Garth "Gus" Gardner

Shortly after 9/11, Garth “Gus” Gardner was approached by his neighbors regarding the Marine Corps and their son, Dan. They said, “Dan is thinking of joining the Marine Corps, and we are scared to death.”

Gardner presented them with a fresh perspective. “You could send him to college where he would be completely unsupervised in a sea of peers with all the temptations and consequences that entails,” he said. “Or alternatively, in the Marine Corps Boot Camp he would be supervised by highly qualified leadership instructors 24/7 and exposed to hand-picked role models with a vested interest in his life success.” Dan ended up joining the Marine Corps.

Gardner sees the United States Marine Corps as a leadership factory. “They strip your hard drive and reinstall the Marine Corps software,” he said. “They change the trajectory of young lives. They did with me. The experience gifted me with an annuity that pays dividends for life. They teach you that you can do things you did not think you could do. Confidence forms through a time and battle-tested Marine Corps formula for shaping leaders.”

As an example, Gardner once ran a mile at the end of Summer Training camp for high school football, and he considered that an endurance run. In the Marine Corps, the first run was three miles long. “In the moment, I thought it was impossible,” Gardner said. “But the drill instructors would not stop (they ran along with us) would not allow us to drop out, nor did it occur to me to quit. I finished. By the end of Officer Candidate School, we ran nine miles on the weekend — for fun. I was forever disabused of my perception of my own limits.”

Gardner reflected on how many people start to fear failure and struggle as children because it’s unpleasant, but the Marine Corps reconditioned him to not fear failure. Instead, he expects and anticipates failure as a necessary part on the path to success, which helps him improvise, adapt and overcome. “Comfort in Chaos” has become a way of life.

“Once you change your relationship with fear it loses its grip on you,” Gardner said. “The Marine Corps has a thousand ways to help you with that. Their foundational philosophies come from the greatest leaders of all time. They have proven processes of getting recruits to grow as leaders and as people.”

Today, Dan is still in the Marine Corps. He is a highly decorated Middle East and Central Asian Veteran. He has a wife and three little kids. Gardner thinks of him as a true leader; a standard product of the USMC Leadership Factory.