 This is St. Tech Hawaii and more specifically this is a Thursday show on the military. We call it the military in Hawaii and today we're joined for Talk Story by Rear Admiral Alma Grocki and we really appreciate her coming on the show. Hi Alma, nice to see you. Thank you. Thank you for inviting me. So let's talk about your career. I think it's a very interesting career and it's a very Hawaii career. The first thing was Punahau and somehow when you went to Punahau you got interested in the military. How did that work? Well I didn't actually start at Punahau. I started in public school. I grew up in Kalihi so I walked every day to Kapalama for a few years and then transferred over to Punahau and it wasn't until I was in high school and I was looking to boost my grade point average and I looked and said oh what can I take that's not going to have take a lot of time. Hey this is junior ROTC thing you know a couple times a week and I joined it and it was a blast. I really enjoyed it and then I went up through the ranks and got involved in that and then I looked around and said okay how can I get the college for free because my dad worked at Pearl Harbor Shipyard and both my parents said you paid for Punahau you're gonna have to find your own scholarship for college and that's when I started looking around for a college I could go to the a good engineering school and as close to free as possible. Yeah well it's pretty close to free over there. You know I was I was wondering a buddy my name is John Coppidge and John always talked about his father who's the athletic director at Annapolis. Did you ever know him? Do you ever hear that name? I recognize the name but I don't think I knew him personally you know. Well Annapolis is really special. So you're the first local woman, woman from Hawaii that got to Annapolis and at a time when there weren't that many women in Annapolis anyway. Right I was in the second class of women. Wow and it was percentage-wise I'm sure there weren't very many either. No there were less than a hundred per class in a brigade of 45 hundred men shipment over the four years so we had less than 200 total in in the brigade of men shipment when when I started. Well so was it hard to get into Annapolis I mean it's you know I agree with you it's great engineering school it's a great school and more than that especially in these times it's a great statement of patriotism and and being part of and proud of the government you know. Right we all wish we had attempted Annapolis. Yes and a guaranteed job when you when you finish school but it's not your regular college and that's why I think it's difficult to get into and difficult to make it through it's you have to be a well-rounded person it's not enough to have good grades good SAT scores when you get in even when you're there it's not good enough to have good grades you have to be in a sport activity you have to do PT and and then there's all kinds of things you have to memorize the first year called rates where it's exercise in memory and you have things like navigation seamanship and leadership classes that you have to take that you know you're taking 15 to 18 credit hours a semester for four years which is really difficult because you have to manage your time and and it's very regimented and how much time you are allowed to study and then it's lights out especially at the first year as a plea were they hard on you well I guess it depends on what you mean hard they didn't have any of the local food that was hard but you know I think it was a time when everybody wasn't sure how to treat the women what the women were going to be like whether they're going to have to make special consideration for them we didn't have they took men's uniforms and tailored them for us and so they didn't really fit like the jumper the white jumper the white works we called it they put maternity panels in the side so we could it could go over our hips and they gave us men's shirts but they tailored our trousers so we didn't have the gig line that you have to line up the the side of your shirt in the the fly it went in a crooked line because of course women button their shirts opposite the mendu and the fly is on the other side as well so those are some of the things that you know we had to get through and you had to have a good sense of humor and you really had to you really had to lean on your classmates and and I did I did both of those I did change you I'm really interested in that because you know military schools all the service academies they tend to make an officer out of you how did it change you well you know coming from Hawaii okay so the first day I showed up with a moomoo and lays just just saying before actually I walked up I had to put my rifle away I was going to be a walk on to the rifle team and I wanted to check it into the armory so they had told me to come a day early walked up in there right up the steps didn't know that you're not supposed to do that as a first year and walked up to the front desk with my moomoo and lays and they helped me out and then I offered to give everybody in the office a lay which you know they they quickly told me we can't wear that with our uniform you know and but I coming from Hawaii I think was an advantage in that I I was used to seeing persons of color there weren't a lot of persons of color then there were a lot of Asians and so there were some people that had never seen because of where they had been from in the United States never seen a person of color and so for them that was not not a bad thing it was just different it might have been scary they have stereotypes nobody could tell if I was Japanese Chinese I am Chinese but nobody could tell if I was Japanese Chinese Korean Hawaiian but because I was from Hawaii of course I must be Hawaiian and they wanted to know about the grass skirts and the fishing and they said no no no we just do that in the mornings in the afternoons we fix our nets you know okay they remarked I spoke English and you know that's wonderful you do too you know