In the wake of a wave of controversy spurred by comments Marine Corps Sgt. Maj. Micheal Barrett made at a Senate Armed Services subcommittee hearing, a congressman who served in the Marine Corps is coming to his defense. At a hearings of SASC’s subcommittee on personnel last week, Barrett said Marines were more interested in equipment modernization and readiness than they were in benefits and entitlements, and said a lower pay raise and cuts to certain benefits in the coming year would improve their spending discipline. “I truly believe it will raise discipline,” he told the lawmakers. “You’ll have better…
Browsing: Leadership
Commandant of the Marine Corps Gen. James Amos and Sergeant Major of the Marine Corps Michael Barrett will conduct a live social media Q&A Friday, March 14 at 4 p.m. via the official Marine Corps Facebook page. “An announcement post will hit the page and the bulk of dialogue will take place within the comments on that post. We will also be answering as many questions as we can on Twitter,” said Staff Sgt. Mark Fayloga, Marine Corps spokesperson, via email. The Q&A thread will resemble the popular AMA format used on the site Reddit.com; commenters will post questions on…
Navy Secretary Ray Mabus has signed the discharge paperwork for Marine Capt. James Clement, who was recommended for separation late last year for failing to supervise Marine scout snipers who engaged in inappropriate war zone combat during a 2011 deployment to Afghanistan. Clement was the executive officer of Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion, 2nd Marines when scout snipers attached to that unit filmed themselves urinating on enemy corpses in a video later posted to YouTube. Marine Corps Times covered Clement’s case extensively after he was charged with dereliction of duty in connection with the incident. His defense team, led by civilian…
A Harvard professor is suggesting that bad behavior in the war-zone could be prevented if just one person in the unit stepped forward to say, “Marines don’t do that.” Michael Wheeler, professor of management practice at Harvard Business School, posted a piece to his LinkedIn profile examining how someone’s decision-making can be changed in a matter of seconds. He cited the case of British Royal Marine Sgt. Alexander Blackman, who was recently sentenced to life in prison after being found guilty for killing an insurgent at close-range during a 2011 patrol in Afghanistan’s Helmand province. The act was captured on helmet cameras worn by…
The Corps’ new leadership development initiative will take a fresh look at mentoring as part of a wider effort that will allow leaders more time to get to know their junior Marines, as the service continues its fight against bad behavior in the ranks. It’s coined Leadership Development, and it will introduce a new brand of more engaged leadership that might remind Marines of what they experienced at boot camp. From values-based discussions on the rifle ranges to more one-on-one mentoring, the initiative is aimed at reminding Marines that their values and behavior shouldn’t change when they hang up their…
Talk about a motivated marriage. On July 26, Sgts. Maj. Bradley and Holly Prafke retired in a joint ceremony at Marine Corps Air Station New River, N.C. The Prafkes’ commitment to the Corps goes almost as deep as their commitment to each other: They retired with 30 years of service apiece under their belts, and they were together for 27 of those years. They met, according to news reports, in Camp Pendleton, Calif., when he was a lance corporal and she was a corporal. Bradley Prafke relinquished his last post, that of sergeant major for Marine Aircraft Group 29, during…
[HTML1] There’s a retirement ceremony Wednesday in Washington for Lt. Gen. Willie Williams, who is director of the Marine Corps staff — the service’s No. 3 general. Marine Corps Times reported this back in April, when I profiled him, but the video above was released earlier today and is well worth sharing here. Watching it brought to mind my few interactions with Williams going back to summer 2010, when we met at a reception for D.C. media hosted by then-Commandant Gen. James T. Conway. There was a lot of brass at the CMC’s house that evening — deputy commandants and…
Gen. John Allen formally stepped into retirement Monday, moving on after more than 30 years in the Marine Corps with a ceremony at the Naval Academy. Allen already had been described as “retired” numerous times, but he was still on active duty through this week, as the Wall Street Journal pointed out yesterday. Likewise, Gen. James Mattis has turned over his post as the head of U.S. Central Command to Army Gen. Lloyd Austin, but Mattis won’t formally retire until June. Marine Corps Times profiled him last month. Allen’s actual retirement ceremony seems to have been conducted outside the limelight.…
If you’ve never had a lousy boss, consider yourself lucky. The sad fact is that at some point in our professional lives, most of us — military and civilian alike — will encounter a superior who is an absolute pain to deal with. Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is taking aim at so-called “toxic leaders” by encouraging each of the services to adopt 360-degree evaluations, a process in which commanders are reviewed by their peers and subordinates in addition to the officers who oversee them. The objective is to identify bad apples early, before they’re…
It’s no April Fools’ joke, Marines — some leaders want you to think about sheathing your knife hands. Most Marines are introduced to the crisp, flat-palmed gesture in boot camp. It’s one of the tools drill instructors use to emphasize to civilian recruits how they want things done. But beyond a training environment, some say Marines should exchange knife hands — and the yelling that typically accompanies them — for better leadership tools. The shift from 12 years of combat to a garrison environment is going to pose challenges for leaders. They’ll need to continue to motivate the young corporals and sergeants,…
