The following is the retirement address of Marine
Col Wayne Shaw who retired recently from Quantico
after more than 28 years of service.
*************************************************************
A Farewell to the Corps
Colonel Wayne Shaw, USMC, Quantico, Virginia
In recent years I've heard many Marines on the
occasion of retirements, farewells, promotions and
changes of command refer to the "fun" they've had
in the Marine Corps.
"I loved every day of it and had a lot of fun" has
been voiced far too often. Their definition of
"fun" must be radically different from mine. Since
first signing my name on the dotted line 28 1/2
years ago I have had very little fun.
Devoting my entire physical and mental energies
training to kill the young men of some other
country was not fun. Worrying about how many of my
own men might or return home maimed was not fun.
Knowing that we did not have the money or time to
train as best we should have, was not fun either.
It was no fun to be separated from my wife for
months on end, nor was it fun to freeze at night
in snow and rain and mud. It was not much fun to
miss my father's funeral because my Battalion
Commander was convinced our peacetime training
deployment just couldn't succeed without me.
Missing countless school and athletic events my
sons very much wanted me to see was not much fun
either. Not being at my son's high school
graduation wasn't fun. Somehow it didn't seem like
fun when the movers showed up with day laborers
from the street corner and the destroyed personal
effects were predictable from folks who couldn't
hold a job. The lost and damaged items, often
irreplaceable family heirlooms weren't much fun to
try to "replace" for pennies on the dollar. There
wasn't much fun for [a] Colonel with a family of
four to live in a 1200 sq. ft apartment with one
bathroom that no welfare family would have moved
into. It was not much fun to watch the downsizing
of the services after Desert Storm as we handed
out pink slips to men who risked their lives just
weeks before.
It has not been much fun to watch mid grade
officers and senior Staff NCO's, after living
frugal lives and investing money where they could,
realize that they cannot afford to send their sons
and daughters to college.
Nor do I consider it much fun to reflect on the
fact that our medical system is simply broken. It
is not much fun to watch my Marines board
helicopters that are just too old and train with
gear that just isn't what i[t] should be anymore.
It is not much fun to receive the advanced copies
of promotion results and call those who have been
passed over for promotion. It just wasn't much fun
to watch the infrastructure at our bases and
stations sink deeper into the abyss because
funding wasn't provided for the latest "crisis."
It just wasn't much fun to discharge good Marines
for being a few pounds overweight and have to
reenlist Marines who were HIV positive and not
world-wide deployable. It sure wasn't much fun to
look at the dead Marines in the wake of the Beirut
bombing and Mogadishu fiascoes and ask yourself
what in the hell we were doing there. I could go
on and on.
There hasn't been much fun in a career that spans
a quarter century of frustration, sacrifice and
work. So, why did you serve you might ask? Let me
answer that: I joined the service out of a
profound sense of patriotism. As the son of a
career Air Force Senior NCO I grew up on military
bases often within minutes flying time from Soviet
airfields in East Germany. I remember the Cuban
Missile crisis, the construction of the Berlin
Wall, the nuclear attack drills in school and was
not many miles away when Soviet Tanks crushed the
aspirations of citizens in Czechoslovakia.
To me there was never any doubt that our great
Republic and the last best hope of free people,
needed to prevail in this ultimate contest. I knew
I had to serve. When our nation was in turmoil
over our involvement in Vietnam I knew that we
were right in the macro strategic sense and in the
moral sense, even if in the execution we may have
been flawed. I still believe to this day that we
did the right thing. Many of our elates in the
nation today continue to justify their opposition
in spite of all evidence that shows they were
wrong and their motives either naive or worse.
This nation needed to survive and I was going to
join others like me to insure it did. We joined
long before anyone had ever referred to service in
the infantry units of the Marine Corps as an
"opportunity."
We knew the pay was lousy, the work hard and the
rewards would be few. We had a cause, we knew we
were right and we were willing when others were
not. Even without a direct threat to our Nation
many still join and serve for patriotic reasons. I
joined the Marines out of a sense of adventure. I
expected to go to foreign countries and do
challenging things. I expected that, should I
stick around, my responsibilities would grow as
would my rewards. It was exciting to be given
missions and great Marines to be responsible for.
