“The rain had soaked through the cuffs of my jeans when a 20-year-old Lance Corporal tore my visitor pass in half and told me to try the south gate,” I thought, standing at the Quantico visitor center with wet hair and tired eyes. I was a 48-year-old Major General reporting for duty as the new director of Marine Corps intelligence—but he saw only wet jeans and a woman who looked exhausted after a redeye flight. He never read my orders. He never scanned my card. He just decided who I was before I finished speaking. Then the Commandant of the Marine Corps walked through the door with four stars on his shoulders, saw the torn pass, and saluted me in front of the young Marine who had just dismissed me. But the stranger part was this: I had waited 40 years for my father to look at me the way that young Marine finally did—and I was still waiting.
“The rain had soaked through the cuffs of my jeans when a 20-year-old Lance Corporal tore my visitor pass in half and told me to try the south gate,” I thought, standing at the Quantico visitor center with wet hair and tired eyes. I was a 48-year-old Major General reporting for duty as the new…
