From Louisiana To Master Chief Through Loss Service And Purpose

One bad decision can derail a life. One good mentor can reroute it. Gary sits down with retired Master Chief Tyrone Jiles to trace the real path from Rayville, Louisiana to the highest enlisted levels of Navy leadership, with the messy middle included: family loss, growing up without a clear blueprint, and choosing the military for structure and a shot at something bigger. 

We talk through the early Sailor years that most people romanticize, then tell the truth about what actually matters: discipline, relationships, and learning lessons like money management before you “leave a lot on the table.” Ty also opens up about getting out, watching 9/11 unfold on a recruiter station TV, and making the decision to come back with purpose, mentors, and a commitment to take care of Sailors as a Navy Career Counselor. 

The conversation hits its hardest stretch in Japan on USS George Washington: the post-fire rebuild, the leadership pressure cooker, Operation Tomodachi, and the day we drove our families to the airport not knowing what came next. From damage control standards to fleet-level policy, we connect the dots on why trust is earned, why competence beats appearances, and why “people don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care” still holds up. 

If you care about Navy leadership, veteran transition, military retirement, mentorship, and parenting in a social media world, this one is for you. Subscribe, share it with a shipmate, and leave a review. What’s the moment that forced you to level up?

https://www.wordsfromthewise.net/

Transcript

Welcome And Lifelong Brotherhood

Gary Wise 0:28

All right, everybody, how are you doing? It's Gary once again, Words for the Wise, the leadership podcast. And we're just, you know, we get into all kinds of topics here today. Man, I got a real one today in the room, y'all. I got a one of my partners. This man and I go, we go, we go back, man. Uh, I'm thinking like 2010's when we first linked up. He retired from the Navy recently. We're gonna catch up with him. He goes by the name of Mr. Tyrone Giles.

Ty Jiles 0:55

Ty, what's up, Gary? Man, first of all, thank you for having me here on your podcast, man. I know we've been this has been a long time coming and we finally made it happen. So I'm greatly humbled to be here, man, and chopping up with a real one, man. Like you said.

Gary Wise 1:14

Bruh, I appreciate you too, man. You always you for real, but you are you're you're in my top five of people that I just know if I ever needed anything, like, like for real, for real. You would you would tell me the truth, like Gary, this is what it is, what you gotta do. And I say that because we served on some hard ass neckplates together. Like, we did and then we didn't just serve on some hard ass neckplates together, but we've stayed connected since I mean 15 is 15 years later, bro. And I tell people, I I tell stories of you frequently because we we we did some very key things in our lives together. Like, for example, uh I remember the night we made Senior Chief, right? Yep, and and you you and Al kind of pulled me on my rack. I was in bed asleep, and y'all came down and woke me up and got me, and that was a huge day, bro. Us making senior chief that day.

Ty Jiles 2:15

Hey, so I tell people like this that you're like my twin. Well, I already have a twin brother, but you like the third one, so you like to triple it because I say that because we made chief round the same time, I think 2007, right? Yeah, well, I make we made sing together, yeah. Together, we made sing together in 2010, and we made mastery together. Our birthdays are a day apart, you know what I mean? Um, so so we you kind of like that third, that that the third brother.

Gary Wise 2:45

I accept that, bro. I'm the short one. Nah, man, and I would tell you another thing, and I'd say another thing was the day we drove our families up to the airport when they were evacuating Japan, bro. And I I can't, you know, top three most difficult things I've ever done in my life. One of those top three is walking out of that airport, bro. And remember, we left our wives and our sons in that airport. It was like it was like the Tower of Babel up in that airport, bro. There was people speaking all kinds of languages, didn't know and know nothing, and the military spouse stayed connected and they got they got up out of there. But we we had to walk out there, tears dropping off our face, get back in our car and go back down to your coast and get ready to put that work in, man.

Ty Jiles 3:34

And get and get to put that work on, man.