but I think I didn't see a lot of prejudice because I wasn't looking for it I wasn't used to it at home here and uh you know every time I got a child package uh I try to share it around of course it was a little different my roommate remarked once you know how come you don't get normal things like chocolate chip cookies you know I got rice crackers and cuttlefish and is that caused the upper class to say what is that smell you know as they walk down the hall so it was um I'd like to think that I imparted some aloha spirit uh while I was there and of course uh you know for 18 years uh I was a blue gold officer here and the era coordinator where I helped high school kids get there and I told them I can help you get there but I can't help you through and you know they also perpetuated the aloha spirit and people knew about the hawaii kids and the hawaii club because we were always giving and sharing and I like to think that's one of the things that I brought to the academy it did change me and then I had to learn how to study and a portion of my time I was not very good at that uh I had to learn very quickly or figure out you know if I was going to graduate so I had to learn that I was a rifle shooter so I didn't have to take a shower when I was done I didn't make my heartbeat and then they tell me the first day I have to run a mile and I said all at once and they said all at once and I said well usually by a little mile I just drive you know which just blew their minds here here the athletes and I had to learn to do that I had to learn to budget my time I had to learn to to juggle all the things I had to do all the things that were required of the plebes the running through the hall all the rates we had to memorize uh and all the extra courses that you take that aren't part of a regular college curriculum but make you a more well rounded you know whole person um so those are the things I took away I I try it's a leadership laboratory and I tried all kinds of leadership styles to see what worked and what didn't work and brought that all into my career as well so I think that's some of the things that the academy did for me and helped to change me did you do well not particularly I like to tell everybody I was in the top 80 percent of my class um and uh I'm sure that I'm sure that uh well my my army instructor my ROTC instructor at Punahou uh I think he must have seen something early on because he he kept promoting me and giving me more responsibility but I wasn't I didn't come from a long line of military my father fought in World War II in the occupation um but there wasn't a whole line of military in my family and so this was sort of a new experience for my family and uh I didn't start doing quote unquote well I think until I was out in the fleet um so there I you know like I said top 80 percent you know still graduated so yeah I know it strikes me from what you've said that it's not so much what the academy did to change you it's maybe also what you did to change the academy I also I want to take a moment and tell you a story actually Ellen okay I arrived here on October 1st 1965 and I was directly commissioned as a lawyer during Vietnam oh so I could take correctly commissioned and me in my class we knew nothing about military marching protocol all that oh we were in uniform we were commissioned as uh now let's see uh I guess it was the instance and um no Lieutenant Chagy they made us Lieutenant Chagy right right away okay and I I had no idea what the rules were so I get there and I I had never seen an admiral never seen an admiral never see even at distance I didn't know what looked like and uh I went I went to the head okay my first visit to the head in the in the district office here in the coast guard and I found myself standing at the urinals next to somebody who had a lot of gold on his shoulders he was a rear admiral and so I didn't know what to do but so I turned to him and I saluted now you know you in the naval service you don't salute indoors and and certainly you don't salute while you're standing at the urinal admiral Fabric admiral Fabric was the kindest most wonderful man and he he knew that I was completely out of water so he turned to me and he saluted back the two of us oh hilarious yeah it's a good thing that we were both fairly disciplined about what we were doing right right so anyway you met your husband at the academy and did you know him then no I didn't he was in my company he was in my squad we were friends we there was a whole group of us that ran around together uh he was from Connecticut and uh we did not get married in what they called the June week which is the wedding you know the week right after you graduate actually it took us 15 years after we met to get married so we were kind of slow about it we went off into the fleet went our separate ways and then eventually you know connected back up so that's an interesting career because it is as you say it's a it's a it's an engineering degree that's the bottom one that's what you get at the at an analyst in an engineering degree well everyone graduates through the bachelor of science but you can have a Bachelor of Science and you can major in English history um Arabic now is something they have Chinese is something um you know so there's there's a political science a bunch of other majors but it's still a Bachelor of Science because of all the core courses you have to take everyone takes so okay so you had an interest in mechanical engineering and I guess that you took those courses and you got out and and now it's uh you know what we what's your designated are going to be what are you going to have my kind of career so what what was on your wish list when you left the academy well back then women could not go into any combatant ships um and there were only five women that were allowed to fly out of our class um and you you could go in the Marine Corps but you couldn't go um you know infantry uh so there were very there were very limited selection so I went 1100 which was general line which is sort