One of the greatest pieces of advice that I ever received was from a father figure of mine growing up named Dave Deluca, who was a Ranger that served as a 1st Lt. with the 82nd Airborne in Vietnam. Dave was a great friend of my father’s who I went to see just before I left on my first deployment. He said three things to me. [First], “never tell your men to do something that you have never done yourself or don’t have the balls to do yourself. If it scares you to do something as a leader, you should not send one of your men to do it for you, do it yourself.” [The second thing was that] your second in command should be ready to take over should anything happen to you.” And the last was “don’t ever think at any time point in time during combat that you’re not going to make it, no matter how bad it gets, always believe that you’ll live no matter what, even if wounded, and always take care of your men and do whatever you need to survive, nothing more.”
One of the biggest things that I wanted to do as a leader, other than the obvious, was to ensure that I actually listened to and mentored my men. Evaluating them was vital and something that I was intimately involved in. Any opportunity that presented itself turned into a quick on-the-spot lesson. At the same time, I encouraged them all to be free thinkers and to partake in mission planning. Like any leader, I believe that I’m tactically sound and proficient, but I’m not the smartest, nor can I think of everything. So, I made it clear to my men that at any point in time If I ever made a mistake or [needed] correction, by all means, [tell me] so regardless of rank but please do it professionally. I’m not above reproach and if I’m making decisions in combat that can affect whether or not we make it back alive, then everyone needs to have trust in me and my ability if I’m truly going to lead. If I’m messed up in any way, or if there’s a better way to get the job done, I want to know.
Their voices were equally as important as my own, as there’s always a risk when you step outside the wire and the enemy always gets to vote. In combat, life and death [are] weighed and measured by seconds and inches, and anything can get you killed – including doing nothing. My team needed to know that I would always look after them no matter what and they could approach me at any time about anything. I did not know how to put it into words at the time, but I was encouraging and strengthening trust within my team.
Aside from war, I wanted my men to grow professionally and become great leaders themselves. By the time I was a team leader with my second team, it wasn’t uncommon for a Recon Marine to be promoted to Sergeant within his first two years. It happened very quickly and was normal. Afterward, though, it can take four to five years to get Staff Sergeant or more (laughs). By this time, I had eight years in as a newly promoted Staff Sergeant. My main goal was to train my men to be better by the end of that deployment, as sergeants with three and a half years in the Marine Corps, than I was as a sergeant when I was at my seven-year mark.
This was possible because I was giving them information willingly and freely. I wasn’t withholding anything from them, but at the same time, I’m also not fire-hosing them with information. As simple as this is, it was not very common from what I previously saw in the infantry. What I saw were a lot of keepers of the badge. At the time when I was a junior Marine, there wasn’t a whole lot of mentoring going on, and if there was, it was very little. It was only, “I’m going to give you just enough information to where you learn something, but I’m also going to purposely withhold information from you because I don’t want you to grow beyond and possibly outshine me.”
You have to sharpen both sides of the sword. On one side, you learn and improve yourself. On the other, you teach your guys so that they grow in the direction that they’re supposed to. This rarely happens as everything in the military is performance-driven. The byproduct of freely teaching and giving all information by default forces [leaders] to take a deeper look into themselves and identify what they’re deficient in and find ways to improve. Otherwise, if this step is missed as a leader who freely mentors their personnel without withholding, eventually their men and woman are going to grow past them – resulting in promotions above them. If I’m going to keep up with them, I’ve got to continue to look deeper into myself and see what I can make better.
This is the way of giving back to the community.
True leader[s] [don’t] make more subordinates, they make more leaders. They’re humble in nature and they take responsibility [for] things that aren’t even their fault in regard to those within their command. They’re stern when needed but also compassionate towards those they lead. Members of any command are not just numbers to do your bidding as a leader, they are family – the lifeline and heartbeat of the community. If this is lost, you lose trust, and if that’s lost, you have nothing as a leader. You will use your men and woman as tools to build and promote yourself instead of using your position and instruments to further develop, and hone those that you are blessed to lead. This is Esprit de Corps, this is Gung Ho!
What special operations skillset came most naturally to you?
The things that came most naturally to me was shooting and really just being and operating in the bush – your basic infantry concepts and tactics. And really anything related to R&S [reconnaissance and surveillance] and SR [special reconnaissance].
I kind of had a knack for it even though I have a love-hate relationship with R&S because it always involved carrying a pack that was over 100 pounds, deuce gear that was like another 50 pounds, and then my weapon. I practically carried myself in body weight every single time we stepped out (laughs). I kind of hated that aspect of it, but I loved [it] once we got on-site and we started our reporting, started collecting information on our target site. I just love that aspect of it.
At the end of the day, you’ve got to treat your training like it’s real. You never know when it will be. Plus, during training, you’re always competing against your counterparts that are inserting into the bush as well – oftentimes with you – but they’re just taking another piece of the objective. And so, you have that friendly competition going, but at the same time, you’re both performing exceptionally well and doing a great job on [the] target site. So, you’re adhering to the Recon creed of honoring those who came before.
Which skillset took the most work to master in spite of not being very good at them initially?
Things that I wasn’t that great at? Well, I was never really that fast in the water and I’m still not that fast in the water.
Diving [school] sucked for me, especially going into it with an injured ankle, but it wasn’t anything that I couldn’t do. I just wasn’t fast in the water. Actually, one of my good buddies that I joined Recon with – he was a big dude at 6’4, 220-240lbs – was slow on land but fast on the water, and I was slow in the water but fast on land. So, when we were getting thrashed in pre-BRC [Basic Reconnaissance Course], I was the one smiling on the runs because he was typically the last dude coming in. Then when we got to the pool, it [would reverse]. I was like the last guy to finish while he was one of the first ones out. He just sat on the poolside and laughed at me.
In a way, it motivated us to not quit. We both suffered in silence and suffered uniquely together, and that camaraderie bonded us. We both saw each other in some of our worst moments and our best moments as we fought to solidify our place within the Recon community.
Do you have a favorite place that you’ve visited?
Deployment-wise, I would have loved to have seen more of Australia, but unfortunately didn’t get to see too much during one quick stop in Darwin.
Dubai was cool and that area was really nice.
I really like anything with history, especially anything that has [a] long history. So, when I went to Jordan, I got an opportunity to take a trip over to Petra. If you’ve ever seen Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, it’s the city that’s carved into the rock. That’s Petra. The movie only shows one spot actually, but there are multiple places like that and it’s a massive city that’s carved into other rocks all around. It’s got a bunch of what seemed to me like hundreds or possibly thousands of little homes in between some of those larger dedicated sites.
What is something unique about you that most people don’t know?
[Like] most men involved with self-defense, I was inspired by Bruce Lee.
My favorite film he did was Enter the Dragon. That was definitely one of the best ones for me, but I really enjoyed more of his documentaries and reading books on him – he is just very inspirational.
He obviously had this amazing physical ability that dazzled the world, but people who had the opportunity to meet him were oftentimes more impressed by his spoken words.
He wasn’t just a martial artist; he was [a] poet, a father, a husband, who lived and embodied a warrior spirit that is very uncommon. At the end of it all, Bruce did not embrace the illusion of fame; he wanted to be remembered as a real human being who was fully alive. In his own words, “Do not pray for an easy life, pray for the strength to endure a difficult one.”
This Q&A was conducted by Nick Coffman and originally published on United American Patriots.
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