Tell My Sons: A Father's Last Letters

by Lt Col Mark Weber

  The standing ovation and vote of confidence I received from parents and students that night was intoxicating, but it didn’t relieve me of feeling like a failure for my temperamental approach.

  Of course, there was something noble about standing up to Booth, but he never did rebuke those boys. And had this been a real job, I’m not so sure nobility would have counted for much in the unemployment line. There was plenty of room in which to feel proud, but also to seek better balance.

  * * *

  A tempered will and a temperamental predominance of courage are needed not just for contending with bosses. Those qualities are also useful when dealing with respected peers and subordinates.

  In late June 1996, the Khobar Towers complex in Saudi Arabia was bombed. Nineteen U.S. airmen were killed, and more than 370 personnel were wounded. The complex, which consisted of a few dozen tightly packed, eight-story condos, was home to about four thousand U.S. soldiers and airmen stationed in the country.

  After the bombing, the Department of Defense made a decision to repatriate all U.S. family members back to the States and move all U.S. service members into a more defendable location. An order was drafted for fifty MP soldiers and one MP officer to help carry out the mission.

  The excitement in the Triple Nickel was conspicuous when that order arrived at Fort Lee. Real-world missions like this were rare in the nineties, and the size and scope of the task were twice what any platoon leader would normally handle. These facts made it a dream assignment, and the task fell to me.

  Our expectations were high—and they were shattered almost immediately upon arrival in Saudi Arabia, where we were assigned to OPM-SANG, a rank-heavy U.S. Army command that would serve as a sort of parental unit during the deployment.*

  My fifty-man team was split into four groups and scattered throughout a country the size of the western United States. The work our soldiers received was akin to mall security and would ultimately have nothing to do with security for U.S. families; fifty German shepherds would have served the same purpose.

  Ninety percent of the personnel in OPM-SANG were majors and lieutenant colonels, a stark contrast in age, experience, and expectations compared with my enlisted soldiers. This meant conditions were ripe for conflict, which was ignited at the top.

  Several of our young soldiers were verbally reprimanded by senior officers for wearing shorts and flip-flops to the community pool. Command policy required all soldiers to respect local customs and wear head-to-toe clothing while walking to and from the pool, because local Saudis worked in the compound. The policy and the reprimand were appropriate, except for one thing: senior officers routinely violated the policy themselves.

  The idea of taking up this issue with a general officer twenty-five years senior in experience and rank wore hard on me in light of the still-fresh experience at Nicollet with Mr. Booth, but I felt the same conviction to do the right thing.

  Just don’t call the man a coward, I figured, and we’ll be okay.

  I enlisted the support of a lieutenant colonel sixteen years senior to me to provide “flank support” and then personally took up the case with the general.

  When I met with Brigadier General Larry Smith, we engaged in pleasant small talk, then he invited me to speak my mind.

  “Sir, I need your help,” I began. “My soldiers violated the uniform policy, and I need to fix that—I can take care of that. I’d like to ask your help in getting the senior officers to help set the example.”

  Smith leaned back in his chair and literally spoke down the brim of his nose at me. His condescending tone was even more pronounced than Mr. Booth’s had been.

  “Now you listen up, Lieutenant Weber,” he said softly. “We’re not going to get into that kind of talk and comparison around here. This issue doesn’t belong at my level.” (Actually, it did, because it already was.) “You just take care of your platoon of soldiers. They’re doing a fine job, and you just need to make sure they keep that up.” Without skipping a beat, he shifted to a more upbeat tone and choice of subject: “Aren’t these facilities just grand? Now, how’s your family doing?”

  What grace. What skill. What slime.

  I glanced over at my flank for support, but the colonel stood there like a sheep. He didn’t even try.†

  It was bad enough getting shot down by someone like Smith. It was far worse getting shot down by a respected subordinate in the incident that followed.

  Despite the total letdown in expectations with the Saudi mission, I decided to focus on the one thing that meant the most in any case—the welfare of our soldiers and their families.

  I talked one-on-one with soldiers and junior leaders about their work conditions and off-duty likes and dislikes, and I wrote a newsletter to families back home, describing our living arrangements and the hundreds of dollars in extra income we were making.

  Everyone liked the attention and the involvement, except Sergeant First Class Avery James. He was my new platoon sergeant, and he was actually the kind of NCO I had dreamed of getting nearly three years prior. But with the newsletter, he thought I was too involved and shared too much information.

  “It’s a private matter,” he insisted, regarding the money details. “Some soldiers don’t want their spouses knowing about the extra income so close to the holidays.” And he had come from the school of thought that soldier welfare was the sole domain of the NCO.

  More than anything, however, he resented things I had no control over. We had no vehicles or equipment to maintain, little or no time for individual training or weapons marksmanship, no logistical supplies to coordinate, and soldiers who were farmed out all over the country.

  These conditions relieved James of roughly 90 percent of his job as an NCO, a condition that was accentuated by the fact that there was a 50-to-1 ratio of officers to NCOs. I shared his frustration, but there was nothing I could do about it, and he knew it.

