U.S. Marine Sgt. Maj. Pleasure Maria Kitashima will return to Okinawa subsequent 12 months, the Japanese island the place her navy police profession started. However this time she’s going to be the prime enlisted advisor at III Marine Expeditionary Power.
On Nov. 22, Kitashima, 46, was chosen to affix the command of Lt. Gen. James W. Bierman Jr. When she takes her put up in July of 2023, she’ll grow to be the primary feminine force-level sergeant main within the historical past of the Marine Corps.
In her 26-year profession, she has seen stints in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Haiti, however the Bloomington, Indiana, native by no means thought-about enlisting till a recruiter approached her whereas she was finding out legislation enforcement in faculty.
“Generally you do not know the chance proper in entrance of your face till you make the most of it. And that was my case,” Kitashima informed Espresso or Die Journal.
After graduating from Vincennes College with an affiliate of science diploma in legislation enforcement in 1996, she started a really completely different kind of schooling at Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island and navy police college at Alabama’s Fort McClellan.
The Corps minimize her orders to 1st Marine Plane Wing, a one-year tour on Okinawa. After that, she served as an MP at Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Level in North Carolina and as a Marine fight teacher on the College of Infantry East.
She solely supposed to remain within the Corps till her preliminary contract ended, however she informed Espresso or Die doorways stored opening for her, and he or she discovered extra alternatives to develop as a noncommissioned officer, so she stayed.
In the present day, she envies the “younger brains” who go into the service figuring out they’re going to make a profession of it, “as a result of I did not know that.”
“I did not realize it ever,” she mentioned.
She went to Marine Fight Coaching as a result of her grasp gunnery sergeant mentioned the varsity wanted “females who can PT.” He requested if she was , and he or she shot again, “Completely.”
Kitashima admits on the time she did not know the distinction between an M203 grenade launcher and an M136 AT4 rocket launcher, however she was “all in.”
She reenlisted and went to Camp Geiger as a corporal.
“That is form of been the theme all through the profession,” she mentioned. “Simply because I do not know what I am entering into, it doesn’t suggest I will be too afraid to attempt. And in addition, they’re referred to as ‘orders.'”
Studying and instructing about fight additionally modified her.
Kitashima not noticed herself as primarily a legislation enforcement officer. She realized it was extra essential to be a Marine.
“That was each little bit of the problem and the whole lot I ever wished out of being a Marine, and I had that,” she mentioned.
At Camp Geiger, she served beneath leaders who believed in her “far more than I ever did.” They stored difficult her to be extra, to do extra, to steer Marines.
And after MCT, different commanders and senior enlisted Marines did the identical factor.
“No person’s checked out me like ‘Effectively, you need to be doing this, and doing this, as a result of that is what I did.’ They did not have a look at me like that. They checked out me like, ‘Hey, you are a pacesetter, what do you wish to do?’ After which they allowed me to form my type primarily based on steerage and mentoring as a result of we’re all the time being mentored.”
She took these classes all the best way up the enlisted ladder.
In late 2016, she was named the fifth Naval Gunfire Liaison Firm sergeant main.
Lower than two years later, she received orders to grow to be II MEF’s Data Group’s prime enlisted Marine. She assumed the duties of Marine Corps Installations Pacific sergeant main in mid-2020. Two years later, she took the identical put up at 2nd Marine Plane Wing in North Carolina.
Kitashima’s awards embrace the Legion of Benefit Medal, 4 Meritorious Service Medals, and three Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medals.
Subsequent 12 months, she’ll be joined at Camp Courtney by her husband, Mark, a retired grasp gunnery sergeant, and their 11-year-old daughter, Caitlynn.
“I hope I by no means do suppose that I’ve arrived, as a result of if studying is not occurring day by day — whether or not it’s from the younger Marines in my workplace, who’re instructing me slang that I actually needn’t know, to mentors who’ve been in rather a lot longer than I — it is the educational piece,” she informed Espresso or Die. “I hope I by no means lose that.”
Kitashima “stopped placing a quantity” on her time in service a very long time go. Now, she simply hopes to maintain being a Marine till she feels she’s not serving a better function.
“Every single day, so long as I get up and I’ve a purpose to go in to work — that may hopefully profit the Marines and sailors and my household — then I will proceed serving. Possibly III MEF, perhaps that is it, and it’ll have been a tremendous trip. Life occurs. I will play it by ear. However I will not stop, and I will give it the whole lot I’ve received day by day,” she mentioned.
No girl has grow to be the sergeant main of the Marine Corps, however that tumbler ceiling was shattered within the Air Power on Aug. 14.
That is when Chief Grasp Sgt. of the Air Power JoAnne S. Bass grew to become the service’s nineteenth chief grasp sergeant.
And like Kitashima, she by no means thought she’d maintain serving past her first contract. However she did.
“All through my Air Power profession, my intentions have all the time been to observe the recommendation my mom gave me: do your job and do it properly,” Bass informed Espresso or Die Journal in a ready assertion. “Any challenges I confronted, or obstacles I needed to overcome, had been framed with that intent. The tougher I labored, the extra I spotted that success involves those that are sometimes too busy to search for it…and in the end, it is one’s character and competency that issues most. I want all one of the best to Sgt. Maj. Kitashima on this unbelievable honor she has earned.”
Noelle is an award-winning journalist from Cincinnati, Ohio, who got here to Espresso or Die Journal following a fellowship from Navy Veterans in Journalism. She labored as a civilian journalist overlaying a number of models, together with the seventy fifth Ranger Regiment, earlier than she joined the navy herself and served as a public affairs specialist connected to the third Infantry Division.
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