Louisiana Roots And Family Loss

Gary Wise 3:36

You know, that was a tough one. So that was tough, bro. That was tough. That was hard, bro. I remember I had to follow you because I didn't even know how to get to the airport. Yeah, and I don't know if you remember, so and we'll we'll we'll probably talk about we'll we'll get to that story, bro. I don't want to rush that one. Um, uh I you grew up in Louisiana, right?

Ty Jiles 3:58

Yep, Louisiana, man.

Gary Wise 4:00

What part?

Ty Jiles 4:02

Uh Rayville, Louisiana, man, is right outside of Monroe, northeast Louisiana. Um, so yeah, so we we're kind of like right there in southern Arkansas, like an hour from Mississippi. So it's not the real Cajun roots uh Louisiana, like people see when they when they think about Louisiana, you know what I mean? But I mean, we got our Cajun, we got our Creole and all that stuff like that. Good southern roots. Um, but yeah, that was why I was born and raised in Rayville, Louisiana, man.

Gary Wise 4:32

Born and raised Rayville, Louisiana. And as you were a kid growing up, did you see a lot of your family members leaving Raville, or were they all pretty much just sticking around in the community?

Ty Jiles 4:45

Um, they were all sticking around in the community, man. And I'll tell you that uh, you know, losing my mom at a young age in 1988 when I was two years old. My older brother, he was in college. I had two older brothers. Uh, my oldest oldest brother passed away last August. At the time, my oldest brother was playing college football at the University of Houston. Um, so he was a professional athlete. And my next oldest brother, he was at Louisiana State University, LSU, on an academic scholarship. So you got a football scholarship and an academic scholarship, and they both went on their lives to being successful. My oldest brother ended up playing professional football with Green with the Green Bay Packers and Tampa Bay Buccaneers. And uh had a successful career. So growing up, seeing people leave Raville, not too much, other than my oldest brothers. And they planted seeds early in my life that I ate man, I can't mess up. Whatever I do, I can't mess up. I wasn't smart like Jim, and I wasn't athletic like my oldest brother. So I had to make my own way. Now I didn't want to stay in Arabia and I didn't want to go to college. So I said the next best thing for me to do is join the military. And I had my mind made up that I was joining the military in the 10th grade. I was in delayed entry program in the 10th grade. Um, and I tell you what, facts, me and my Navy recruiter are still in touch to this day. Um, because that man right there, man, planted seeds in my life as a young adult who needed guidance, who needed some structure, who needed some discipline. And he saw something, man. I remember sitting in my room, sitting in the room with my grandmother and my grandfather telling what the Navy's gonna offer me and um all that good stuff, man. And it happened, man. And it's good to see him. We're still connected, we're still tied in, and he said, Man, you know what? I'm so proud of you, man. So think I think all of it, the all the attributions go to my oldest brothers and my recruiter, uh, MM1 Robert Wallace.

Gary Wise 7:08

Wow. So I want to go back real quick because you were talking about how your mom had passed away when you were you were younger, and like you said, you had a twin brother, and you said you were like what 10 years old?

Ty Jiles 7:19

I was 10 years old, man.

Gary Wise 7:21

So and then you got older siblings that are in college. That's a pretty big age gap, you know. Like a lot of times you can be disconnected from older siblings, they be more like uncles, right? Because if you're 10 and they're off to college already, your life experience might be a lot different than theirs because now you got to be a 10-year-old boy losing his mother, right? And you and your twin brother going through teenage years not having your mama, or they had your mom, right?

Ty Jiles 7:49

Or they had our mom, yep.

Gary Wise 7:51

That's a huge for me. I just recognize that as that as being a very different uh experience, you know, because you know how it is with as a parent, like you parented your older son differently, a little bit different than you do your younger son, right? I'm I'm gonna say I got two boys, right? And my older boy got my he got me when I was a little bit younger. My my younger son gets a little bit more of that experience, right? Uh, a little bit more of that extra, you know, just different communication styles, different things. Um, and so when I look at your life, I just think to myself, like that must have been just super kind of just complicated, right? And here you are with looking up to your big brothers as these big examples, but then on the reverse side, that's like, but bro, I don't got the life you had growing up. Like, right because you had to go live with your grandparents, right? After your mom passed away.

