn't a whole lot of that because there just wasn't any time because that war on terrorism, it did not stop.

They were chewing us up and spitting us out.

-And to Doug's point, you know, it's easy to captain the ship in calm waters, but it's the real rough waters that you get experience and test you as a leader.

I think the really great leaders that I've worked for, and I've worked for some tremendous leaders, the great leaders are the ones that have been through some of the toughest times, and they recognize in their subordinates and their soldiers, they recognize the stress points, they recognize in what they did and what they saw, and they are able to address it and take care of those troops better because of their experiences.

-Mm.

-And many of these experiences, you know, they say what doesn't kill us makes us stronger, you know, that kind of thing out there.

But leadership traits transcend across -- they're transferable to just about everything that we do out there.

Leadership occurs at all levels from my experience out there.

We have our senior NCOs out there.

They're taking care of -- -Our senior NCOs are leading up every single day.

-Well, they're the backbone of our forces.

-Absolutely.

-And, you know, they're the ones that are going to, you know, conduct a mission.

And even if it's not a favorable thing to do or something, you know, obviously if it's concerning, you're going to raise your hand.

If your commander's worth their salt, they're going to listen to the inputs coming from, you know, the folks that are out there doing the job out there.

But, you know, it's just so important that we recognize that.

And sometimes being a good leader is knowing when to be a good follower.

-Mm.

-What have you learned from, like, bad leadership just in your experience from your careers?

-Well, I think you learn a lot from bad leadership.

At least that was my experience.

Again, I worked for some tremendous leaders.

I worked for five different Army Chiefs of Staff.

These were incredible leaders.

And I learned a lot from them.

I think you have to subordinate yourself a good bit.

You have to be selfless more than you ever want to be.

You know, you have to make sure all your troops eat before you eat.

Make sure everybody gets to sleep before you get to sleep.

And that's counterintuitive.

And it goes against your selfish interest, but it makes you a better person to not be that bad leader.

That's my experience.

-In my experience, things that I think where I made my money as a leader was looking at the person holistically.

So they're not just an admin Marine or a logistics Marine.

They have families.

They have -- A lot of them, in my experience, especially when I was on the drill field, the majority of those girls that were raising their right hand to volunteer to join the military were running away from something and to join an organization to be berated, to be treated inhumane, there's a human element that will ultimately and always overthrow or directly impact their ability to perform their duties.

And I think that that's one thing that helps build strong teams is when you have leaders that invest in their people and understanding the little things.

I mean, I had a squadron of more than 500 people, and it's hard to know all of those people.

But walking the halls, right?

Getting out of my office, making sure that I'm having the conversations, knowing what people got going on.

That way I can advocate for them when decisions come down, or if I know that there's a deviation from someone's baseline, because that's not typically how this person acts, there's got to be something else that's going on.

So I really made it a point to be an advocate for people by knowing them and having those relationships, because that's something that I didn't get when I was coming up through the ranks.

I had very toxic, predatory leaders.

And it made things extremely difficult because I didn't join the military for that.

I didn't join to have some person that I'm responsible to just completely try to make my life a living hell.

And that was something that was really -- I will never be like that.

But knowing that, like, this was their one shot gives me chills every time I think about it.

The military is their one shot to try to get the hell out of where they came from and to run away, and I'm going to make something of myself.

And it was important that they had every opportunity to do that.

-For me, leadership has to do with people.

And we're hearing the stories shared already.

It's focused around people, and it's so very, very important that we think about that.

I think communication is probably one of the biggest things that's at the top of the list, as far as being a good leader out there.

I have to tell you that some of the best ideas in a challenging situation or a better way to do things has come from the troops forward, you know, because they're the ones that are down there, in my background, out there bending the wrenches on the aircraft to get those things going, getting the munitions loaded up out there.

And many times some great ideas will come forward.

And if you have shut off some of that, it's my way or the highway, pushing everything downward, you'll never be able to bear the fruit of that wonderful, you know, perspective and those ideas and getting things done, you know, that way.

So I think that's very, very important.

I think compassion is important.