of everything and but I was lucky in that my first duty station was coursemanship yard in an engineering duty command which is where they fix submarines and I loved it um I you know like I said my dad at work to Pearl Harbor and I used small kid time in the summer I used to go to work with him in the shipyard before they had all the security gates yeah try that today right and I you know I'd say dad what do you do and I probably was between 10 and 13 years old I said what do you do all day he said answer phone calls go to meetings well little did I know how right he really was was my first introduction to the shipyards to the ships uh he he told me I could have an ice cream cone for every ship I went on so I went on a lot of a lot of ships but I you know I saw the mechanics and I saw people not just sitting behind desks but fixing things with their hands doing things and I thought that's something I want to do and of course as an officer in the engineering duty community you don't get to actually turn the wrenches but you do get to help remove roadblocks for people that are trying to turn wrenches and get those submarines and surface ships out and that's what I did up in Portsmouth it was all submarines and that's what I need so I crossed into the engineering duty community after a couple of years and at some point the Navy said Emma why don't you take a degree in mechanical engineering uh and you did well actually the Navy um since I was in 1100 there was no need to but I also knew that as an engineering duty officer you couldn't get into the community unless you had a technical masters an engineering masters and so well technical masters so so I went on my own I worked during the day and went at night and then when I ran out of courses I flip flopped to working at night and going to school during the day and uh finished in a couple years and I had my degree and then they had to take me into this community that's great that's great I really demonstrates a whole bunch of things about the Navy and about you I mean there's a flexibility there career-wise I I'm assuming that flexibility exists now today and that today as you're the Navy and you went took your own degree um they would respect your wishes in terms of how you wanted to spend your career likewise and give you that opportunity you know am I right they actually have a program that even gives you greater flexibility you can take what is equivalent of a sabbatical and completely come out of the military in the Navy anyway for a couple three years and you can pursue a degree you can go there was one officer who decides you wanted to study yoga in um in Nepal and they let her go do that somebody wanted to hike the Appalachian Trail somebody had to stay home and take care of their aging parent whatever or you know whatever you wanted to do in those years and of course not everybody gets to do it but you had to be a good performer and then you committed to coming back and picking up where you left off and and continuing on with your career and they found that giving people the flexibility to do that allowed them to take care if you'd be on their control like taking care of an aging parent and kept them in the Navy because you didn't want to lose all that knowledge that they had they already had in all that experience if they had to make a choice between staying in or getting out to take care of a parent they're going to get out and you lose them completely so this was a good flexible way to allow them to come back in that's a very interesting point of comparison between a career in the Navy and a career you know in the civilian community but then the Navy in fact all the military services training is a big thing that's a career enhancement that personal development and I think with the theory I assume being if you have the opportunity to develop yourself and your career you're going to feel better about your life and you're going to be a more productive citizen so I'm afraid you know it doesn't happen that often it doesn't happen in Hawaii very much at all you know you're you get into a job and you do the job and if you want to go and take any training you know you take an hour off sometime and read a book but it isn't everything like that and the Navy likes you to go to other schools that can help you do your job better or that could help you branch out into a different aspect of your job like you know radiological controls or you know dry docking or other kinds of schools but the engineering duty officers have to have a technical master's so if they don't have one when they come into the community they have to get one while they're in and the Navy will provide either a post grad school in California at Monterey or MIT on the east coast that's fabulous you know you might not have even the remote prospect of doing that outside the Navy but in the Navy you have all these opportunities by the way Portsmouth I'm trying to remember Portsmouth uh first of all there was a naval prison in Portsmouth right absolutely Spanish American war yes yeah and there was a movie a wonderful movie I said wonderful it wasn't a happy movie called The Last Detail back in the time of Vietnam about a and Nicholson Jack Nicholson was oh okay really wonderful the other thing I'm remembering about Portsmouth is isn't that where the naval justice school is um I'm not sure about that but um it would probably be a good idea because in the winters you don't want to be outside having a school in the property would make a lot of sense but yeah I attended that I attended that oh okay yeah okay 68 I think I attended that school okay okay anyway so uh somewhere along the line you've got into heavy duty ships and submarines I guess that was a Portsmouth to start with the submarines and right you became a ship superintendent and I wanted to ask you what is it to be a ship superintendent it's the same thing is being now they call them program managers or program superintendents or project superintendents where you're in charge of running the overhaul availability