Ty Jiles 8:42

Um grandmother on my mom's side, she moved into our house and she stayed with us, she lived with us for five years, and she passed away my 10th grade year, man, in high school, man. Oh, that was hard, bro. So I ended up moving with my dad's uh mother, uh, my grandmother and my grandfather, man, in my 11th grade year. And I didn't really want to do that, man, because I left Raville to go to another school. But I grew up with my classmates, man, from kindergarten all the way to then. But I understood it, man. We need just me and my brother, we was wow, man. You know what I mean? So they was like, man, yeah, you guys, y'all not finna throw block parties, hang out with y'all friends every night. You gotta think about it, man. We was living a good life. That summer of 1993, our 10th grade year going to our 11th grade year, man. That whole summer, every night, it was a block party on Alabama Street, 713 Alabama Street, man. And we was living a good life, man. All the way until our 11th grade year. Um, we had our aunts, our uncles. The village used to come on every day, come to our house every day and drop off hot meals. Because at the time we like in transition. Uh, we just lost our grandmother. So we're like, man, what are the boys gonna do now? My brother, he's a he's uh playing football with Tampe Buccaneers, right? And my gym is down in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Louisiana, uh graduated Louisiana State University. So you got Tyrone and Dion living wild in the jungle. So 11th grade year, probably like November, our third month in our uh high school year, our junior year, whatever. We moved to Dale High, Louisiana, man, and uh stayed with our grandparents, man. And you know, my grandmother, she took us in. She's 97 years young right now, man. Still living, man. We're gonna go to we're gonna visit her in Las Vegas uh next month, man. But she saw me from E1 to E9, man. You know what I mean? And that's that's I mean, that's saying so.

Gary Wise 10:56

So yeah, that's that's that's I love, yeah.

Ty Jiles 10:59

I love my grandmother, man. I try to talk to her at least once a week.

Gary Wise 11:02

And uh that's amazing.

Ty Jiles 11:04

I don't know what I got this from, man, but I got it to where that I always check on my family. Uh whereas my grandmother, my uncles, my aunts, I do that, do that self-check uh with them, just see how they're doing. There's no monetary value added to it, but it's a simple hello, how you doing? And my uncle told me last week, he said, you know what, man? One thing I love about you, you always call and checking off, checking off in your folks, man. That's good stuff. That's a good trait to have. I said, Well, you know, I don't know where I got that from, but I just that's family, man. You know, uh, I guess growing up, you know, I mean, I didn't have that structure, I didn't have no guidance. My dad was in and out of the picture growing up. Uh, he got in my got back into my life, my probably late 19, late 90s, early 2000s. We build our relationship off of all those years that we miss. Um, so he grew, he he built a good relationship with his uh grandkids, I can tell you that. Um but you know, um, I that's one thing I try to teach my boys, man. Make sure that you keep in touch with your family, man, because blood is sticking in mud. Um it's family over everything, man. The one thing you don't want to do is not keep tabs with your family. You know, growing up, we used to have family reunions and all that stuff like that. We don't have that no more. Every time we get together now, it's because someone's dying in the family, and you don't want that, you know what I mean? So yeah, I love my family, man. You know what I mean? So I I'll have to just put that out there, man, because when I talk about my family, I'm passionate about it, man. You know what I mean? Uh we don't have the best, we don't have the best family, uh, especially the extended family, man. But we try to make do what we have.

Gary Wise 13:00

I get it, man. I think for a lot of us, at least for me, I get that survivor's guild, bro, where it's like I done made it, you know what I'm saying? I feel guilty because I can't do for everybody or I can't do the things that I want to do. And so then for a lot of us, we just don't what is we won't we won't tap in, right? Because right, you know, I grew where I grew up at, my I never I still never took my my sons to the neighborhood I grew up in, just because that's just I don't need them to know that part, I don't need them to see that part. Someday maybe I'll tell them the stories, you know. Right, right, right. I built a life that's the 90s was buck wild, right? I was listening, you talk about block parties 1993. I had my own apartment. I was a high school dropout running wild with my boys.

