To conclude this year’s feature series on the Hoover Institution’s National Security Affairs Fellows is our story on Lieutenant Colonel Brant Eggers, representing the United States Marine Corps. Throughout his military career, Eggers has served in multiple positions within the marine corps, as well as participating in several Western Pacific and Operation Iraqi Freedom deployments. In 1993, he was designated a communications officer in the US Marine Corps. Most recently, he served as the commanding officer of the Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps at UC Berkeley and inspector instructor of Sixth Communications Battalion in Brooklyn, New York. He has a master’s degree from the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island, in national security and strategic studies, and a bachelor’s degree in political science from California State University, Bakersfield. While at Hoover, Eggers focused on reform effort with military officer education and training, specifically in the service academies.
Eggers generously agreed to sit down to share his experiences in the military and the Hoover Institution. This is part of a series featuring National Security Affairs Fellows from the 2013–14 academic year.
What issue did you research for your fellowship?
I focus my research on a reform effort with military officer education and training. Specifically focusing on service academies, Naval Reserve officer Training Corps and Officer Candidate School. The way it works today is we have a lot of mid shipman that come into the academies and the NROTC and obviously someone like myself that come through OCS and ultimately our commission. So the way it stands today is about 50% come into the academy, 50% through NROTC and then OCS is somewhat of a throughput for those that didn't go through the service academies or NROTC. I tackled the position that if we reform military officer education and training by reducing the number of midshipman attending the service academy and taking a chunk of them and moving them over to NROTC which we basically give you a 25%, 75% NROTIC split that we could do several things. One being we could continue to provide the quality of applicants we have coming in to the military today. Two is we can help erode or improve the gap that exists. Three we can institutionalize leadership and ethics training that is missing on university campuses; both private and public. We can provide an automatic quality spread for individuals wanting to come into the military. Basically, we are not just getting all of the high end individuals coming into the academy that were valedictorian top of the class; by putting it in all public and private universities we automatically create a quality spread from lower tier universities up to top tier universities such as Stanford, Harvard, Yale, etc.
So that was my paper. I have a little bit of experience having been the CO of NROTC Berkeley. So that is sort of why I tackled it. Also being an officer candidate school commissionee it was something of interest to me.
Why did you join the Marines?
I had finished up my college didn't do an ROTC, didn't go into a service academy. Really had no interest in the Marine Corps other than my old man, my father was in the Marine Corps back in the 60's. I had just graduated from Cal State University Bakersfield and I came across an officer selection officer at the local college campus….It sounded very interesting and so I decided to go ahead and apply….At the same time I had been working in a family law firm as a law clerk. I was a pre-law student at Cal State and I was also applying for law school. I was going to do a part-time program. And the exact same week I got my acceptance to law school I also got my acceptance to officer candidate school. And I had a decision to make. And really it came down to one thing: I had never really left my home town of Bakersfield. I grew up there for 20 some odd years and it came down to one thing, I had never left the outskirts of Bakersfield. I had decided you know what - I got to see what the rest of the world is out there and that is why I joined. That was it in a nutshell.
How many years have you been in the Marines?
Coming up on 22 years.
How many deployments have you had and to where?
I have had several deployments throughout the Pacific Theater to include Australia, mainland Japan, New Zealand, Korea, Thailand, so five or six within the Pacific Theater. And then I had two back to back tours in Iraq during operation Iraqi Freedom I and during operation Iraqi Freedom II. Probably totaling you know, somewhere around 18 to 22 months in Iraq.
What was the biggest challenge of your career and why?
Biggest challenge of my career I think would have been the first deployment into Iraq. I'm a communications officer and what that means is we lay in the communications infrastructure or the backbone to support the ground invasion, ground fight…. I think the biggest challenge that I faced was laying in that communications infrastructure in a very unknown environment. Not getting a chance to see the ground, seeing if we are going to be able to provide that line of sight, communications, being able to reach the satellites, provide that terrestrial link in a very foreign land. We ended up stringing communications several hundred miles from Kuwait deep into Iraq. And I would argue that right there was probably the biggest challenge that I faced. I had never done it in training. Never done it in an exercise. So having to adapt to that type of environment with all of the chaos of the war and laying that communications infrastructure is probably the biggest challenge I have ever come across.
What do you see as the Marines top challenges in the next five years? It can be like top three or top one.
