Once Upon a Lifetime

One of my last Master Chief’s when I was in the Navy was my all-time favorite “boss” to this day.  At that point in my life, I had never worked for a man who was not only secure enough with himself but secure enough in his leadership style to be an absolute joy to work for and with.  I love(d) everything he did for the command, how open he was to teaching anyone who cared to learn (I was one of those people who couldn’t get enough information, especially from him), but most of all, how much he cared for his people and the lengths he went to for us. 

I first met this amazing man when I transferred from FA-18’s in Lemoore, California, to FRC Jacksonville.  At that time, Master Chief was the department head for Admin and still working as a Career Counselor.  I went to my work center as an aviation electrician, but quickly realized there wasn’t much work to be done because the P-8’s were still under warranty and there weren’t many P-3’s left since they were being replaced by P-8’s.  I was offered a collateral duty of ‘Shop Career Counselor’ and immediately inherited the role of guiding my shop in their career with the navy or whatever they desired beyond.  I really enjoyed the work and learning a new aspect of the Navy that I didn’t experience when I was fixing fighter jets.  Before I knew it, I was recommended to be the division career counselor, and Master Chief approved!  I got to attend more training with him once I was a division counselor.  There were only a few division counselors in the command, and we had a wide range of responsibilities.  It was great, though. I had my own office and about 250 sailors careers that I monitored and helped out.  I also worked with shop counselors and trained them the way that I was trained so more Sailors understood their career options, which ultimately led to less work for everyone. 

I was at FRC for a little over a year when I found out I was pregnant with Maddie.  I had been division counselor for a while and doing very well with it.  My division Master Chief gave his blessing for me to go work directly for the Career Counselor Master Chief (NCCM- for anyone who is Navy), and I was EXSTATIC!  I had developed a great relationship with my division Master Chief by that time (another great man and leader), and part of me was sad to leave what felt like ‘home’ to me, but the other part of me knew that going straight to the source was the best path to accomplish what I was after.  

Once I was in the CCC Office (aka: command career counselor), I was busy ALL THE TIME!  And exhausted even more of the time, since I was also pregnant.  I learned SO MUCH though, and I wouldn’t change anything if I could.   Master Chief was our ‘boss’, but I also had a couple of others above me.  First it was 2 first-class petty officers, then we got a Chief and one of the first classes left.  The Chief and first-class I was left with were both mom’s, and watching them while I was pregnant gave me lots of hope for my future.  I thought I knew them, I did respect them at that time for what I thought I knew, and worst of all is, I thought I wanted what they had.  I couldn’t have been more wrong.

My amazing hero of a Master Chief took pity on my poor pregnant-ass at about 37 weeks and told me to just call him/ the office on work days to muster until I went into labor.  (He said that he had a skipper who let him take time off when his son was born and he never forgot the impact it had on his and his families life so he vowed to do the same anytime he was in a position to do so:{now are you starting to see how amazing this person is?!} Also, I started having contractions at work the week before, and I do think he was not into anyone delivering their baby in that office {which is very fair}).  Either way, it was one of the kindest things anyone has ever done for me.  I will absolutely never forget him, his leadership style, or what he did for me.