Pink Slip Blues : Marine Joins Thousands of Servicemen Ordered to Civilian Life by Cutbacks and a Changing World

On his final day as a Marine, Lance Cpl. Robert Jordan sadly bundled his belongings and waited for the bus that would take him without ceremony or thanks out the gates of Camp Pendleton.

The 23-year-old Texan returned from the Persian Gulf War last spring to rousing parades and public adoration. Now, with the spotlight faded, he was preparing to leave quietly, his plans for a military career canceled by a pink slip that came after only four years in olive green.

For Jordan, in some respects, living through the war was easier than surviving the peacetime military reductions that may cut his beloved Marine Corps from its current strength of 196,000 to 158,000 by 1997.

“They’re going to put me on a bus and say ‘it’s nice knowing you,’ ” said Jordan, whose aspirations of a 20-year career were crushed when his request for reenlistment was denied as his first four-year hitch was ending.

“I don’t want a parade or nothin’, but it’s like they don’t want you. They’re kicking you out the door.”

Jordan is among thousands of men and women in all branches of the armed forces who are painfully learning that, despite rosy recruitment promises of secure jobs and comfortable retirement after 20 or 30 years, they are now expendable.

Under congressional order, the military is planning a 12% reduction over the next six years, but there are rumblings of deeper cuts. Nobody can say yet how many individuals will be lost from any specific base, but it is a certainty that a period of complex military reorganization lies ahead.

The Marine Corps is making reductions by slashing its recruitment goals, denying a larger number of first reenlistment requests and ushering out more Marines with 20 years of experience. More retirements will clear the way for the best Marines in low and middle ranks to keep moving up the ladder, Marine officials said.

State employment officials are seeing early signs of the military reductions. California will be harshly affected because of the large uniformed population here.

In a normal year, 60,000 people leave the military in California out of an active duty force estimated at 258,000, including 61,000 Marines. With manpower cuts ordered by Congress, the number leaving is expected to hit 100,000 in California alone next year, says the state Employment Development Department.

Like civilians who lose their jobs, soldiers leaving the military are stunned and disillusioned--victims of a shrinking work force. They are being unwillingly thrust into a wobbly economy with limited opportunities, especially for someone like Jordan, an infantryman.

“I’m scared to death,” he said. “In Texas, the economy is really bad. I have no real skill. I’m a grunt, maybe a little smarter than your average grunt, but what can I do?”

That’s a troubling question being asked a lot these days at Camp Pendleton, home to nearly 37,000 Marines.

Being forced out is causing emotional wounds that Marines have rarely experienced before.

“For 13 years I had been a Marine and that’s all I ever wanted to be,” said Bruce Moody of Oceanside. “All of a sudden, the Marine Corps was telling me I can’t be that anymore.”

Moody used to be a captain, a battery commander who led 100 men and was responsible for millions of dollars worth of artillery. Passed over for promotion to major, the Gulf War veteran was cut from active duty on Nov. 1.

He is trying to adapt to his unwanted civilian life, where the streets of his own county seem like some unrecognized foreign land.

On a recent walk in downtown San Diego, Moody was seized by all the rudeness, the laziness, and the overweight businessmen who “couldn’t do a push up if you put a gun to their heads.”

These days, Glen Halsey, the state Employment Development Department’s assistant supervisor for veterans programs, spends considerable time on military bases offering three-day classes on how to prepare for the outside world.

The classes explain how to craft a resume, where to find jobs, how to network, and the all-important skill of excising the tell-tale military jargon from conversation.

“We’ve had people come up to us after class just crying, it’s so stark. ‘What am I going to do? How am I going to earn a living?’ ” Halsey said.

The department provides 150 such classes each year on military bases across the state, and Halsey said the agency will be ready to offer 257 classes by the next fiscal year to handle the rising demand.

That demand is already vivid at Camp Pendleton, where more Marines and sailors than ever are flocking to briefings on leaving the military.

A year ago, about 500 people a month were attending, but now, “we are giving separation briefings for approximately 2,100 military personnel a month,” said Mac McCurry, the department’s local veteran’s employment representative.

He tries to help them find jobs, but even though they typically are disciplined and trainable, they still face a stagnant economy.

The dismal predicament is the last thing Gunnery Sgt. Roy Miller wanted to face at age 40 and with 21 years in the Marines. He figured that with his fine record he would enjoy a 30-year career and depart with hefty retirement checks to keep his family secure.

But when the promotions board meets in February, Miller’s chances for advancement to master sergeant are not good because cutbacks have sharply limited the number of openings.

“They’re telling us older people ‘Well, you’ve served 20 years, now get out,’ ” Miller said. “It’s like use and discard . . . use up every ounce of leadership, knowledge and experience I’ve put in and I’ve got to get out (next) December.”

The Marine Corps is hardly pleased about losing so many skilled people.

“We’re going to lose some quality Marines who in the past we’d be able to retain,” said Col. Joseph Holzbauer, who is in charge of personnel for the 1st Marine Division, spread between Camp Pendleton and Twentynine Palms.

Maj. Nancy LaLuntas, a spokeswoman at Marine Corps Headquarters in Washington, said, “In Southern California, you’re going to see an awful lot of shuffling of people and units.”

As for the life and careers being affected by cuts, “I don’t think anybody should take any of this personally. An awful lot of this is numbers driven,” she said.

However, many Marines are despairing that their aspirations and their sense of worth have become a matter of manpower mathematics.

“We’re trying to do this with as much class and dignity as possible,” Holzbauer said.

His division, with about 21,000 Marines and sailors, could lose between 3,000 and 5,000 people by 1997. Those cuts are separate from reductions that will hit other units at Camp Pendleton, such as supply, aircraft and other support groups.

The result is incredible competition as division Marines battle literally thousands of others to shift into available military occupations. And for the many who need retraining, space is limited.

Added to that, even a minor blot on a Marine’s record or a slightly less-than-perfect fitness report is enough to ruin the chances for reenlistment or promotion.

“It hurts,” said Master Sgt. Ron Eby, senior career counselor for the division, “to see a good Marine have to go out.”