Motivation

Sorry it's been a few days. I have been off track on a lot of things, and trying to think of things to write for this was one of them. I initially had a good flow, but seemed to hit a block. I will try and get back there.


As a leader of Marines, it is your job to find what motivates people. Some need no other motivation than the fact that they're getting a paycheck and 30 days of paid leave a year. Others, not so much. As I became a leader of Marines, I found that sometimes a good swift kick in the ass motivated some to higher levels than they even expected. And I don't mean physically kicking someone. There's no better swift kick in the ass for a Marine than threatening his time off. And that proved to be an effective tool all around. But even that didn't work sometimes.

When I was promoted to Corporal, I became a Marine NCO and what is considered the beginning of Marine Corps leadership. NCO stands for Non-Commissioned Officer. I was now the first rung in the chain of command for a group of Marines. And they tested every ounce of leadership skill I could muster, lemme tell you! I had Marines who were constantly late, Marines that didn't take care of their uniforms, Marines that didn't take care of their bodies, but most of all I ran into Marines that didn't take care of one another. Attitudes are infectious, so I tried to be as positive a role model as could be. I showed up to work early, with a pressed uniform. I always maintained a good haircut, fresh shave, and was loud at all PT sessions. For some, this helped them along to want to be better Marines, but there were those few who still had their issues. One of those Marines was LCpl Hayes.

LCpl Hayes was from a small town in SC that was about 6 hours from Cherry Point. He was always late to work. I tried talking to him, yelling at him, others tried, but he just didn't seem to care. Hayes' father had died a few years earlier and had left a decent sum of money that was in his mothers control. He convinced his mother to give him some of it to buy a car, which made matters worse. You would think that with a car of his own, he would show up on time, but he used it as a tool to barely make it to work on time, if not late. And to top it off, now he had a vehicle to transport him from Cherry Point to SC where his "fiance' " lived. She was 18, just like he was, and twice as immature as he was. He brought her back with him a few times, and when he would get drunk and pass out, she was having fun with the other guys in the barracks by putting on stripteases and more. He was none the wiser. Everything with Hayes came to a head finally at the end of a nice, summers week of work.

During the summers in Cherry Point, the outdoor pool was turned into the training pool for the Water Survival Instructors. As marines, we were trained in many aspects of water survival, and had to be tested on these practices annually. Hayes, not being a very good swimmer, showed up one Monday at the pool and spent the whole week getting remediation from the swim instructors on what he needed to do just to pass the lowest level of swim qual. Some thought he was faking, which is a good possibility, but I knew he was frightened to death of the water and gave him the benefit of the doubt. So, he spent the whole week at the pool trying to make it. He failed. he was then made to go to another week of remediation. During this week, he was in contact with one of our Sergeants. He was then told to check in with me at the end of each day to update us on his progress, or lack thereof. Well, he would call and tell me had to be back the next day, but was progressively getting better. I stopped by the pool to check on him and they said he was getting better, so that was good. He called the Sergeant on Thursday and said if he was to make it through on Friday, what should he do? She told him that if he qualified in the morning to come back to work, but if it was the afternoon, to call her and she would tell him what to do, which would most likely be to just take the rest of the day off and be back to work Monday. I went to the barracks to inspect and ran into Hayes walking out to his car in civilian attire. I asked him what he was doing and where he was going. He lied and said that he was told he could leave when he was done. I asked if he was sure, and he said yes. So, I let him go. When I got back from lunch, I told the Sergeant what he said. She called his cell phone and told him that he needed to get back. He explained he was halfway home to SC and wasn't gonna be back until Monday. Then the shit hit the fan. GySgt Oglesby was told what happened and we called him all weekend telling him he needed to be back now and that he was in an Unautorized Status, or UA for short. All weekend, when he would answer the phone, was spent dealing with him in various states of drunkenness and emotion. He would be angry, then crying, then angry again, thinking we had done him wrong, when his instructions had been quite clear. Because he was UA, we had to let our Chain of Command know. Our Sgtmaj wanted to see him first thing Monday morning, with the rest of us, to read him his rights and begin the process of Non-Judicial Punishment. This is a form of punishment the Military has that is less than a court martial, for lesser offenses. Had Hayes been UA longer than 30 days, he would be considered a deserter and would have been subject to a Court Martial.

Well, Monday rolled around and he showed back up real early. We all met at the Squadron HQ and I pulled him aside and chewed his ass. By me seeing him last before he left, he essentially made me responsible for him. He apologized and said that he was upset with his fiance', the Marine Corps, our GySgt, lots of reasons. We went in to see the SgtMaj and he asked us each some questions about what happened. Hayes admitted he knew what he did was wrong, so he had his rights read to him. They are almost the same as Miranda Rights when you get arrested. We were then sent to work. When we got to work, a little while later in the morning, the GySgt wanted to talk to Hayes. He asked me to be there with him as a witness. Hayes exploded on him, telling him that he was gonna kick his ass because he hated him, etc. He weighed in at about 150 and the GySgt was about 100 lbs heavier. The conversation was over and Hayes was told that he was not allowed anywhere off base. We asked the Marines in the barracks to keep an eye out for him.