Finally, I joined for the camaraderie. I expected
to lead good men and be lead by good men. Marines
who would speak frankly and freely, follow orders
once the decision was made and who would place the
success of the mission above all else. Marines who
would be willing to sacrifice for this great
nation. These were men I could trust with anything
and they could trust me. It was the camaraderie
that sustained me when the adventure had faded and
the patriotism was tested. I was a Marine for all
of these years because it was necessary, because
it was rewarding, because our nation needed
individuals like us and because I liked and
admired the Marines I served with.....but it sure
wasn't fun.
I am leaving active service soon and am filled
with some real concerns for the future of our
Marine Corps and even more so for the other
services. I have two sons who are on the path to
becoming Marine Officers themselves and I am
concerned about their future and that of their
fellow Marines, sailors, airmen and soldiers.
We in the Corps have the least of the problems but
will not be able to survive in a sick DOD. We have
gone from a draft motivated force to an all
volunteer force to the current professional force
without the senior leadership being fully aware of
the implications.
Some of our ills can be traced to the fact that
our senior leadership doesn't understand the
modern Marine or service member. I can tell you
that the 18 year old who walks through our door is
a far different individual with different
motivations than those just ten years ago. Let me
generalize for a moment.
The young men from the middle class in the suburbs
come in to [be] "Rambo" for a while. He has a home
to return to if need be and mom has left his room
unchanged. In the back of his mind he has some
thoughts of a career if he likes it or it is
rewarding. The minorities and females are looking
for some skills training but also have considered
a career if "things work out."
They have come to serve their country but only in
a very indirect way. They have not joined for the
veterans benefits because those have been
truncated to the point where they are useless. No
matter what they do, there is no way it will pay
for college and the old VA home loan is not
competitive either.
There are no real veteran's benefits anymore.....
It is that simple, and our senior leadership has
their head in the sand if they think otherwise.
As they progress through their initial enlistments
that are four years or more now, many conclude
that they will not be competitive enough to make
it a 20 year career or don't want to endure the
sacrifices required.
At that point they decide that it is time to get
on with the rest of their lives and the result is
the high first term attrition we currently have to
deal with. The thought of a less than honorable
discharge holds no fear whatsoever for most. It is
a paper tiger. Twenty years ago an individual
could serve two years and walk away with a very
attractive amount of Veterans benefits that could
not be matched by any other sector or business in
the country. We have even seen those who serve
long enough lose benefits as we stamped from
weaker program to weaker program. This must be
reversed.
We need a viable and competitive GI Bill that is
grandfathered when you enter the service, is
predicated on an honorable discharge and has
increasing benefits for longer service so we can
fill the mid grade ranks with quality people. We
must do this to stop the hemorrhage of first term
attrition and to reestablish good faith and
fairness. It will allow us to reenlist a few more
and enlist a few less.
The modern service member is well read and
informed. He knows more about strategy, diplomacy
and current events tha[n] Captains knew when I
first joined. He reads national newspapers and
professional journals and is tuned into CNN. Gone
are the days of the PFC who sat in Butzbach in the
Fulda Gap or Camp Schwab on Okinawa and scanned
the Stars and Stripes sports page and listened to
AFN. Yet our senior leadership continue to
treat him like a moron from the hinterland who
wouldn't understand what goes on. He is in the
service because he wants to be and not because he
can't get a job in the steel mill. Three hots and
a cot are not what he is here for. The Grunts and
other combat arms guys aren't here for the
"training and skills" either. He is remarkably
well disciplined in that he does what he is told
to do even though he knows it is stupid. He is
very stoic, but not blind.
Yet I see senior leaders all of the time who pile
more on. One should remind them that their first
platoon in 1968 would have told them to stick it
where the sun doesn't shine. These new Warriors
only think it.......He is well aware of the moral
cowardice of his seniors and their habit of taking
the easy way out that results in more pain and
work for their subordinates. This must be
reversed. The senior leadership must have the
morale courage to stop the misuse and abuse of the
current force.