And you were sharing a lot of that right there because we have talked earlier about she wore many hats, disciplinarian on one side, humanitarian on the other side, and everything in between right there.

And when to shift gears and do those kinds of things out there.

But we're dealing with people out there, so we got to be sure that we're supporting them.

So empathy, I think, is important.

-Great leaders do their best to make it happen and to listen to their subordinates.

But that takes guts.

-Now that you're on the civilian side of the house, what do you think that civilians can glean from military leadership and what you worked so hard coming up through the ranks?

-Loaded question.

-Yeah.

-Is it?

-I would like civilians to show up on damn time.

-About to say work ethic.

-Yeah.

Work ethic.

I mean, we literally -- I'm in commercial real estate.

The hiring process, when people apply for a job and they don't even show up for the damn interview.

It's like, okay, you know, that's been the frustration for me is to see some of the work ethic on the civilian side, some of the, you know, hakuna matata, I'll show up when I want to show up or I'll have a unprofessional attitude.

In the military, you can adjust that a lot quicker.

In the civilian world, you have to really use your leadership toolbox a little bit more.

-So I'm still pretty closely tied in my profession now, as a contractor, still tied in with the military pretty heavy.

And our staff is comprised of a lot of retirees and a lot of people that are veterans.

And so things that I hear, a lot of my friends that have made the transition, it's the same thing.

It's like getting people to want to do what it is that they want to do, or that they're supposed to do, that we're getting paid to do.

I'm used to dropping the hammer.

"Okay, cool.

There's consequences.

When you play stupid games, you win stupid prizes."

So we can hold people -- -I love it.

-We can hold people accountable right off the bat.

And what that does within an organization is it sets the tone.

-For me, it's very similar, but it's trying my patience.

I have to work on being more patient.

You know, things don't move along necessarily as fast as you would like to.

-That's also a fact.

-You know?

And it may not be quite to the degree of excellence that we've all been bred in us, you know, in there.

Sometimes you just look around and nothing in specific, but just sometimes look around, and it could be trying to get folks to come work on something at your house or, you know, whatever.

And I'm not singling out anything here, but where mediocre is the standard.

I'm still struggling with that, you know what I mean?

It's just -- And not everyone is going to be at military standards, I understand that, but I'm still adjusting to that.

And I've been out since '07.

-For those who may not know what the military structure looks like in terms of leadership, can you break it down for me in terms of the difference between lower enlisted ranks, mid-tier NCOs?

What is an NCO?

What's a senior NCO?

What's a butter bar?

What do all of these things -- What's the function?

What's the difference between -- Like, I was a staff sergeant, so I know what my level was and what that -- Like, I get it.

But for those people who may not understand, break it down.

-You have your tactical leadership, you have your operational leadership, and you have your strategic leadership.

And if you just think about it from those three levels, your strategic leadership is more at the top of the pyramid where you're at the Pentagon or you're in a combatant command, COCOM, and you're doing war plans and you're doing big-picture stuff.

You zoom into the tactical level and it's people that are going, you know, the Lioness teams, the FET teams that are going door to door and kicking down doors.

And that's where the rubber meets the road.

It's the tip of the spear.

That's the tactical leadership.

Operationally, if you're at a core level and you have subordinate units that are doing the tactical stuff, you're worried -- you're focused on the operations.

So you have the tactical, the operational, and strategic.

That's how I would break it down.

And the ranks kind of flow with those kind of three levels.

-So with the Marine Corps being typically the smaller of the branches of service, we've always -- Decentralized leadership is a big part of our success.

So we don't wear the shiny stuff.

No butter bars, stars, or, you know, oak leafs and things like that.

-No bling.

No bling.

-Yeah.

None of the bling.

So you got your E-1 to E-3.

Those are kind of your worker bees.

Those are the ones that are newly joining a unit.

They're usually the fresh-eyed, like, excited to be here.

You have those occasional disgruntled lance corporals that maybe are second or third award lance corporals.

But then you have your management, kind of the lower-level management, your non-commissioned officers.

Those are the ones that are doing the day-to-day things.