Ty Jiles 13:44

See, see, we got that's why I said, man, we we we a we grew we grew up the same but different households, man. That era, the 90s, whatever. Um wow, it was wild, man. You know, and and as parents, and especially where we come from, we try to make sure that our our our family is better than what we had when we grew up. It's no blueprint, it's no blueprint on being a dad, uh being a parent. Every day we're learning something new, man. You know what I mean? So um, I'm just thankful, man, to be in the position that I am right now that I can give a little bit of knowledge on what I experienced. Because people think that because you were that that that rank insignia, they think that you're you're golden. You you know what I mean? No, at the end of the day, we're human beings, man. You know what I mean?

Choosing The Navy For Structure

Gary Wise 14:34

No, and the other thing is like I had a buddy reach out to me about that's about a year ago. He just got out of prison and he'd been locked up since I was like 16. And he reached out to me, and while I appreciated him reaching out, it was like, dog, we in completely two different worlds now, bro. Like, I and I'm not trying to be no type of way, but it's just like bruh, I don't I'm glad to hear you're out. Yeah, but you know, like that was a long time ago, and the fact that he thought so much of me that he wanted to connect, but like I what do I, you know, it's just it's a weird to look back on our lives. I I tell the students, like I felt like I lived a whole lifetime before I even joined the Navy, bro. Like before I even joined the Navy, you wouldn't believe half the stories I told people. Like, you like it, just it was wild. Yeah, and then I joined the Navy and reset that whole baseline and went on a whole new journey where I didn't have to be taking care of myself all the time. And I got to be the young man again and be a learning from people and not have to be out there trying, because you know, outside, outside, you in the room with the wrong people. Guess what? You better be a grown man and get yourself out of that situation, yeah, right? Otherwise, ain't no one gonna feel sorry for you. So I'm like you, that I thank God so much that I joined the Navy and that I got the chance to get in the Navy, you know, because that's it's watching these kids nowadays come to the end of their high school career, their high school journey, and they can't even pass the ASVAB, bro. Like, it's sad, dog. Like you know they need the military, you know they need the structure, but they're 12th grade and they're getting 20s on the ASVAB. You know, I dropped out of high school in 10th grade, and thank God I was able to pass the GED test and the ASVAB because I don't know if I don't know if education was better or it was just God, but that matters. And then I to the to the part about being a dad, it's about making sure that our children understand the opportunities that are placed out in front of them and don't take it for granted, but you don't gotta make it be that hard, right? You know, because you on the reverse, right? Where I teach at, you got a lot of kids with tough, tough times, right? I relate with them, it's an inner city kind of an area in a country town, and so I can really connect with the kids, right? Yeah, and my son goes to the same school as all the kids do, and they're all his friends, and they look at what Hayden has because you know he got access to the GI Bill money, he got access to dad with veteran benefits, all that. And they're like, Man, it must be, you know, you're very blessed, you're very fortunate. I say, okay, y'all say that. But picture this what if he's the one to drop the bag, right? Like y'all, all we came to where anything we did, as long as we did something something, it was a win, right? But we done did so much that our sons got, they kind of got a hurdle to get over to try to perpetuate this thing to take it to the next level, right? And oh, by the way, you can't have there's no excuses. You got a good mom, you got a good dad, you got a good house, you got a good opportunity. So, but there are still things in this world that want you to not succeed, and you you have to know there's always an adversary out there, right? The enemy always gets a vote. Um, hey, so when you and Dion, because you and Dion joined the Navy together, right?

Ty Jiles 18:11

Yeah, so here's the thing. So uh I joined June 27, 1995. Dion wouldn't join the Navy at the time, um, because he was pursuing his rap career, man. So he went to Houston, Texas, man. He had some good lyrics, man, and everything, right? So I'm at Boot Camp and uh so Dion in Houston, and and I think I'm gonna go. No, so at the time he with uh yeah, with Perrion Records. Um, that's ESG. I don't know you know about ESG. Swinging and bang.