The force is too small, stretched too thin and too
poorly funded. These deficiencies are made up on
the backs of the Marines, sailors, airmen and
soldiers. The troops are the best we've ever had
and that is no reason to drive them into the dirt.
Our equipment and infrastructure is shot. There is
no other way to put it. We must reinvest
immediately and not just on the big ticket items
like the F-22. That is the equivalent of buying a
new sofa when the roof leaks and the termites are
wrecking the structure.
Finally let me spend a minute talking about
camaraderie and leadership. I stayed a Marine
because I had great leaders early on. They were
men of great character without preaching, men of
courage without ragging, men of humor without
rancor. They were men who believed in me and I in
them. They encouraged me without being
condescending. We were part of a team and they
cared little for promotions, political correctness
or who your father was. They were well educated
renaissance men who were equally at home in the
White House or visiting a sick Marine's child in a
trailer park. They could talk to a bar maid or a
baroness with equal ease and make each feel like a
lady. They didn't much tolerate excuses or liars
or those with too much ambition for promotion.
Someone once told me that Priests do the Lord's
work and don't plan to be the Pope. They were in
touch with their Marines and supportive of their
seniors. They voiced their opinions freely and
without retribution from above.
They probably drank too much and had an eye for
beautiful women as long as they weren't someone's
wife or a subordinate. You could trust them with
your life, your wife or your wallet.
Some of these great leaders were not my superiors
--- some were my Marines.
We need more like them at the senior levels of
Government and military leadership today. It is
indeed sad when senior defense officials and
Generals say things on TV they themselves don't
believe and every service member knows they are
lying. It is sad how out of touch with our society
some of our Generals are. Ask some general you
know these ten questions:
1. How much does a PFC make per month?
2. How big is the gas tank on a Hummvee?
3. Who is your Congressman and who are your two
Senators?
4. Name one band that your men listen to.
5. Name one book on the NY times best seller list.
6. Who won the last Superbowl?
7. What is the best selling car in America?
8. What is the WWF?
9. When did you last trust your subordinates
enough to take ten days leave?
10. What is the leave balance of your most
immediate subordinate?
We all know they won't get two right and therein
lies the problem. We are in the midst of
monumental leadership failure at the senior
levels.
Just recently Gen Shelton (CJCS) testified that he
didn't know we had a readiness problem or pay
problems.... Can you imagine that level of
isolation? We must fix our own leadership problems
soon. Quality of life is paid lip service and
everyone below the rank of Col. knows it. We need
tough, realistic and challenging training. But we
don't need low pay, no medical benefits and ghetto
housing. There is only so much our morality should
allow us to ask of families.
Isn't it bad enough that we ask the service
members to sacrifice their lives without asking
their families to sacrifice their education and
well being too? We put our troops on guilt trips
when we tell them about how many died for this
country and no hot water in housing is surely a
small sacrifice to make. "Men have died and you
have the guts to complain about lack of medical
care for your kids?" The nation has been in an
economic boom for damn near twenty years now, yet
we expect folks in the military to live like lower
middle class folks lived in the mid fifties.
In 1974 a 2nd Lt. could buy a Corvette for less
than his annual salary. Today, you can't buy a
Corvette on a Major's annual salary. I can give
you 100 other examples...An NROTC midshipman on
scholarship got $100 a month in 1975. He or she
still gets $100 in 1999. No raise in 25 years? The
QOL life piece must be fixed. The Force sees this
as a truth teller and the truth is not good. I
stayed a Marine despite the erosion of benefits,
the sacrifices of my wife and children, the
betrayal of our junior troops and the declining
quality of life because of great leaders, and the
threat to our way of life by a truly evil empire
that no longer exists.
I want men to stay in the future. We must reverse
these trends. There will be a new "evil empire"
eventually. Sacrifices will need to be made and
perhaps many things cannot change but first and
foremost we must fix our leadership problems. The
rest will take care of itself. If we can only fix
the leadership problem....Then, I still can't
promise you "fun" but I can promise you the reward
and satisfaction of being able to look into the
mirror for the rest of your life and being able to
say: "I gave more to America than I ever took from
America....and I am proud of it."