And then you have your staff non-commissioned officers, which is your E-6 to E-9, and those are your managers at all levels, doing all of the stuff and the things to kind of keep organizations moving.

So as a sergeant major, as a first sergeant, E-8 and E-9, my responsibility is the senior enlisted advisor to my commanding officer.

So I'm providing a pulse on what's happening within, like, the people domain.

I'm also speaking to discipline.

I'm also speaking to traditions and ceremonies and morale and command climate.

And, like, all of this stuff and the things is kind of what gets put into my wheelhouse.

-You want officers to experience every step of the rung so that they have a good foundation, leadership wise, and are exposed to all the different challenges so that they can experience it and they can become better leaders themselves.

-Right.

-And you hit on it before.

So my brother is a commissioned officer in the Marine Corps, and bright-eyed, shiny, super excited to be a part of the Marine Corps, a lieutenant.

Checks into his first unit, and he's just like, "I was told that I'm going to get issued a staff NCO, and this staff NCO is going to tell me what I'm supposed to -- like, what I'm supposed to do."

And so that's a very unique relationship.

So we've got brand new lieutenants that join the fleet and they have their senior enlisted advisor, whether that be a sergeant or a staff sergeant, E-5 or E-6.

And that's the person that's telling them about their job because they come here with a college education.

And they've gone through all the basic training.

But I have a staff sergeant that's been doing this for 10 years.

-For a minute.

-Yeah.

That has the experience.

And so that relationship between officers and enlisted, starting from the very beginning, from their basic training, because our Marine officers are trained by enlisted Marines at their basic training.

So that's -- I mean, that relationship is fostered from the very beginning and it's extremely important.

And I mean, granted, my brother is a major now and he still calls me.

He's like, "I need to talk to the sergeant major."

-Sergeant major.

-Yes.

Yeah.

-So he's a smart officer.

-Yeah.

He is.

So he's just like, "I gotta run this past you."

You know?

So it's interesting to see from his perspective.

-So he comes to you for leadership advice.

-Oh, absolutely.

-I absolutely love it.

-Yeah, that's a smart kid.

Smart.

-Wise.

Very, very wise.

-Indeed.

Indeed.

So it's worked out.

-I came in as security police on the support side of the house there, walking in as a brand-new lieutenant.

Same kind of thing.

Best advice I got is listen to your NCOs.

They want you to succeed because you're the one that's going to be out there leading and trying to pull everything together, and they're there to support you to do that.

-That is the best advice for anyone listening.

Listen to your NCOs.

They will save your bacon every single time.

That was my experience.

That was the advice I think I mentioned to you my dad told me -- "Hey, son."

He didn't try to influence me on branch or anything.

He says, "But listen to your NCOs and you'll be successful."

-I was just very fortunate.

I had some great NCOs all throughout my career.

I had great airmen all through my career out there.

I had great officers that I worked with.

I was so blessed for all that.

Thank you all for everything you've done.

And again, thank you to all the families across the board, even to our families that lost their loved ones, our heroes in our situation back in the '90s, in '96, but gosh, overall, I just feel so blessed to have that opportunity to work with some amazing Americans.

-Absolutely.

-And just look back on that.

You know, when you get old like me, you look back and start looking back and reminiscing about things and looking back and, you know, there's good times and there's not so good times, you know, there.

But we pull together and take care of each other, and we prevail and keep moving forward.

-I couldn't have said it better.

And I think it's easy to make decisions when there's no pressure on your shoulders.

-Mm.

-I think your true mettle is tested when you've got a split second and there are lives on the line.

These are the burdens that we carry as leaders.

And there will be leaders that come after us, and they will have to make those decisions.

And there are things that happen that we just have no control over, and that's okay as well.

And that we are here to support one another and to carry each other through.

T.J., Quintina, Doug, thank you so much for being here on the farm with me, for sharing your stories, for sharing your insights on leadership.

I really, really appreciate it.

I can't thank you enough.

And thank you for your service.

-Thanks.

-Thank you all.

-♪ There will be light ♪ ♪ There is a road ♪ ♪ Marching on ♪ ♪ Coming home ♪ ♪♪ ♪♪