Gary Wise 18:42

I don't know about ESG, yeah.

Ty Jiles 18:43

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I'm gonna have to see some clips, man, some music clips. But um, so I went down to Orlando, Florida for SMA school, and um checking in, you know, on a payphone. Called grandmother, see, call my grandma, see how she was doing. I said, Hey, how's Dion doing? Baby, your brother uh joined the Navy two weeks ago. You know what I mean? So I didn't know he was joining the Navy. So fast forward, man. He went to Damn Nick, Virginia after graduating boot camp, went to OSA school. And at the time, I'm joined, uh just checked on board the USS Doyle in November 1995. And we had a senior chief who was a command senior chief, but you know the right one is uh official there. He was an OSCS, man, and I was telling by doing my check-in with him, say, Yeah, I got a brother that's in OSA school, yada, yada, whatever. He said, Um, really, what ship is he going to? The Lake T guff. He made some calls, and next thing I know, Dion on the ship with me, man. So me and Dion served on the first my first ship together on USS Doyle FFG 39 out of Mayport, Florida, man. So that was pretty cool to have a brother on the same ship. We're in different duty sessions. I'm gonna ask him here on OS. Uh, we go into different uh port business together with different duty sessions and different uh we were in different duty sessions and port because if I won the Saturday off, hey Dion, can you stay can't stand my duty? No problem. Nobody knows the hell we was. You know what I mean? They they didn't know the difference between me and Dion. And then we were the same watch station on the way. So if I got hot on the damn signal bridge, I would go down to combat and stand his watch, and he'll go to the signal bridge and stand my watch, man. So it was it was pretty good, man. It'd be an experience, man, with my brother on my first ship, man. Good stuff.

Boot Camp Culture Shock And Growth

Gary Wise 20:39

I always I always thought y'all did the buddy program, and that's how y'all got to the first ship. So when you got to boot camp, bro, how was that? Was that exactly where you thought it was gonna be?

Ty Jiles 20:50

No, not necessarily. Um, it was hot in Great Lakes. Okay, and I didn't think it was gonna be that hot. I'm from Louisiana from the South, man. I'm used to uh that type of heat, but it was something about uh Great Lakes, Illinois that was so hot. Um we got beat up a lot, you know. I'm not saying beat up, I'm talking about like physically every day in our in the in our in our barracks rooms, man. And I'll tell you what, man, uh it was just like never left Louisiana at the time, other than going to California, but being in Great Lakes, Illinois, with different races, uh different cultures and all that stuff in one setting. I never experienced I never experienced that before.

Gary Wise 21:46

Right.

Ty Jiles 21:46

You know what I mean? So building relationships with North Carolina, uh you know what I mean, from all walks of life, man. So yeah, I never met a Mexican before, a Puerto Rican, uh, all these different people to uh I went to boot camp. Um, but I'll tell you one thing that uh it was good. I learned a lot. And my RDCs don't know what they saw in me, but it always put them in in good positions. Like even when I went to A school, RDC, I was uh what in RTC grade lakes, I was the Starbucks-wise session leader. And then when I went to SMA school, I was the class leader. So I was always put in a position, like, man, what are they seeing this country boy from Louisiana, man? I guess it was a worked ethic. And you know, you know, I think it was um in work ethic and just a go-getter, because I I joined the Navy there to be successful. I didn't join the Navy to fail. Yeah, I joined the Navy because I didn't want to go to college. So this was like my outlet to being successful, and I didn't want to mess it up.

