This was just my story, but I know there are plenty of other service members who had similar experiences. It wasn’t much of a choice, so I agreed to return to an infantry battalion as an Air Officer/JTAC for three more years. For me, it boiled down to: A) accept a three-year extension, or B) risk losing my house. As a “2P,” or a captain that had been passed over for promotion twice, I had originally turned down a three-year extension to orders, known as “continuation,” but he told me I could still accept it if I wanted to. I knew I couldn’t provide for my family on just a National Guard salary, so I turned to my monitor to ask what my options were. Unfortunately, around that time, Kobe Bryant had his fateful helicopter crash, chilling the helicopter tour industry, and Hawaii’s governor locked down the state so aggressively that the chief pilot told me not only was the job no longer available, but nearly the whole company was being shut down. Coupled with a transition to the Hawaii Army National Guard, finances would be a little tight, but I would be flying commercially on Oahu, making a clean break from the Marine Corps, and securing a safety net with my separations pay to help smooth out the transition. It seemed as though I would have employment almost immediately after getting out.
My plan was simple: I had interviewed and flight-tested with a local tour company, even going so far as to attempt to sweet talk the chief pilot with Leonard’s famous Malasadas to grease the skids.
Unbeknownst to anyone, the brewing COVID-19 pandemic would change all that. Going into 2020, all the trends and projections indicated the airline hiring frenzy showed no signs of letting up. Fixed-wing aviators had historically been in a better position to transition than their helicopter brethren with their ability to be hired directly into the major airlines, bypassing the regionals altogether. It was around this time that the Corps’ fight to retain Marine aviators worsened, as regional airlines were offering tens of thousands of dollars specifically for military helicopter pilots to train with and fly for them. As I continued to plan my own departure from active duty service in 2020, I held out hope it might make a difference to those remaining in the aviation community after I was gone. While I expected not to make many friends with the article, I had hoped identifying problems and proposing solutions would fuel some sort of positive change for Marine Corps pilot management. Only a few months prior, in late 2019, I had written an article attempting to detail how the Corps was lobbing ineffective bonuses, restricting pilots’ career choices, and failing to address systemic issues that push aviators to look for career options beyond the military. During the early months of 2020, the Marine Corps was fighting a losing battle of its aviators resigning in droves to join commercial airlines.
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