You know, I really think the Marine Corps is a very relevant force…. I think the fact that we are already relevant and we already have the ability to structure an organization for a deployment or for combat in that manner makes us that much more lethal and that much more adaptive to such an environment. I really don't think we have a big challenge going forward. We were doing just fine with sequestration. And the fact that we are becoming a little bit smaller but as far as the challenges going forward I think the Marine Corps has positioned itself extremely well and will continue to do what we have always done. That is just to be prepared for future challenges and threats that are out there. Keep doing what we are doing and I think we will be just fine.
That is a good place to be. What does leadership mean to you?
Leadership to me - I always said this when I taught leadership and ethics, leadership and management at Cal. Leadership is a contact sport. It is up close and personal. And if you are not constantly engaging others whether that is young Marines, your peers or even interacting with your superiors you won't do well. So I really bring it down to just that simple point... It can be tough at times, it can be awkward, it can be challenging, all of those things. But if you are unwilling to get in there and mix it up you won't succeed as a leader….So that is how I would put it.
How do we develop that in others?
You know, that's funny. A lot of people talk about how leadership is an art and a science. Adapting those theories of science into real world situations. You can learn the science of leadership in a classroom, the theories behind leadership in the classroom, but the only way to drive that or instill that in others is through on the job training; and that is throwing people into tough situations and either they sink or they swim. And you can read about leadership in every text book you want, but you are really never going to get the essence of those leadership traits or principals or values until you are thrown into tough positions whether your values are being tested or you have a very tough ethical situation where you have to make a decision. So it is great to get the science but until you are really thrown into the art of practicing leadership I don't think you can succeed.
What is something you have learned since coming to Hoover that has made you think differently?
When you are on a military installation…often times you really don't get an opportunity to see out the gate, see outside of the military. I had a couple of unique opportunities outside in previous tours. One thing I noticed here at Hoover is just that the great people that are part of this program, whether it be the folks that are actually academics that are part of Hoover, fellows that are part of Hoover or the overseers that are part of Hoover. Just the generosity, the appreciation they have for the military. I knew it existed in some of my previous tours, but I truly got to appreciate how much they really appreciate the military. That was great. That is probably one of the things that I have really enjoyed a lot about Hoover is just the generosity and the thanks that we get on a daily basis from everybody. From fellows all the way to overseers it has just been incredible.
What do you like to do in your spare time?
Spend as much time as I can with my kids, family. I coach my boys in baseball. I'm a huge, avid runner and so I do a lot of running... Outside of that though I really like to spend a lot of time with the family. I got an opportunity this past year to coach baseball which is slowly coming to an end now. That has been quite rewarding because I know when I go back to the operating forces I won't have time to do that. So that has been pretty enjoyable.
What is a funny story about your fellow NSAFs that you would like to share?
That I would like to share? I don't know if it is a funny story or if it was just a great experience. There were several of the NSAFs that got together that went down to the Rose Bowl for the football game. And there were a number of different things that happened on the trip that were funny, but probably more importantly is the fact that it was a great time for four individuals from four different services to bond as we did on that trip. And that is probably one of the key moments that I had while at Hoover that I will always remember. At times services can always be competing against one another but that was a time where we really took off the uniform and just bonded as fellow warriors out there. It was just a lot of funny times, but also a great time of bonding with this other guy. It was good.
Since you are the last of the stories for your class of 2014 and you all will be leaving Hoover soon, do you have any final thoughts about your time here that you would like to share to wrap up the series?
I think all of us are so grateful for having had the opportunity to be a fellow at Hoover. You know, when you initially apply for the program and again the program spans across a lot of different fellowships you hear about Hoover whether you at one time were in a war college or somewhere else and you were doing research and found a piece of an article or something that was put out by Hoover. And I never, ever thought I would get an opportunity to come here as a national security first fellow. This place is pretty damn amazing in that getting to interface with folks like George Shultz, General Matthis, Dr. Zegart and the NSAFs has just been an absolutely amazing experience. I will argue it will go down as probably the best tour I have ever had. I know when I leave here I am going to go back to the difficult environment. I will be around the very enjoyable environment for me because I am around Marines, but it will be the highlight of my career just getting to interface with such amazing people. Again, that includes folks like I just had breakfast this morning with Bob Oster and we were at Lou Davies house for a barbecue last week. That is something I will greatly miss. Again, I would not change this past year for anything in the world. It was that special. Not only for me, but for my family too. Just an amazing place.