Semper Fi and God Bless you!
Col Wayne Shaw who retired recently from Quantico
after more than 28 years of service.
*************************************************************
A Farewell to the Corps
Colonel Wayne Shaw, USMC, Quantico, Virginia
In recent years I've heard many Marines on the
occasion of retirements, farewells, promotions and
changes of command refer to the "fun" they've had
in the Marine Corps.
"I loved every day of it and had a lot of fun" has
been voiced far too often. Their definition of
"fun" must be radically different from mine. Since
first signing my name on the dotted line 28 1/2
years ago I have had very little fun.
Devoting my entire physical and mental energies
training to kill the young men of some other
country was not fun. Worrying about how many of my
own men might or return home maimed was not fun.
Knowing that we did not have the money or time to
train as best we should have, was not fun either.
It was no fun to be separated from my wife for
months on end, nor was it fun to freeze at night
in snow and rain and mud. It was not much fun to
miss my father's funeral because my Battalion
Commander was convinced our peacetime training
deployment just couldn't succeed without me.
Missing countless school and athletic events my
sons very much wanted me to see was not much fun
either. Not being at my son's high school
graduation wasn't fun. Somehow it didn't seem like
fun when the movers showed up with day laborers
from the street corner and the destroyed personal
effects were predictable from folks who couldn't
hold a job. The lost and damaged items, often
irreplaceable family heirlooms weren't much fun to
try to "replace" for pennies on the dollar. There
wasn't much fun for [a] Colonel with a family of
four to live in a 1200 sq. ft apartment with one
bathroom that no welfare family would have moved
into. It was not much fun to watch the downsizing
of the services after Desert Storm as we handed
out pink slips to men who risked their lives just
weeks before.
It has not been much fun to watch mid grade
officers and senior Staff NCO's, after living
frugal lives and investing money where they could,
realize that they cannot afford to send their sons
and daughters to college.
Nor do I consider it much fun to reflect on the
fact that our medical system is simply broken. It
is not much fun to watch my Marines board
helicopters that are just too old and train with
gear that just isn't what i[t] should be anymore.
It is not much fun to receive the advanced copies
of promotion results and call those who have been
passed over for promotion. It just wasn't much fun
to watch the infrastructure at our bases and
stations sink deeper into the abyss because
funding wasn't provided for the latest "crisis."
It just wasn't much fun to discharge good Marines
for being a few pounds overweight and have to
reenlist Marines who were HIV positive and not
world-wide deployable. It sure wasn't much fun to
look at the dead Marines in the wake of the Beirut
bombing and Mogadishu fiascoes and ask yourself
what in the hell we were doing there. I could go
on and on.
There hasn't been much fun in a career that spans
a quarter century of frustration, sacrifice and
work. So, why did you serve you might ask? Let me
answer that: I joined the service out of a
profound sense of patriotism. As the son of a
career Air Force Senior NCO I grew up on military
bases often within minutes flying time from Soviet
airfields in East Germany. I remember the Cuban
Missile crisis, the construction of the Berlin
Wall, the nuclear attack drills in school and was
not many miles away when Soviet Tanks crushed the
aspirations of citizens in Czechoslovakia.
To me there was never any doubt that our great
Republic and the last best hope of free people,
needed to prevail in this ultimate contest. I knew
I had to serve. When our nation was in turmoil
over our involvement in Vietnam I knew that we
were right in the macro strategic sense and in the
moral sense, even if in the execution we may have
been flawed. I still believe to this day that we
did the right thing. Many of our elates in the
nation today continue to justify their opposition
in spite of all evidence that shows they were
wrong and their motives either naive or worse.
This nation needed to survive and I was going to
join others like me to insure it did. We joined
long before anyone had ever referred to service in
the infantry units of the Marine Corps as an
"opportunity."
We knew the pay was lousy, the work hard and the
rewards would be few. We had a cause, we knew we
were right and we were willing when others were
not. Even without a direct threat to our Nation
many still join and serve for patriotic reasons. I
joined the Marines out of a sense of adventure. I
expected to go to foreign countries and do
challenging things. I expected that, should I
stick around, my responsibilities would grow as
would my rewards. It was exciting to be given
missions and great Marines to be responsible for.