now that can be long it could be several years or it could be as short as three months or six months but whatever it is you're responsible for making sure that it finishes on time as close to budget as possible hopefully under budget and and you're actually working with people that could be your father's age I worked when I was back here at pro harbor I worked with people that were definitely my father's age people that knew him and so you have to find a way because you're not their boss you don't write their evaluations you have to find a way as a military person and a junior one at that a lieutenant jg or a lieutenant so an 03 04 you have to find a way to to motivate them to get the job done to do the things that need to be done you're going to have a bigger picture of why they need to be done the way they need to be done they have the experience the hands-on best shot practices kind of experience and you have to you have to lean on that you have to really make sure that you're not getting in their way trying to do what you think you need to do to complete the mission and get the boats underway so it's but it's an engineering job is it the ship superintendent I mean you have to know not only what the wrench which direction the wrench has to go I assume there's a right and a wrong there well you have to be able to understand plans and you have to be able to understand the systems and that's why the engineering is important you have to have the aptitude to understand that um you're not doing any of the real work which is sometimes difficult because you want to jump in there and help but these are craftsmen these mechanics and you know they're craftsmen they know exactly what they're doing they've been through an apprenticeship program here at pro harvard it's it's robust again that program but you have to listen to what they're saying on the other hand they may not know some of the things that you're dealing with at a higher level about why something can't happen or we don't have enough people or whatever it is not in the funding so you know those things and they know how to get the work done and so you have to team up together and have to have a good working relationship so you can get the the submarine or the ship out on time and back to the fleet yeah at the same time you have to deal with the forces above the management above right and you have to make make all this happen by connecting with the people who work for you and also the people above who have expectations of you so so the people above me are all military the people that and they don't work for me they work for their shops but they work on my project and that's a distinction that is you have to be clear they don't work for you so you need to be able to motivate them get to know them get to understand them so that they will work for you and that's always of course the better way to go for leadership absolutely yes huge exercise leadership so what what was the promotion track did you go let's see you were you were on active duty as a regular navy naval officer from the time you graduated the academy in 1981 till 1988 when you went reserve and yes about that so how far did you get in the in the chain of promotion in that period I was a senior lieutenant and part of the reason I got out is like I said I was one of the first women through and so there was no career path they couldn't figure out what to do with me I had actually I got my masters on my own so they couldn't send me to post grad school I had qualified when I was at Portsmouth to be an injured duty officer instead of in my second tour which would have been pro harbor so I was way ahead of the curve and they weren't sure what they're there wasn't a plan and I thought okay it's time to get out and do something else and then but I knew I would stay in the reserve I knew I'd keep my hand in it I knew I I still wanted to do things for the navy and that's what I did I stayed in the reserve and every now and then I'd go on active duty again and it wasn't until I was a commander in 05 that I thought oh you know the kids are getting older now they go to school all day they have sports afterwards I can go on active duty and I was a submarine maintenance director here at the pacific fleet because I had the experience and I kept in at those years so you actually made admiral rear admiral while you were reserve yes I did and then I had been recalled to active duty one two two times before that as the submarine maintenance director and then as the deputy operations officer at pro harbor shipyard as an 06 I was recalled to active duty to do that job and then when I made flag I was recalled to active duty to be the fleet maintenance officer here at pac fleet when you made flag there weren't that many women who were flag am I right there was only one before me in my field in engineering duty and she was a cyber person and that was a few years before me but she was the only other woman flag in my community other communities had several you know the jags had women flags the nurse corps the the medical corps they had flags aviators they had women helicopter pilots and fighter pilots that you know had made flags so other communities had but engineering duty had just had one before me and we don't realize and the other thing I wanted to ask you about this so you you've had you know between active active regular navy and reserve see quite a few years in and around the navy and you've seen a lot of changes a lot of people come and go a lot of a lot of historic events happen a lot of changes in the country in the world and a lot but how how has the navy changed I'm locked in amber you see because my time I used to try cases no kidding at pearl harbor I was okay I was I was shoulder to shoulder with a bunch of navy lawyers and we tried cases against each other and some of them went on to be admirals interestingly enough so anyway my view of the navy goes way back and I don't have the advantage of having seen it dynamically change over the years but I wonder if you could talk to