I was over at a friends house getting my hair cut when my wife called and said the Sergeant had called my house looking for me. Hayes was at the barracks and had she had gone to see him. He got confrontational and started yelling at her. He grabbed a bunji cord and ran into the head (bathroom), and locked the door. I got there just as this was happening. The two male Marines that were there had busted the door open and caught him trying to string himself up with a bunji cord on the shower pole! They both physically dragged him out into the room. I walked in and they were trying to get him to loosen his grasp. He was holding the cord on each end with it wrapped around his neck like 3 times. The two other guys tried but he had a tight grip. One looked at the other and said, "Watch this!" He grabbed the part of strap around his neck and pulled it about 6 inches from his neck and snapped it! Hayes screamed and let go of the strap. The Sergeant had run and called one of our SSgt's, since the GySgt would have been of no use to us. He talked to Hayes for a bit, calmed him down, then they brought him to our Squadron duty office for 24 hour surveillance. When it came time for his NJP, the Colonel restricted him, but didn't take any money because he had spoke to Hayes's mom and she would end up paying his bills if he lost money. The Colonel did actually take money, but suspended it. What that meant was Hayes had 6 months to keep his nose clean. If at any time during that 6 months he screwed up, he would have lost the money. Hayes managed to stay clean and we never really had any other problems with him. Hayes went on to get out of the Marine Corps and called me at one point after he had been out for a while. I remember not wanting to talk to him and caring less about how he was doing. I hate that I felt that way now.

Personal motivation was hard to come by sometimes. As a kid, I was never personally motivated to do much more than skate or chase after girls. And I was so awkward at it, both things. I went for shock value a lot of times. I don't remember this, but a good friend of mine once told me that when we first met in Journalism class when she first came to our school, I told her, "I am gonna rip your dress off." She swears I said it, and the more I think about it and think about my younger self, I probably did. Most of my motivation to do well as a kid was to stay off of restriction, which never seemed to work. I did poorly in school after 3rd grade. I think I looked at school as more of a social gathering than that of a place for learning. When you're in grade school, teachers seem motivated to teach you. You have one teacher, and they teach you everything. Middle school I had a few different teachers for specific topics, and then High School.....ugh.

I hated high school from the start. It wasn't too bad because some of the same kids carried over from middle school, but there were also kids from the other schools that came over. It was good to get to know some of them, but a lot were jerks. And the teachers.... Most could care less it seemed. here's the information, if you don't understand it, I will explain it again, and if you still have problems, then you're an idiot. My tolerance for the teachers dropped quickly. I failed everything in 9th grade except Art and Spanish. I guess I showed them, huh? I look back now and realize how stupid it was. But, like any other pubescent kid, I was trying to find my way. I got picked on a lot because I was just getting into punk music and was somewhat shunned by the punks as a poser, and the jocks and preppies were just jerks about it. One of the kids said to me one day, "What the fuck are you? One day you wear dock shoes and the next you wear converse? Make up your fucking mind." I didn't know I had to pick a side. So, that motivated me to like punk music all the more. It was all about anger and fuck you, at least at that time it was for me. I stopped caring about grades but was not a dumb kid. I retained enough to pass my tests and that's what kept me afloat. I also had a school counselor who seemed to care, which ended up helping a great deal. She was the mother of a friend and I was required to see her weekly because I had shit grades. She made me think a little bit, which was more than the teachers did. One teacher I had was the football coach. he and I REALLY didn't see eye to eye. One day about 3/4's of the way through the year we were taking a test and the kid behind me kept tapping my desk with his pencil. I told him to stop a few times. The teacher told me to quit talking. I told him what was going on and he said nothing to the kid. I have a feeling it was a set up. Finally I yelled at the kid and threatened to smack him. The teacher told me to get out, which reaffirmed my belief it was a set up. I told the vice principal what had happened and she believed me. Nothing ever came of it but more hatred for that teacher and others like him.
As time went on through school, I learned to channel the aggression and do just enough to get by. I did get a few teachers in school who did seem to care as time went on and I did better in those classes than others.

I look back on it all and try not to carry any ill will. I believe that had I had some sense of direction given to me at a younger age by parents and coaches and teachers, things may have been different. It really does make a difference in your life when you're given positive reinforcement and motivation to do well in things and have some direction. In no way am I blaming anyone for anything. We all make our own choices in life, but sometimes we need a little help. Children need it constantly. Teenagers need it sometimes. And adults often need it more than anyone else.