Finally, I joined for the camaraderie. I expected
to lead good men and be lead by good men. Marines
who would speak frankly and freely, follow orders
once the decision was made and who would place the
success of the mission above all else. Marines who
would be willing to sacrifice for this great
nation. These were men I could trust with anything
and they could trust me. It was the camaraderie
that sustained me when the adventure had faded and
the patriotism was tested. I was a Marine for all
of these years because it was necessary, because
it was rewarding, because our nation needed
individuals like us and because I liked and
admired the Marines I served with.....but it sure
wasn't fun.
I am leaving active service soon and am filled
with some real concerns for the future of our
Marine Corps and even more so for the other
services. I have two sons who are on the path to
becoming Marine Officers themselves and I am
concerned about their future and that of their
fellow Marines, sailors, airmen and soldiers.
We in the Corps have the least of the problems but
will not be able to survive in a sick DOD. We have
gone from a draft motivated force to an all
volunteer force to the current professional force
without the senior leadership being fully aware of
the implications.
Some of our ills can be traced to the fact that
our senior leadership doesn't understand the
modern Marine or service member. I can tell you
that the 18 year old who walks through our door is
a far different individual with different
motivations than those just ten years ago. Let me
generalize for a moment.
The young men from the middle class in the suburbs
come in to [be] "Rambo" for a while. He has a home
to return to if need be and mom has left his room
unchanged. In the back of his mind he has some
thoughts of a career if he likes it or it is
rewarding. The minorities and females are looking
for some skills training but also have considered
a career if "things work out."
They have come to serve their country but only in
a very indirect way. They have not joined for the
veterans benefits because those have been
truncated to the point where they are useless. No
matter what they do, there is no way it will pay
for college and the old VA home loan is not
competitive either.
There are no real veteran's benefits anymore.....
It is that simple, and our senior leadership has
their head in the sand if they think otherwise.
As they progress through their initial enlistments
that are four years or more now, many conclude
that they will not be competitive enough to make
it a 20 year career or don't want to endure the
sacrifices required.
At that point they decide that it is time to get
on with the rest of their lives and the result is
the high first term attrition we currently have to
deal with. The thought of a less than honorable
discharge holds no fear whatsoever for most. It is
a paper tiger. Twenty years ago an individual
could serve two years and walk away with a very
attractive amount of Veterans benefits that could
not be matched by any other sector or business in
the country. We have even seen those who serve
long enough lose benefits as we stamped from
weaker program to weaker program. This must be
reversed.
We need a viable and competitive GI Bill that is
grandfathered when you enter the service, is
predicated on an honorable discharge and has
increasing benefits for longer service so we can
fill the mid grade ranks with quality people. We
must do this to stop the hemorrhage of first term
attrition and to reestablish good faith and
fairness. It will allow us to reenlist a few more
and enlist a few less.
The modern service member is well read and
informed. He knows more about strategy, diplomacy
and current events tha[n] Captains knew when I
first joined. He reads national newspapers and
professional journals and is tuned into CNN. Gone
are the days of the PFC who sat in Butzbach in the
Fulda Gap or Camp Schwab on Okinawa and scanned
the Stars and Stripes sports page and listened to
AFN. Yet our senior leadership continue
treat him like a moron from the hinterland who
wouldn't understand what goes on. He is in the
service because he wants to be and not because he
can't get a job in the steel mill. Three hots and
a cot are not what he is here for. The Grunts and
other combat arms guys aren't here for the
"training and skills" either. He is remarkably
well disciplined in that he does what he is told
to do even though he knows it is stupid. He is
very stoic, but not blind.
Yet I see senior leaders all of the time who pile
more on. One should remind them that their first
platoon in 1968 would have told them to stick it
where the sun doesn't shine. These new Warriors
only think it.......He is well aware of the moral
cowardice of his seniors and their habit of taking
the easy way out that results in more pain and
work for their subordinates. This must be
reversed. The senior leadership must have the
morale courage to stop the misuse and abuse of the
current force.