that how does it change while you were in both in your active duty years and in your reserve years oh I I think it changed one of the big things that I saw change was a better rapport between the officer and the enlisted and that started the academy where they started putting senior enlisted advisors in each company up until that point you never actually interacted with an enlisted person enlisted were driving the boat to the rifle range so you could qualify that was the only time and then sometimes on the summer cruises you got to interact but nothing so there was a more of a you know they're not scary people they can teach you an awful lot if you listen to them and that was something that started I think at the academy and then also I noticed in the fleet there's a more of a respect the officers are told hey you're not the end all be all you need to listen to your senior enlisted you need they have the the experience they have the technical knowledge they have leadership you know before you were born they were doing this right especially the the the chiefs they were they're the backbone of the fleet everybody knows it and they certainly do and the sooner the officers figured out that they could learn a lot um by just being quiet and listening they would be better off and so I think there's a much better rapport between the officer and enlisted I think the the Navy's opened up different rates different designators to women and persons of color there is a there's a certainly an understanding that you don't have to be a certain kind of person to excel in what you you're doing or what you need to do to complete your mission so you might as well throw the net wide and open up to all the population and get the best of the best and I think that's one of the biggest things that the Navy's done is to really open their ranks wide to anybody that wants to because we are a volunteer Navy and different from other countries we are a volunteer Navy you know the president just recently reopened the Navy to LGBT yes how do you feel about that decision uh I think that if they if they can do their job then I think it doesn't matter and if they if there's not a negative impact on the unit or other people then it doesn't matter my son is a my older son is a submarineer and before he before he got there women started coming on submarines I tried to do that way back in the 80s and was not allowed to do that and I thought oh maybe my granddaughter will someday it happened much sooner and I asked him how do you feel about that and he said if they can stand watch I don't care they can pull their own weight they can do the job I don't care and I think that goes for all the different quote-unquote categories of people if they can do their job they're not negatively impacting the unit then bring them on because they might have a perspective or information knowledge and experience that somebody else wouldn't have and why wouldn't you take advantage of that yeah sure um you know I covered the uh Hemi Maru incident of Pearl Harbor with the submarine Greenville back in 2001 I covered it for PBS and there was a they call it a proceeding investigation board of investigation of that and we covered that that board of the proceedings of the board and one of the interesting things go to your point now one of the interesting things about that was the the board of inquiry turned and there were a composite board of admirals from various places in the Navy not not just here and not just in the submarine in the Pearl Harbor submarine command the most interesting thing was that they they they they discovered into dealt with the notion of command climate and this goes directly to what you were talking about in that case there was a fire control technician who did see the Hemi Maru on his sword he saw it it was right there but the captain said you know I uh I don't take your word for that I reject your advice to that effect and so the fire control technician um said okay and he reset you reset the the radar and the fire control system so that the blip wasn't there anymore well that was the blip that was the Hemi Maru and and when the the board of inquiry looked into that they said what what happened here you know we we went off the side because we you know this was not a good example of of command climate climate the captain was setting setting that was uh Scott Waddle yeah he was a classmate of mine is that right no kidding how did you think of him what did you think of that incident well I was I was here at Pearl Harbor when it happened uh and my husband's a submarineer and uh there was actually a breakfast that Scott had with the other 81 sub-rinors he got them all together and talked to him and everybody knew at the time what had happened I mean they they knew in terms of technical terms what had happened and what had gone wrong and all that and um yes he took responsibility but he should have he was the captain of the ship I mean that was a foregone conclusion that's why we were sort of a surprise that it was such a big thing in the in the news that he took responsibility that that's something that we would have expected that he took responsibility and yes you're right that's when command climate first came into being and when my husband was going through a captain school or command school was the first time that they actually did not graduate someone because of their their command attitude he was excellent technically excellent he could do everything that he was that was supposed to do correctly but the instructor said we don't want this guy to be the commanding officer of submarine it's just he's got the wrong attitude he's got the wrong uh set of values and we're just not gonna let him do it and that was the first time that happened so they were just beginning to understand what kind of impact that would have on something like a crew if the captain who's the head of them all uh didn't didn't quite do it right or didn't have the right attitude um as is the case of the green bill yeah one little mistake like that