  My dustup and subsequent failure with General Smith only further incensed James. His resentment toward our situation spread to a resentment toward me, and on one occasion he lashed out at me in front of a few soldiers. Without even thinking, I ordered him outside, acknowledged his frustration about the circumstances, and then laid into him.

  “What is it exactly that you think we’re supposed to do here, mutiny?” I asked him. “Am I supposed to place my rank on the table and offer a threat of resignation because of all this?”

  As much as we disliked the mission, we really had nothing to complain about. We were receiving combat and hazardous-duty pay for conditions that were anything but hazardous. Ours was a collective mismanagement of expectations, and I told him he needed to help our soldiers extinguish their fires of discontent, not throw fuel on them.

  James’s insubordination in front of soldiers was a cardinal sin in the army. I thought about his exceptional performance to date as the next thought made it to my lips: “I can handle disagreements in private, but if that kind of public insubordination ever happens again, I will do all in my power to have you redeployed to the States on the very first plane out of the country.”

  Personally, I still wonder what he thought of me in that moment, but professionally, the only thing I cared about was him changing his crappy attitude. To his credit, he did just that.

  When you’re in charge, everyone knows how to do things better than you are doing them. That was no exception with Second Lieutenant Michael Burns. Our deployment called for only one officer, but Burns was sent anyway, so his presence was already redundant and unwelcome from day one.

  Still wet behind the ears in the army, let alone as an officer, Burns had a very immature professional attitude.

  “You’re just not forceful enough with these jokers,” he’d say with a casual wave of his hand. He had clever retorts about working with senior officers that revealed a warped understanding of the profession.

  “Schmoozing isn’t my style,” he’d say. “I speak only when spoken to.” He found staff meetings to be tedious, which th
ey are, but he seemed to have missed the fact that they came with the territory.

  Burns’s loose attitude came to him honestly, as he worked mostly at night and out of sight of senior officers. But I was just as direct with him when he criticized me in front of our soldiers for the same issues James did.

  I held a razor-thin line of superiority over Burns, so imagination had to be the tactic of choice. I told him I was assigning him new duties. He would join me in the headquarters on the day shift for a little firsthand senior officer experience and professional perspective.

  I imagined he would be disappointed, but I had no idea it would make him as angry as it did. He tried reasoning with me and even apologized for offending me, but I had no intention of letting the matter go. “No, it’s about time you had the opportunity to show me how to do it right.”

  He recoiled hard. “I don’t need to experience it to know how it should be done. When you’re right, you’re right, and that’s all you need.”

  I thought about my experience with Booth as well as the recent run-in with Smith, and I replied, “I somehow missed the lesson that teaches that you can still get your way when folks who outrank you don’t listen or don’t care what you think.”

  “You’re not in charge!” he yelled. “You’re not the commander!” But his quick call back to the States was short. He showed up the next morning for his appointed duties and developed (I’d like to think) a new appreciation for tempered wills and temperamental tendencies.

  * * *

  Nearly two years after my adventures in Saudi Arabia, I was assigned to a job that seemed to punctuate the importance of risking failure and missteps in the practice of MacArthur’s proposal. In fact, “temper of the will” would become as much about softening as hardening—for both the subordinate and the superior.

  On the week of my promotion to the rank of captain in 1998, my boss told me the brigade commander, Colonel John Della Jacono (“DJ” for short), wanted me to compete for assignment as his senior logistics officer (brigade S4). Far from being flattered, I was terrified. The job was rated for a major, not a captain—and certainly not a newly minted captain. And I was a military policeman, not a logistics officer.

  Responsibilities included logistical oversight of five battalions totaling about 800 instructors and 1,800 soldiers, a $1.2 million annual budget, and $4.5 million in contractual obligations for weapons ranges and dining facilities.

  The duties were intimidating enough, but added to the equation was the fact that Fort McClellan would permanently close in fifteen months. This meant the new brigade S4 would also have to account for everything in the vast organization—thousands and thousands of pieces of furniture, equipment, and property—then turn it in or move it to the new brigade’s home at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri. In other words, double the normal workload. No thanks!

  But before I knew it, I was sitting in front of DJ for an interview. He was cordial, but direct. “So, tell me why I should select you to be my S4,” he asked.

  “Ah, sir, I think there’s been a mistake,” I replied. “I didn’t express any interest in being the S4, and honestly I don’t think I’m qualified in experience or rank.” I wasn’t trying to be modest; I simply knew my limits. I also knew rank and authority mattered; most of the officers I would have to work with would be majors and lieutenant colonels with years of experience.

  DJ shifted topics, and we spent most of our time focused on things that had nothing to do with logistics. I left his office confident he would pick the senior captain or one of the two majors who had applied for the job, one of whom was a career logistician.

  About a week after that interview, I was told my new assignment to the brigade staff was effective immediately. DJ later explained that he knew my rank and experience would offer some unique challenges, but he liked my character and personality. He said he saw an officer who knew how to work hard and wasn’t afraid to be bold, and he thought that was going to matter more than anything else with the challenges ahead.