The force is too small, stretched too thin and too
poorly funded. These deficiencies are made up on
the backs of the Marines, sailors, airmen and
soldiers. The troops are the best we've ever had
and that is no reason to drive them into the dirt.
Our equipment and infrastructure is shot. There is
no other way to put it. We must reinvest
immediately and not just on the big ticket items
like the F-22. That is the equivalent of buying a
new sofa when the roof leaks and the termites are
wrecking the structure.
Finally let me spend a minute talking about
camaraderie and leadership. I stayed a Marine
because I had great leaders early on. They were
men of great character without preaching, men of
courage without ragging, men of humor without
rancor. They were men who believed in me and I in
them. They encouraged me without being
condescending. We were part of a team and they
cared little for promotions, political correctness
or who your father was. They were well educated
renaissance men who were equally at home in the
White House or visiting a sick Marine's child in a
trailer park. They could talk to a bar maid or a
baroness with equal ease and make each feel like a
lady. They didn't much tolerate excuses or liars
or those with too much ambition for promotion.
Someone once told me that Priests do the Lord's
work and don't plan to be the Pope. They were in
touch with their Marines and supportive of their
seniors. They voiced their opinions freely and
without retribution from above.
They probably drank too much and had an eye for
beautiful women as long as they weren't someone's
wife or a subordinate. You could trust them with
your life, your wife or your wallet.
Some of these great leaders were not my superiors
--- some were my Marines.
We need more like them at the senior levels of
Government and military leadership today. It is
indeed sad when senior defense officials and
Generals say things on TV they themselves don't
believe and every service member knows they are
lying. It is sad how out of touch with our society
some of our Generals are. Ask some general you
know these ten questions:
1. How much does a PFC make per month?
2. How big is the gas tank on a Hummvee?
3. Who is your Congressman and who are your two
Senators?
4. Name one band that your men listen to.
5. Name one book on the NY times best seller list.
6. Who won the last Superbowl?
7. What is the best selling car in America?
8. What is the WWF?
9. When did you last trust your subordinates
enough to take ten days leave?
10. What is the leave balance of your most
immediate subordinate?
We all know they won't get two right and therein
lies the problem. We are in the midst of
monumental leadership failure at the senior
levels.
Just recently Gen Shelton (CJCS) testified that he
didn't know we had a readiness problem or pay
problems.... Can you imagine that level of
isolation? We must fix our own leadership problems
soon. Quality of life is paid lip service and
everyone below the rank of Col. knows it. We need
tough, realistic and challenging training. But we
don't need low pay, no medical benefits and ghetto
housing. There is only so much our morality should
allow us to ask of families.
Isn't it bad enough that we ask the service
members to sacrifice their lives without asking
their families to sacrifice their education and
well being too? We put our troops on guilt trips
when we tell them about how many died for this
country and no hot water in housing is surely a
small sacrifice to make. "Men have died and you
have the guts to complain about lack of medical
care for your kids?" The nation has been in an
economic boom for damn near twenty years now, yet
we expect folks in the military to live like lower
middle class folks lived in the mid fifties.
In 1974 a 2nd Lt. could buy a Corvette for less
than his annual salary. Today, you can't buy a
Corvette on a Major's annual salary. I can give
you 100 other examples...An NROTC midshipman on
scholarship got $100 a month in 1975. He or she
still gets $100 in 1999. No raise in 25 years? The
QOL life piece must be fixed. The Force sees this
as a truth teller and the truth is not good. I
stayed a Marine despite the erosion of benefits,
the sacrifices of my wife and children, the
betrayal of our junior troops and the declining
quality of life because of great leaders, and the
threat to our way of life by a truly evil empire
that no longer exists.
I want men to stay in the future. We must reverse
these trends. There will be a new "evil empire"
eventually. Sacrifices will need to be made and
perhaps many things cannot change but first and
foremost we must fix our leadership problems. The
rest will take care of itself. If we can only fix
the leadership problem....Then, I still can't
promise you "fun" but I can promise you the reward
and satisfaction of being able to look into the
mirror for the rest of your life and being able to
say: "I gave more to America than I ever took from
America....and I am proud of it."
Semper Fi and God Bless you!