A School Liberty And Early Confidence

Gary Wise 22:53

Well, and I think you've always been kind of an old soul, right? Since I since I very first met you, you was always real listening, real good at listening, real good at understanding what someone was trying to get through, right? You was real good at lining it up and just kind of and then letting the pieces kind of play out, right? And and the other thing that I'm uh for you, Ty is uh and you're not a little guy, right? You're you're a big man, right? You tall, at least taller than me. And so that can that for some people, they might take take that the wrong way, but you came across always very kind, very I mean, trust me, I'm don't be wrong, you you can handle your business. I don't think everyone knows that, but well, you you just but you didn't over-emphasize that piece, right? And I think that people just gravitated to you, and that was probably just your natural potential. And in the Navy, in particular, me, all the branches of the military are like this, but the Navy that we know, people they'll see you real quick, they'll they can smell potential, they can smell it on you from a mile away, and that real leaders will put you in positions to give you the opportunity to prove them right, right? Because if you can get the next level leader to be good, it's gonna make your day easier, your life easier, and you're training your relief. And that's what I can see in you just from the beginning. Because again, I I knew that from when I first met you when I came out for the inspection on board George Washington. And then when I got back out there later, you was one of the main guys I was messing with because you was just you were humble, wanted to help, wanted to work, but you also saw we would talk and we would we understood real quick, we would say the right words, be like, Oh, okay, he gets it, he gets what I'm doing, I get what he's doing. Let's get that money, let's go get it, right? Yeah, we sure did, man. I I could see that, bro, for sure. Uh, how was so was SMA School in Great Lakes?

Ty Jiles 24:48

No, it was in Orlando, Florida.

Gary Wise 24:50

Yeah, okay. So, how was going down to Orlando, Florida as a young sailor, fresh out of boot camp? You got money in your pocket, you at A School right now. Did you did you make some good friends at A School? Did y'all go out in Orlando, get some good liberty?

Ty Jiles 25:08

Yeah, I did, man. And uh, so when I when I was in the delayed entry program, at the time I had boot camp and a school lined up to go to Orlando, Florida. I think the year that I was getting ready to go to boot camp, they closed down Great, uh they closed down Orlando uh recruit training command as well as San Diego. So I ended up going to Great Lakes for boot camp and going to Orlando. I just wanted two for one. I always wanted when I stayed with when I joined the Navy, I wanted to be stationed in Florida. And I did it for the most part. But as a young sailor man going down to Orlando, Florida, man, it was it was beautiful, man. Um, so I forgot to tell you that one of my friends I went to school with, um, he joined the Navy with me. So he was in boot camp with me, and we went to A school together. So it was good. Two Louisiana boys, man, down to downlando, Florida. You know, um, we got our first tattoos together. Go to Livy. Hey, what's the first thing we want to do? Go get some tattoos.

Gary Wise 26:12

That's it.

Ty Jiles 26:13

I think I still got that tattoo on my um on my forearm, man. Um, but it was good, man, and just sinking out and just living a Florida life, man. I'm like, man, that's just good.

Gary Wise 26:24

Um, bro, those schools, those schools when we were young sailors, yeah, those are amazing, bro, because you got quick friends, everybody got a little bit of pocket pocket change, and you just want to go out and get into something, you know. You don't even really know, and and it's not bad, it's just you're you're all most of y'all are over the age, you're legal, and you can get out and do things, you know what I'm saying? Go get tattoos, go get tattoos.

Ty Jiles 26:48

So that's what we did, man. But uh, it was good, man. And I think after the third week, we was able to get overnight uh liberty. So that was good going out in the nightlife, going down to uh uh just going out to the city, man, and kissing a taxi. I think the last week we ended baller, man, and got a limo limousine. So that was that was pretty good.

Gary Wise 27:08

That's it.

Ty Jiles 27:09

Yeah, Orlando, Florida was good, man. And then out of that to get follow-on orders because I was a class leader, and I was known one in A school in my class. So I got the first pick of orders, and I went to Mayport, Florida, man. So that was that was pretty cool, man.

Gary Wise 27:23

So when you come out of SMA school, are you already in E3?

Ty Jiles 27:28

Um, I was at E3, and then I got uh what's the four months on board? The USS Doyle, I got advanced to E4.

Gary Wise 27:36

Okay, so and the Doyle's in Mayport, yep.

Ty Jiles 27:41

FFG39.

Gary Wise 27:43

So you're in Duval County, right? You're in Duval. How how different was Jacksonville, Mayport area to where you had come from in Louisiana? Was it very similar or was it very different?