and bingo you know the whole thing floats uh yeah I also wanted to ask you know in the recent in recent years in the Trump administration we certain certain stresses have been put on the military in general and you know a lot of people were have been asking in anticipation of this recent election and where does the military stand in case they are called to participate politically you know in a transfer of power it's a sophisticated question and nobody in the service really wants to talk about it frankly but I wonder if you have thoughts that you'd like to express about the role of the military uh you know in in political disturbances well um the role of the military is to do is to follow the lawful orders of those appointed over them and the president is a commander-in-chief now of course the keyword is lawful um and so there are many many layers between the commander-in-chief and the guy in the deck plate um so you would hope that somewhere in there the word lawful will get defined correctly but as far as um using the military to help with peacekeeping you know I would think that would not be the first option because what you're talking about is we have a finite force and if you're pulling the military off from somewhere or something they're doing their mission to help with peacekeeping uh in the United States then you've opened up a hole and so I would hope that they would use the National Guard or local law enforcement first and then of course if that wasn't enough and you had to bring the military in you could that would be an option but I would think you would have to be way down the road because like I said you know the military doesn't train to do um those kinds of peacekeeping domestic peacekeeping operations and so if you bring them in to do that then they're not doing what they're supposed to be doing uh you know you pull a crew of from a ship you know what hole are you leaving in an area of operation that they should be there they should be out patrolling something you know so uh if even if you pull them out of their training cycle say they're not at sea they're not supposed to go to sea but they're in training so you disrupt that cycle because you pull them off to do a some kind of crowd control or peacekeeping domestically they're going to lose that training time and they will not be as ready when they have to deploy as they should be so that you know that's my opinion it obviously it's an option but it should be one of the last options possible yeah so interesting to take a fresh look at everything these days including the military because the military is central to our democracy and our security and you know i for what not intensely patriotic which is why i i like to talk to people like you great to talk to you too so so talk talk to the kids out there for a minute will you ama and tell them you know why they should consider it a career like you've had uh why did you consider you know i was being in and supporting and and and having a kind of loyalty toward the military well what i found is and i'm not sure i knew this when i was at their age but um you're going to be doing something um for your country you know like i said we're all volunteer military there's there's no draft people that are in the military there because they want to be there and it could be for different reasons it could be because they want to travel or get education or you know learn a skill but those are all viable options but the bottom line is they're doing something they're doing something to serve their country and they're doing something that's bigger than themselves which is a concept a lot of people can't get their arms around this is you know what they do on a daily basis is more than just for themselves or their small group of friends or their family um and so that that's you know the one reason to serve uh sure the you know they will get training in how to be a team player how to be a teammate how to be a team leader they'll get that kind of training they'll get uh technical training whatever their whatever their field is um and then of course all the benefits education and travel but one of the other things i think is really interesting is you get to meet people from other parts of the country that have different cultures even um then what you're used to and that's a whole wide world out there and one good way to do it is within the structure of a military where you don't have to worry about what your next field is going to come from or how you're going to get from point A to point B or where you're going to live that's all taken care of for you if that's what you opt for but then you can go learn and investigate and find out about other people's perspectives from you know a different part of the country or a different part of the world even because you do travel and get to meet people from other countries and that that's probably um one of the biggest things it really opens your world up to different perspectives and in different cultures uh the teamwork and leadership is unparalleled uh and it's like i said you have an opportunity to try all that and see what works for you and what works best a better life you know join the navy absolutely right remember to join the navy see the world well i can tell you that my husband and i did not pay for college for either of our sons my older son went to the naval academy third generation because my father in law also went uh so he's third generation and my younger son got a navy rotc scholarship to run solar polytech so not only do we just pay for plane tickets home but they both got jobs uh you know right after college they're making a good living they got a they got a skill set they're learning and they're not living in my basement if i had a basement age of life to join the navy for sure right turning point and i think it does that for a lot of people yes i'm a grok we were admiral retired united states navy thank you so much for joining us admiral thank you for inviting me and i really enjoyed this time together this is great thank you