  I was furious. I thought DJ’s judgment was shortsighted foolishness. I already felt that I was in over my head with my master’s program in history at Jacksonville State University. Kristin and I had just been forced to leave our rented home and were in the process of moving onto the base. And changing to a new job beyond my grade and experience would be like sending me into a boxing ring with one arm tied behind my back. Would it be my fault if I couldn’t get the work done to standard?

  As it turned out, the attributes DJ spoke about did make up for my lack of rank and experience in a thousand little ways over the next fifteen months. I was even asked to perform tasks outside my duties. When DJ saw my presentations and written reports, he signed me up to prepare briefings for the installation commanding general and asked me to write his speech for the deactivation ceremony of the brigade.

  On the one hand, it felt great being able to contribute in such unique ways. On the other hand, I knew I was doing extra work because others weren’t willing or able to do theirs, and that really pissed me off—just as it had when I was a kid I and was “rewarded” with most of the household cleaning chores because I was “so good at it.”

  Not everything went well in my assignment. Having a can-do attitude and fresh perspective was appealing, but with no rank or formal training and experience, I was like a kid trying to wear his dad’s suit. This put me at a great disadvantage when there were differences of opinion about big decisions. It wasn’t uncommon to get looks from people that screamed, “Who do you think you are, Captain?”—even from DJ, who loved it when I did bold things for him, but scoffed if I did them on my own.

  One event in particular underscored this paradox.

  The officer taking DJ’s place at Fort Leonard Wood was Rod Johnson, an easygoing and mild-mannered personality who had recently been promoted to colonel. (Eight years later, he would become the provost marshal general of the army.) Johnson was a stark contrast to DJ, who was a fiery, temperamental combat veteran of the Eighty-Second Airborne Division.

  During one of our planning meetings at Fort Leonard Wood, Johnson asked if we had any money that we could spare for his fledgling command. He had been given a shoestring budget, and asked if we could spare about four thousand dollars, which was like asking for pocket change, considering the cost of the move. But out of respect for my boss, I didn’t reveal we had eighty-five thousand dollars left over in the budget that we were not going to use at Fort McClellan.

  When I returned to Alabama and raised the issue with DJ, his answer was an immediate and emphatic “No!” He was downright dismissive. “You know what they’re spending their money on there? Furniture. Brand-new furniture, for God’s sake!” he fumed. He thought such money should be spent on soldier equipment or not at all. As far as he was concerned, senior officers could sit at a card table.

  DJ wasn’t alone in his assessment, but the “new furniture” issue was a real problem for Johnson. The army had no intention of spending ten thousand dollars to move beat-up, worn-out, 1970s-vintage steel desks and chairs from Alabama to Missouri. And the bottom line was that Johnson’s staff needed desks and chairs to do their job.

  I pleaded with DJ, “Sir, this is money we don’t need, and it’s a pretty insignificant sum of money in the grand scheme of things.” The conversation lasted a good fifteen minutes, and he started to get upset, so I let it drop. Then I paid a visit to the officer who managed everyone’s money at Fort McClellan to see if I could find another way to meet the request.

  “Why don’t you just send the money from your account?” the officer said with a puzzled look on his face. “The transfer is legal, and the money is available in excess. Why are you coming to me to do it for you?” Of course, I wasn’t going to tell him that DJ didn’t want to.

  I weighed all the information I had in hand, banked on my reputation with DJ as a stand-up officer (which he’d said he liked when he hired me), and then conducted the money transfer.

  A week later DJ called
me to his office, confirmed my actions, and then leveled the most devastating tongue-lashing I have received in my life—then or since. “You are a captain! I am a colonel! What is it that you don’t understand about that, Weber?” And that was the politest part of the exchange.

  My explanations didn’t seem to matter at all. He wasn’t more than four inches from my face, and there is no doubt everyone in the surrounding offices heard it. I saw his objection coming, but I did not anticipate the degree of outrage—not after all we had done together.

  Still, as shortsighted as DJ’s order may have been, telling me not to transfer the money was lawful, which made me dead wrong to disobey. I walked out of his office dizzy and a little numb and went to an abandoned classroom down the hall to try and collect myself.

  The incident made me question everything I thought I knew about leading and managing in tough environments. My annual evaluation was due in two weeks, and I concluded I had horribly misjudged a whole host of professional issues.

  I didn’t think my career was over (army officers can be melodramatic about what actually ends a career), but I wondered if this one incident was going to take the shine off a year of backbreaking labor.

  When I finally sat down for my evaluation, DJ revealed an example of professionalism I have carried with me ever since. He set aside his personal hang-ups and gave me the most impressive evaluation I had ever seen. A week later, he pinned a Meritorious Service Medal on my chest, an award normally reserved for his commanders.

  A few days later at a golf outing over a couple of beers, DJ shared a moment of candor that still warms my heart today. He nearly gushed, telling me how proud he was of the work I had done, and that my efforts over the previous year had ultimately proved him right in selecting me for the job. Clearly, he’d had doubts.

  Ten years later, I experienced the same sort of rub with a boss in the Pentagon. Shortly after our assignment was complete, we shared a similar moment, which speaks volumes about the “cuts both ways” nature of being bold, courageous, and imaginative: