Gene Bennett: Five Life and Leadership Lessons I Learned In The Military
Leadership/life lesson five: Learn to play chess and build at least one car, truck, motorcycle or lawnmower engine in your lifetime. Chess teaches you that there are consequences to your actions and forces you to think ahead. Building an engine teaches you attention to detail and teaches you to appreciate the idea of good personal craftsmanship. Oh, and engine building is a great excuse to ween yourself off of caffeine because trying to perform precision engine measurements on top of carefully disassembling and reassembling an engine when you have the caffeine shakes is 100% no bueno.
As a part of our series about “Life and Leadership Lessons Learned In The Military”, we had the pleasure of interviewing Gene Bennett.
An Operation Iraqi Freedom veteran Gene Bennett tells the wrenching story of his two deployments to the desert, including a stint in a transitional prison in 2007 with a violent juvenile detainee population.
He loves good music, as well as cooking, hitting the gym regularly, and would like to get back into school with the hopes of returning to the automotive technician industry.
Gene intends to work on his recovery, a cookbook, a smoker project and a writer’s guide to help veterans, first responders and others tell their stories.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Can you tell us a bit about your childhood “backstory”?
If this answer needed a theme, it would be as folows, “I wouldn’t know what stability is if it hit me with a Mack truck!” I’ve lived with my parents both together when I was a child and seperately when I was a teenager. I lived with both of my grandparents while my grandfather was alive until he died in June 1984 when I was eight years old, which was six months after my brother Timmy died in December 1983, and I lived with my grandmother again after she remarried; which is consequently one reason why I view a deployment to be a vacation. I lived with both aunts and in two group homes until I joined the Marine Corps in 1994. If memory serves me correctly, between my first day of kindergarten and getting my GED to join the Corps, I was enrolled in somewhere between 12–15 different schools. I am the oldest of four children, and I say four because my father refuses to acknowledge the miscarriage that would have been my older brother Rusty. Because my father is a Vietnam veteran, when he gave me the “if you ever ask me about Rusty again, I will shoot you” look, let’s just say that that was the first and last time that my father and I ever talked about him. My parents basically separated in the middle of the state permanently revoking my mother’s parental rights to my younger sister (after my brother and my grandfather died) after my father signed his parental rights away and left my mother because, as I explained in my book, my mother was the “battle buddy” that my father just could not trust.
What are you doing today? Can you share a story that exemplifies the unique work that you are doing?
For me, my unique work is my service memoir entitled, “we did not deserve the crapper, the prison we entered, but never fully left.” Here’s the thing, somehow, to some people, I am perceived as equal parts curmudgeon and confidant. I have a reputation for being an emperor god level grinch, but at the same time, people either come to me or are sent to me on the “sneaky sneaky” to talk about their personal problems. Hell, I met the wheelchair bound Marine who has agreed to be my beta tester to design my two smaller options in my smoker line to make them more wheelchair friendly this way. He was introduced to me by a female civilian friend of mine and I ended up talking him down from committing suicide during our very first phone conversation and we’ve been thick as theives ever since! So, I’m in this 24 hour gym late one night and I’m talking to this random weightlifter as I’m sucking down my pre workout. I proceed to tell him one of my downrange stories, and he immediately replies with, “DUDE, you need to write a book about what you went through in Iraq.” Without even a first thought, let alone a second, I reached into my backpack, grabbed my laptop, and got four of my buddies that were with me in the prison in Baghdad in a messenger group chat. I then sent them the following message, “I want to tell the story of our time in Baghdad but we need to be 100% committed to it. If you’re 99% committed to it, the story dies right here.” Three minutes later, one of my buddies who was in Afghanistan at the time, responded with, “do it, I’ve got your back,” and three hours later, the other three responded with the same message, and in that moment, “the Baghdad Brethren Band” was born!
Can you tell us a bit about your military background?
*August 1994 to August 1998: United States Marine Corps (or more affectionately refered to as “Uncle Sam’s Misguided Children”) MOS: 3521 Diesel Technician.
*August 1998-September 2001: United States Army Nat’l Guard (or more affectionately referred to as “the nasty guard”), MOS: 91B: Diesel Technician.
*August September 2001-November 2011: United States Army Reserves: MOS: 91B Diesel Technician and 88M Truck driver. This is where I got both of my deployemnts (05&07–08) to Iraq. From February to December 2005, I was stationed at Forward Operating base Q-West, which was about an hour south of Mosul. From April to September 2007, I started up at a small internment facility at Victory Liberty complex, and after that, I was with two other units (one convoy security and one convoy recovery) at FOB Tallil Adder from September 2007 to December 2008.
Note: The detainee ops mission (prison guard duty) from April to Septermber 07 was the end result of “Big Army” uttering the five most terrifying words that no soldier ever wants to hear, “the needs of the Army.” The next thing I know, I’m on “spicy babysitting duty.”
Can you share the most interesting story that you experienced during your military career? What “take away” did you learn from that story?
Never will I EVER get tired of telling this story, which I like to call the “yes sir, no sir, *expletive* you sir” story. Alright, it’s the very last day of Marine Corps boot camp, and we’re dressed up in our service Alpha uniforms. The Senior Drill Instructor walks in and the next two statements that he made will stay with me all the days of my life. The first thing he said was, “the Battalion commander said that he wanted to be the first one to call you Marines; you know what, *EXPLETIVE* HIM, I trained you, I’ll be the first one to do it, GOOD MORNING MARINES,” And the OOHRAH that we responded with echoed loudly and proudly throughout the squad bay. He then asked us a question that, for the life of me, I cannot remember to save my life, but when we did not sound off to his satisfaction, he uttered ten words that became a motto that I will always carry with me, He then said, “YES SIR, NO SIR, *EXPLETIVE* YOU SIR, GIVE ME SOMETHING!” Now, here’s what I took from this. Most people tend to get caught up in the superior/subordinate dynamic and we were simply being obedient, but I have a diferent thought. To me, he was instilling a sense of respect in us on the most basic level. He was saying to me, from a leadership standpoint, that one of the most basic forms of respect that one human being can extend to another is simple acknowledgement. This happened in December 1994, and to say that our interpersnal skills as a society have since regressed would be the understatement of a lifetime! We are doomed as a society if we cannot remaster a courtesy as basic as this!
We are interested in fleshing out what a hero is. Did you experience or hear about a story of heroism, during your military experience? Can you share that story with us? Feel free to be as elaborate as you’d like.
Here’s the thing, the concept of being a hero has been so thoroughly diluted and cheapened, that the term isn’t even worth using anymore, but I feel compelled to offer you a story from my book that I would classify as a close call because of a stupid NOOB. Here is a summarized version of a story in my book entitled “the open door.”
Alright, my guy “Nice Guy Eddie” and I down in the ground level part of the compound while a stupid NOOB from the Battalion aid station spent his first shift of his first day on a 30 foot high catwalk overlooking the zone that we were about to inspect. Now, the compound we’re in sits on a big square concrete slab. It’s a big square fenced in area divided into four smaller square zones with a main drag running right down the middle with two narrow walkways between the two zones on either side. Looking at the compound from the front gate, we were about to inspect the left rear zone for contraband. Eddie and I walk into the recyard entrance, through another gate about 10 feet away from said entrance, and into the main living area. There are two buildings that the detainees live in, with steel doors with magnetic locks on them. What generally happens is, one of the detainees will follow behind the zone elder and grab the door handle once it’s shut and pull on it repeatedly so the soldier providing overwatch can verify that the magnetic lock is engaged before the two guards can physically enter the zone. Yeah, that didn’t happen this time. So, Eddie and I walk together through the rec yard gate, behind the first building and then between the two buildings. He then breaks left and as soon as I break right… I stop. I quietly motion to Eddie and point to the open door that should have been locked. I then quietly crept towards the door, right foot forward close enough to the door where I can bring my left leg up, whip it around and forcefully kick the door shut. I then “loudly whisper” to the noob on the catwalk, “HEY, next time make sure the *expletive* door is locked you dumb $h@t!” He then crapped his pants and ran back into the guard shack on the catwalk. Eddie and I then finished our inspection, exited the zone and proceeded to “cool down” so when we met the noob at shift change, we didn’t play a spirited game of “choke a noobie!” And sure enough, we ran into him at shift change, where we proceeded to “gently and lovingly instruct him” on his duties as it pertains to overwatch! Freakin noobs man, freakin…NOOBS!
Here’s the thing, Heroism is like fight club and genuine humility. You don’t talk about heroism or humility in a way where you puff yourself up like you don’t talk about fight club. It’s just that simple.
Based on that story, how would you define what a “hero” is? Can you explain?
Here’s my basic definition. Heroism is what happens when your personal courage overrides your sense of self preservation to save lives and accomplish the mission.
Does a person need to be facing a life and death situation to do something heroic or to be called a hero?
Given the fact that some of the greatest examples of heroism usually involve one or more lives hanging in the balance, I’d have to say yes.
Based on your military experience, can you share with our readers 5 Leadership or Life Lessons that you learned from your experience”? (Please share a story or example for each.)
