Bad Guy

They don't tell you about this part when you walk into your recruiter's office and tell the Marine sitting behind the desk that you want to be a Marine Officer. I spent a good portion of my time this weekend sitting on an Administrative Separation (AdSep ["ad sep"]) board. An AdSep board is a panel of officers that recommends to the Commanding General whether a Marine be separated from the Marine Corps for administrative reasons. Also, if the board recommends separation, they recommend a characterization of service--whether the Marine should receive an honorable, general, or other than honorable discharge.

An administrative separation does not always imply wrong-doing on the part of the Marine--for example, a Marine that is injured is administratively separated. However, many times Marines don't uphold the standards they are expected to uphold. These Marines might have minor punishment administered--loss of rank, loss of pay, loss of liberty privileges, etc. There might be no punishment--an overweight Marine will certainly not enjoy the PT and the weigh-ins and the inability to be promoted, but that Marine is never formally punished.

Under certain circumstances, Marines are also be separated from the Marine Corps. If an overweight Marine refuses to lose weight for a long period of time, they will be AdSepped. Until recently, Marines that were homosexual were AdSepped. And Marines that are caught using drugs on a urinalysis are AdSepped.

I have sat on two AdSep boards so far. They followed some amount of legal proceedings--there is a prosecutor called the recorder, the Marine typically has a Navy lawyer representing them, and three officers outside the Marine's chain of command serve as the judge and jury. The first one I did several months ago was not too difficult. The Marine admitted to using marijuana, and the focus of the board was to determine his characterization of service. However, in the board I sat on this past weekend, the Marine insisted that the marijuana in his system was innocently ingested. He brought in a friend with a medical marijuana card that claims the drug was his, his fiance came to explain that she would never allow drugs in their home, and another Marine testified as a character witness.

I have many thoughts about the process and this board that I would love to explain in detail, but I don't have time. The one thing I do want to discuss: at one point during the board, while listening to the Marines' fiance testify, I realized that I was the bad guy. A situation that had happened inside their home had been brought up on a public website, and she was explaining to the board that it was slander. As she talked, discussion broke out between the other board members, the recorder, and the Navy lawyer over the general topic. Since no one else was listening to her, and I was sitting closest to her, she turned to me, looked me in the eye, and continued with her explanation. She looked almost desperate, and I realized: in her eyes I was the judgmental, unfeeling authority that wouldn't care about what had actually happened, wouldn't care about the fact that they had two small children to support, and would have no mercy. Of course, that wasn't true, but sitting there in my uniform and refusing to show any empathy, that is more than likely how I appeared to her.

It was a difficult case to hear. The board doesn't actually make the final decision to separate the Marine--we just make a recommendation to the Commanding General, and those recommendations are not infrequently overturned. However, when it came down to deliberations, there was one board member who decided that the Marine was guilty fairly quickly, one board member who was very reluctant to do so, and then there was me. I was the swing vote. And I made the recommendation, based on the evidence and testimony that was presented and in accordance with the appropriate orders, that the Marine should be separated from the Marine Corps.

It wasn't an easy decision to make. Was the Marine telling the truth, or was he lying? Was it a single mistake he'd made, or had he finally been caught at something he'd been doing for a long time? Did a single mistake after 10 years of service to the Marine Corps or the possibility that he was telling the truth mean that we should give him an extra few months in the Marine Corps (his contract was finished in several months regardless) to figure out what he would do afterwards? Did his misconduct warrant an other than honorable discharge or only a general discharge? What would happen to his family if he was separated from the Marine Corps with little time to prepare? The decisions I made could potentially have a huge impact on his life.

They don't tell you about this when you're an officer candidate. We expect to be responsible for lives in a war zone. They don't tell you that you'll end up sitting on a board, looking a woman in the eyes and realizing that you're about to destroy her livelihood.

One of the Marine Corps' leadership principles is "Seek responsibility and take responsibility for your actions." I will take responsibility for my decision--I believe it was the right decision. However, I hope that the General who will read our recommendation will decide that there is room for mercy, too.