Leaders of Change

The Marine Corps Gazette promotes this vision with its MajGen Harold W. Chase Prize Essay Contest and Award for boldness and daring, but how does the Marine Corps take it? A friend of mine who studied at the Command and Staff College related his own experience on the matter. In 2007, 35,603 recruits became newly formed Marines.1 Four years later, when most of them faced the opportunity to reenlist, only 6,870 stayed.2 Incentives are piled up, tempting ambitious innovators to leave the Corps: 36 months of housing allowance and tuition payments, higher earning potential, career advancement, and a host of corporate and government goodwill programs to employ veterans. The essay contest challenges active duty and Reserve Marines to "have strength in their convictions and be prepared for criticism from those who would defend the status quo." [...]we do so often with the understanding that our vocal support of unpopular ideas might single us out in the modest brotherhood of the military.