Leadership/life lesson: I will simply cite my personal bootcamp story because of the US Army motto, “move, shoot, communicate,” and basic acknowledgement is a key factor in effective communication. Without clear and effective communication, you’re not going to be effective in combat.
Leadership/life lesson two: I interviewed my Vietnam veteran father for a history report and he taught me an invaluable lesson on the human condition with his basic training story as a part of the interview. Here’s what he said, “basic training doesn’t make you a better person, it just makes you better at what you most naturally are. If you go into basic training a good man, you’ll come out a well trained good man, if you go in to basic training a piece of *expletive*, you’ll come out a well trained piece of *expletive*.” Let’s just say that neither of my deployments to Iraq were able to disprove that assertion… not even close!
Leadership/life lesson three: I found a quote yesterday that, for better or worse, right or wrong, applies to me in regards to this life lesson. “Life is not like a box of chocolates. Life is like a jar of jalapenos. What you do today might burn your ass tomorrow.” In the processs of wearing my “writer’s hat,” “in principle” I was 100% justified in defending the content of my contributors to potential publishers and literary agents. I felt equally justified in attempting to do my part in assertively making a collaborative effort with a “FOB Crapper alum” that ultimately failed, a successful endeavor. That having been said, the “scorched earth, bull in a China shop” approach to said defense was less than productive and may prove ultimately harmful in the long run. It’s an easy idea to comprehend, but sometimes it’s hard to implement when you’re passionately defending what’s yours! So when I took off the writer’s hat and put on the self promoting author’s hat, all the people that I battled with were there to make sure that their spin on what I was to them was made known, which consequently cost me a few legitimate publishing opportunities! It’s okay to strongly dislike these people, just do it with a smile and a nod and sharpen your people skills to network with genuinely respectful people who won’t stab you in the back in the name of winning a popularity contest based on who can tell a more “convincing story.”
Leadership/life lesson four: Do you know what the meanest thing that my ex wife ever said to me was? Right before we got divorced, she said, “you would have been better off being raised by a literal pack wolves than your actual parents.” Honestly, as much as I love my parents, I wasn’t hurt by the fact that she said it, I was hurt by the fact that there was truth to it. Telling truths can be hard, and soul searching that ultimately leads to having to accepting painful truths is hard, but that’s the only way that you’re going to grow. Bottom line, if you fixate on your feelings to avoid painful truths, you don’t belong at the grown folks table.
Leadership/life lesson five: Learn to play chess and build at least one car, truck, motorcycle or lawnmower engine in your lifetime. Chess teaches you that there are consequences to your actions and forces you to think ahead. Building an engine teaches you attention to detail and teaches you to appreciate the idea of good personal craftsmanship. Oh, and engine building is a great excuse to ween yourself off of caffeine because trying to perform precision engine measurements on top of carefully disassembling and reassembling an engine when you have the caffeine shakes is 100% no bueno.
Do you think your experience in the military helped prepare you for business? Can you explain?
Given the fact that, when done properly by quality leadership, the military absolutely bludgeons the concepts of discipline, teamwork, selflessness, drive, dedication, and the desire to problem solve into you to the point where it all becomes second nature, it absolutely prepares you for life in the business world.
As you know, some people are scarred for life by their experience in the military. Did you struggle after your deployment was over? What have you done to adjust and thrive in civilian life that others may want to emulate?
What do you mean, “did I struggle?” I’m still struggling. Every day I struggle with my PTSD symptoms. I struggle with anxiety and depression. I struggle to not isolate. Here’s what I’m doing at this point in my life. I persevere and remember my brothers that I lost. One of the characters in my book, Mr. Blonde, as well as a fellow veteran author friend both died in June/July of 2020 before I got my book published and it absolutely crushed me. I persevere for them, I’m finally powering past my stubbornness to ask for help and I’m really working hard to be smarter in who I actually ask for help. Oh, and did I forget to mention that the VA is about as useful as a screen door on a submarine with regards to helping me?
Are you working on any exciting new projects now? How do you think that will help people?
