It is customary in the military to write “after-action” reports following significant events, like when completing the prescribed period of time in a certain job or posting. I want to put something like that together for my latest tour in Hawaii. I am beginning this writing in Hawaii (15 June), but will be leaving along with the family later this evening and will complete it and post it while on leave in Nebraska. I am in a retrospective mood – what did this second tour in Hawaii bring? (The first tour was my enlisted time from 1996 – 1999 totaling 3 ½ years. If you add that to the 2 ½ years this time around, that makes 6 years of my life that I have lived in Hawaii – not bad!)
Bottom line: many, many blessings and good things! I leave Hawaii this time riding the crest of a wave of great accomplishments and merry from the bountiful harvest of accolades accrued over the course of years of hard work and dedication. I think that I went out at the top of my game, so to speak. It was a building process the whole time, and by the time I made it to the last six months of my assignment, I was definitely hitting on all cylinders! Let’s get past the generalities and start to look at some of the specifics. I like chronological order, and it will be in a mish-mash of professional and personal items as they come to mind.
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-November 2005 – arrive in Hawaii with pregnant Barb; discover I will be heading to Iraq in just a couple of weeks
-Early December 2005 – ran the Honolulu Marathon, missing my goal finish time of 3 hours 30 minutes by less than 10 minutes (I'll get it eventually - I haven't given up!)
-December 2005 – Feb 2006 – service in al Anbar province, Iraq
-March 2006 – assigned my own platoon to command; turned to the task of building a coherent team of Marines to lead on a deployment in support of US national security objectives in the Asia-Pacific theater
-May 2006 – John is born and our lives are changed forever!; begin graduate school classes at Hawaii Pacific University seeking a masters degree in diplomacy and military history (unfortunately was only able to complete a single course, on the Korean War, during my time in Hawaii due to deployments and other schedule conflicts)
-June 2006 – completed my second Half-Ironman race (the first was the Pigman race in Palo, IA, ca. 2002), the Ironman Hawaii Honu 70.3
-October 2006 – run my highest Marine Corps physical fitness test (PFT) yet, scoring 298 of a possible 300 points (I’m still trying to get my first 300/300!)
-November 2006 – lead my platoon on a 5-month deployment to the Southern Philippines; John is not yet crawling (~6 months old at the time)
-April 2007 – bring my entire platoon home safe from the Philippines; John is now walking!
-May 2007 – John’s first birthday!; relinquish command of my platoon after 15 months
-July 2007 – receive new assignment as general’s Aide-de-Camp; Achilles tendinitis hampers my hoped-for post-deployment return to racing
-August 2007 – I see an announcement for the Olmsted Scholar Program on a Marine Corps website and decide to apply
-September 2007 – Olmsted application submitted with favorable endorsements from both my boss (one-star general) and his boss (three-star general)
-December 2007 – learn that I was selected by the Marine Corps as an Olmsted Scholar candidate; fly to Washington, D.C. to interview with Olmsted Foundation board of director members; 2007 ends with me having run exactly zero races of any type, the first year that has happened since I started running races in 2001
-March 2008 – learn that I was selected to be an Olmsted Scholar and that I am assigned to learn Mandarin Chinese and attend graduate school in Taiwan
-May 2008 – John’s second birthday (I miss the party due to a short-notice business trip to Guam) ; tour of duty as general’s aide comes to an end after 10 ½ months due to our impending move to Monterey for language school; complete the Honu Ironman Hawaii 70.3 for the second time (two Half-Ironman races in Hawaii – is that equivalent to running a full Ironman race? I know it isn’t – just teasing!); notified that I have been selected for promotion to the rank of captain and that I have been “career designated” (meaning essentially that I can continue to serve as an active duty Marine officer indefinitely until I choose to relinquish my commission or until retirement, assuming continued satisfactory job performance)
-June 2008 – Permanent Change of Station from Hawaii to Monterey, CA to begin language training (with a stop in Nebraska to see friends and family first - in progress right now!)
- [Pending] July 2008 – report in to the Defense Language Institute for instruction in Mandarin Chinese
***
As you can see, there has been a lot of good stuff, and that's just the summary version! Here’s to hoping that we can stay on a roll of good happenings for the foreseeable future!
GJS
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