The Quality of Life

By Dan Barber

Since I have been retired I have had a lot of time to just sit and observe people and things, read, watch TV or just think about stuff. Sometimes I just quietly reminisce about my life.

Thanks to a book that I am currently reading by Dr. Charles Krauthammer “Things That Matter” has triggered this blog.

The guy who interviewed me and hired me for my final job was a Navy Medical Corps Captain who served as the Executive Officer at the Navy Hospital where I spent my final 20 year career with the Navy as a civilian employee. He was considered to be very scary and eccentric and many people didn’t care much for his management style, he was always on the go and had a thing about brushing his teeth several times a day… sometimes when I had to brief him about important issues, the briefing took place in the men’s head (Navy speak for men’s restroom) while he brushed his teeth. He also had the habit of constantly walking around the command and would walk up to a civilian or military staff member at the hospital and just ask them, “What do you do here?” That can be very disarming to an unsuspecting person. He undoubtedly knew what the person he asked was supposed to be doing, but he was just using “mind judo” to motivate the individual into thinking about doing a better job in what they were paid to do… and by using this in your face approach he always wanted to make sure that his breath was minty fresh.

Since then I have heard people use the term “Leadership by intrusion.” I much prefer my former XO’s method of leadership. My experience with this boss was probably the best learning experience I could have ever hoped for. I learned that he didn’t have much regard for the politics of command, his goal was helping patients and making sure those who he came into contact with made the best of themselves in their environment… by making sure their goals were the same as his, helping and serving people.

The Navy often gives people extra duties, called collateral duties, beyond their primary jobs. For a Navy Pilot in a Squadron their collateral duty might be as the Administrative Officer, or Legal Officer or Division Officer or a combination of all of those duties.

In the case of my boss and Executive Officer of the hospital his “collateral duty” was to see patients as a Family Medicine Doctor and to serve as the Chairman of the Quality of Life Council at our “parent” command.

Because I was the Public Affairs Officer and special assistant to this Executive Officer he assigned me the collateral duty of being his facilitator for the Quality of Life Council. I suppose it was his “mind judo” to motivate me into thinking about doing a better job which in fact turned into the most fun and rewarding 20-year job I have ever had. We had long talks about Quality of Life and what we could do to improve people’s perception of a dusty desert Marine Corps command and to improve their lives while stationed here. We even considered hiring a forensic psychologist to help us find answers to our questions. I discovered that to define Quality of Life was impossible because everyone is an individual with different backgrounds and interests that no amount of money can provide one answer to the question of “What is quality of life, and how can we make it happen.”

But because of the leadership and programs this one Navy Captain initiated along with those of the many individuals who have followed I have witnessed the blossoming of a command that was once thought of as a dead end into one that many people now request assignment to because they consider it to be career enhancing and a joy to live and work there.

With this man’s foresight and encouragement, we were able to convince the base to put in sidewalks from the base housing area to the hospital and main side of the base where mothers could push strollers without having to traverse the streets or desert sand. We were able to convince the state of California to move the Women’s, Infant, and Children’s (WIC) office 25 miles closer to the base because a majority (75 percent) of their clientele was young military families. We were also able to convince the local public transportation agency that their ridership would increase if they started the buses running earlier in the mornings so people could make it from town to work on time. We also convinced them that it would be a good thing for their riders to have well marked shade-protected bus stops with posted schedules available rather then a sign indicating “bus stop” nailed to a telephone pole. These changes not only improved the Quality of Life for the base residents, but also for the civilian community outside the base as well. Those were the easy things to get done.

We were never able to get a Big Box Discount store built outside the gate, but within the past 20-years a large high-end modern Post Exchange was built to replace the smaller store. A larger Commissary store was also built to replace the smaller Commissary. In time most if not all of the old base housing units have been torn down and replaced with new housing units with community swimming pools and teen centers, including hi-rise air-conditioned barracks and shaded parking garages for those barracks residents to use. A barracks for the hospital’s enlisted staff was built and occupied not long after my original boss had transferred. Just recently a sidewalk was built from that barracks to the hospital so the staff wouldn’t have to walk in the street or desert sand to work and home each day.

This Navy Captain who had no interest in the politics of Navy command was promoted to Rear Admiral and then retired. I don’t know if the actions this Quality of Life Council, that I played a very small part in, resulted in all of the changes in the past 20 years. But I do know the wish list we put together has come to fruition!

A place does not make the community… people make the community.

                                                                                    --Dan Barber