When I originally wrote my book, “we did not deserve the crapper, the prison we entered, but never fully left,” I linked three projects to it.
a) A cookbook. Basically, in the process of sucking up to my editor and my now former publisher, I did a lot of cooking for them and I completely missed the sarcastic tone when said publisher suggested that I write a cookbook. So, I started gathering up some recipes that I had developed over the years and took a few motivational stories, a couple of which came from my service memoir to justify my motivation for writing the book. That having been said, I have also been working on developing a set of rules that guide how I prepare my food, and I’m looking for a chef to collaborate with on the cookbook to class up some of my recipes and make me more proficient in the kitchen. The plan is to finish the cookbook, build the smoker that will be mentioned next and release them together as a package deal. The intent is to use them together to help veterans and first responders fight their depression and isolation issues. The cookbook will get them out of their mancave/bunker and into the kitchen and the smoker will get them from the kitchen out of the house.
b) Smokezilla: All I will say about this project for now is that there will be four different size options, there will be more accessories than you can shake a stick at, the two smaller options will be geared to accomodate wheelchair bound users and it will be simple enough for a crayon eating Marine to use. The intent is to remove every possible obstacle/excuse to not fire it up and load it up with grub almost immediately.
c) A writer’s guide: Think of this as a combination of an AAR (After Action Report) and an exercise in literary mindfulness to either avoid, or get through a bout with writer’s block, as well as getting the absolute most out of collaborations and interviews. This project is basically on the backburner until the cookbook and the smoker are done and will be revamped with the help of a couple of my most trusted friends. But once the writer’s guide is done, I plan on turning it into a permanent side hustle to help veterans and first responders better tell their stories.
What advice would you give to other leaders to help their team to thrive?
Don’t micromanage and don’t screw with team chemistry! Listen to your people and make them feel like you actually want to help them solve their problems. Jump in and actually get your hands dirty and be a part of the process from time to time. Assume absolutely positively nothing, because there’s a reason the second step in the diagnostic process says “confirm” the fault! Two words: active communication. And finally, if you’re a noob, don’t form any type of opinion on what’s going on until you have thoroughly observed and assessed the situation. I wrote in my book that I literally did not offer an opinion on the situation for the first 30 days that I was there until I knew everything that I possibly could about what was going on based on countless conversations and learning from my NCO’s.
What advice would you give to other leaders about the best way to manage a large team?
Take the answer to the previous question and add delegating authority to people that you trust without reservation.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?
My book, “we did not deserve the crapper,” is the story and my guys, “the Baghdad Brethren Band” that were with me in the compound that we worked in together are the only reason that I have made it this far! I owe them everything!
How have you used your success to bring goodness to the world?
I have not achieved enough success to bring enough goodness to the world yet by my standards. That’s why I need to finish the other three projects and link them together.
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)
We live in an age of memes, GIFs, emojis, hyper simplistic activism and cheap, lazy symbolism. We’ve had the tea party, BLM, MAGA and Build Back Better and we’re more divided and bitter than ever! I’m not promoting mindless compromise and civility, I’m promoting a return to basic and thoughtful conversation. I’m talking about the basic respect of acknowledgement that my Senior Drill Instructor instilled in me. Here are a few slogans for you:
a) Let cooler heads prevail again.
b) Make thoughtful and problem solving themed conversation a masterable skill again.
c) Make reconciliation based on “knowing we should extend actual thoughtful compassion because we know that life will knock us flat on our ass and we’re going to need it” a legitimate thing……… again!
There ya go!
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
“Easy things come right away, the impossible takes just a little bit longer.” My saintly grandmother first told me this and it’s the reason I continue to persevere!
Some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them :-)
I’m actually going to include a small list of people for a roundtable style lunch to discuss veteran related issues that are near and dear to my heart. Here’s the list.
Morgan Rose: I owe him a beer, a copy of my book and a thank you for being so cool to me in Qatar in 08
Jocko Willinck: He has made “tactical” the new “behoove,” (if you know you know) but I hear he’s a great listener and a super nice guy! And something about him being a Navy Seal!
Joe Rogan: He’s had a few quality veterans on his show and he seems to be cool!
Dwayne Johnson: Having a Navy Seal cousin makes him a potentially great veteran advocate and I want to break his heart by showing him how to cook legit comfort food so he’s forced to “acknowledge” what I’m cooking!
Jon Stewart: Took up the burn pit mantle.
Robert Myers: CEO Casey’s general stores, bridged the service gap between Vietnam and Gulf War 1 and Casey’s grub is tasty.
Sarah Taylor: National President, American Gold Star Mothers: If Gold Star Mom’s want to be a part of the community, then they need to be a part of the uncensored gripe sessions!
VTT’s Big Earl: CEO of Veteran Trash Talk: I need a GWOT (Global War On Terror) guy that I can relate to on the list!
Elon Musk: He’s the engineering nerd version of Willie Nelson for our generation, so naturally, I want him to be a part of the discussion!
Tim Kennedy: Meh, what the hell, why not!
Thank you so much for these amazing insights. This was truly uplifting.
