Visiting Column #20 -- The Colonel of Truth

It's been a while since I wrote up one of those self-deprecating pieces, and since these days it's probably good to laugh at ourselves, it's clearly time to do that one more time, as I have plenty of reason to be self-deprecating.  Plenty.

The year was probably 1992 or so, which I remember because of where I was working at the time.  I was a program manager running a support program for the Marine Corps, which involved doing various briefings around the major Marine installations in the world to explain what my program was about (it was actually a data library that other programs used to create logistics models, but that's not very important.)

My running around the world was principally to install that library on small systems and show how it was used, but occasionally I'd have to sit in someone's office and go over the program, in general terms, using 1992 technology which, in those happy days before laptops, PowerPoint and Windows, consisted of transparent "cells" that you would put on an overhead projector and project onto a white wall if there happened to be one, or a movie screen if you were lucky.

So in the course of arranging my visits, I reached out to the colonel in charge of logistics programs at Camp Pendleton, California (I was based in an office in Woodbridge, Virginia at the time), setting up a time to go out and see him.  The colonel was named Jack Holly, and he was one of those people that you encounter in your life whom people just gravitate toward and you want to do whatever he tells you.  Leadership just radiated from him, and you would be ready to go through a brick wall if he asked you -- and that was just on shaking hands with him the first time.

You can never explain that effect very easily, why you might react to someone that way without even knowing them.  I recall also having that reaction on being in a hall with President Reagan in 1987.  Whew.  When I met Jack, I immediately recalled that experience.

So I had met him once previously, at a trade show, probably, and had known then that I'd need to come out and see him.  At the time, and possibly now, there were three Marine Expeditionary Forces, called MEFs, and their respective headquarters were in Camp Lejeune, North Carolina; Camp Pendleton, California; and the third on Okinawa.

Col. Holly and I agreed on a time to visit him in California, and I headed out for what I assumed was (among other visits on that trip) a briefing in his office.  I carried my briefcase out there to the base, and was ushered into his office for what I assumed would be a professional half-hour or hour discussion about the program.  He'd ask questions, I'd answer, we'd talk, and then see what he might need to know.

I am quite OK with one-on-one discussions like that.  On the other hand, standing in front of a group gives me major stage fright, which throughout my career I had to deal with, including on stage as a singer.  Since in my profession I had to talk to groups all the time, I made sure to design my speaking slides for me, not for the audience.  They'd see them, of course, but the content was designed to remind me what to say next, so I wouldn't be so scared.  Eventually I got to trust my preparation and stopped fearing failure, but I always prepared slides very carefully, even very late in my career.

That wouldn't have mattered here, though, it seemed.  I was in a chair in Col. Holly's office this particular morning, chatting about the program and how it fit into what he was doing.  I liked talking casually with people, and still do.  You can sense how they're reacting and adjust on the fly.  This was going very informatively and professionally, and we were about 20 minutes in when the colonel said "Well, they should be ready for you now" and stood up.

As an old actor, I'm well-schooled in the notion that "the show must go on", which means not only that, if you break your leg onstage you keep acting, but also that you don't break character.  In this case, I had no earthly idea what the colonel was talking about.  "They should be ready"?  Who, I thought?  Ready for what?  I just shut up and played along as if I knew what was going on.

We walked out of his office and across the hall, and entered a larger room.  This was a conference room that seated about 20 people -- and there were about that many there, most all of them marine officers and a few senior non-coms.  Clearly, they were waiting for little old me, although for what I didn't know.

But I figured it out really quickly -- apparently I was supposed to give a lecture to the assembled marines on what I was doing.  Yep, there was the obligatory overhead projector there.  After a brief moment for suitable panic, I reached into my briefcase and took out some transparencies I would normally use for a briefing, stacked them up on the shelf next to the projector in what I hoped was a rational sequence, and put the first one on the glass.

I can't say it went "well", but only because it was an information-sharing brief and there wasn't anything specifically to accomplish.  So "went well" wouldn't have any real meaning unless one could say it "went well" if I didn't pass out, which I didn't.  With the slides there to guide me, I was able to get through them and talk about the information on each one, ask for questions, answer those I could and deflect the others.  I truly believe none of them knew I'd been ambushed without knowing it.  An hour later, I sat down with Col. Holly for a few more minutes, thanked him for his time and left.

There was absolutely nothing in the correspondence setting up the meeting to suggest that I'd be doing any kind of public briefing to 20 marines, nothing other than an hour in the colonel's office.  And I know for a fact that he simply assumed that a formal briefing was what I would be doing, and arranged for all the staff to be there to hear it.  I just didn't get the memo.

All's well that ends well, I suppose.  I'm quite sure that no one who was in the room thought anything was wrong, just another contractor in a suit come out to brief them on some logistics program, no different from 50 other briefings they got except for the guy in the suit was a little shorter than the rest of them.  I know I went to the hotel bar that night and had a double just to calm my still-frayed nerves.  Stage fright is a cruel master.

I next saw Col. Holly a few years later.  We were attending a trade show in Honolulu and I saw he was there and asked him to have a drink between sessions to catch up, as we had corresponded a bit in the interim and remained acquainted.  He was retiring from the Marine Corps fairly soon and I wanted to find out what his plans were.  I figured whatever company he joined, he'd be president of it before long.

Of course, I did mention that visit to Camp Pendleton and the briefing room surprise.  He remembered the visit but apparently assumed that the group lecture was planned, as he recalled nothing out of the ordinary, and certainly not that there was any perception of a miscommunication.

Perhaps I can't properly describe what happens when you walk into a room full of uniformed marine officers sitting at a conference table, expecting you to speak to them, when until you entered the room you had no idea you were supposed to.  I was seriously scared.  You have nightmares about things like that.

I survived though.  Preparation is a good thing, like having a tire-inflator aerosol can in your car.  Or a manila folder full of transparencies.  It can keep you from coming off like a fool.

Still felt like one, though.

Copyright 2019 by Robert Sutton
Like what you read here?  There are over 1,000 posts from Bob at www.uberthoughtsUSA.com, and after four years of writing a new one daily, he still posts thoughts once in a while as "visiting columns", no longer the "prolific essayist" he was through 2018, but still around.  Appearance, advertising, sponsorship and interview inquiries cheerfully welcomed at bsutton@alum.mit.edu or on Twitter at @rmosutton