Ty Jiles 27:57

Oh no, it was different, man. Always different. And I can tell you at the time when I was on the Doyle, like 95% of my friends was all from the South. Yeah, I had Georgia friends, I had um Texas friends, Mississippi friends. So those guys at the time who I all who I was hanging out with, those guys had cars. So I didn't have a car. So it was good to go out with them. One of my friends, I guess we looked alike, he would let me use his ID card to get in the clubs and stuff like that. So I mean, it was good, man. Um, but never got in trouble on my first ship. Um, because those guys took we knew how to take care of each other. All male ship, all male ship, and I tell you, I still keep in touch with all those brothers that I came up with. Yeah, right. We still we're still tight.

Gary Wise 29:00

Yeah.

Ty Jiles 29:01

Me and my CO, we would change text messages, at least like every two weeks. My bosun, my chief engineer, my emo, all those guys, we are still a family. And that's one thing I love about all male ship, no knock to uh uh male and female ship, whatever, but it was just one thing about my first ship when you had people because we was brothers, man. No beef, no animosity, none of that stuff, man. We just knew how to take care of each other, and uh yeah, and I think my CO, he's he set the he set the tone. At the time, Jacksonville Jaguars was newly uh was a new team coming into the league. So that's what we used to do. We would go and take port visits downtown Jacksonville, pull up Pier Side and go to Jacksonville Jaguars games. So I mean, just those little things like that. Just seeing that right there, man, that was pretty cool. And I hate after 9-11, you don't have uh too much uh pull to do stuff like that because uh 9-11 changed the game. But I mean, that was my first ship, man, Jacksonville, Mayport. It was so different then, because totally different than um where I come from, Rayville, Louisiana, because you had all these things you could do. You had right down the street, you can go to Daytona, St. Augustine. So just having the luxury and the ability to see Florida in that capacity in the uh mid-90s was truly amazing. And now I'm fast forwarded, fast forward, you can see it's still area-wise, it's still huge. One thing I wish I could have done uh was bought property back then. Because now it's kind of expensive. So that's one thing I try to uh teach young sailors. Hey, make sure that you pay yourself before you go out there and buy all your clothes and jewelry and all that stuff like that. Pain yourself, man. Put stuff, put some money away, put some money in some property. Uh, because that's I I left a left, I left a lot of money on the table, man, by careless spending my money the wrong way. I mean, so that's the only thing I hate, man. If I can turn back the hands of time, I would definitely change how I live and how I spend my money back in the days.

Gary Wise 31:31

But you know what? To that note, right? I never I didn't get on my money game, bro, until I was damn near a first class. Right? I it was, you know, I I didn't get financially savvy until I bought my first house and then the bubble burst and I had to lose it all. And then I and I really had to learn, like, oh, I that's a real concept. I had to I had to eat that, right? Yeah, because there wasn't people telling us, like, go get that VA loan, buy that house, right? Do it again, right? Like now there's a lot of there wasn't no internet like that, right? There wasn't no YouTube channels you could watch. There wasn't if people weren't doing it already, that they weren't talking about it, at least not in my community. And I I will tell you that the average sailor didn't think they made enough money to do that, even though we now know that's a lie, right? You could do that, and the people that were doing it maybe wasn't telling everybody. And when I asked you about Duval, it was because, well, first to your point about you and all your friends from the South connecting, right? I will tell you, I've seen that throughout every Navy station I've ever gone to, bro. You could always tell the dudes from the South, man. And it don't really, it don't matter uh their height, their weight, their skin tone, their whatever. The dudes from the south always connect, bro. Then you're talking about SEC football. Oh yeah, yeah, right. Oh, yeah, it just don't matter. When I got to the Bellawood in '97, I of course I connected with a bunch of people, but um, the guys I rode with were from like Texas, Louisiana. I just got in with them guys, and they was giving me insights. That's why I got into Lil' Kiki and DJ Screw and Master P and all that. I'm in Japan, bro. I've never been around none of that, but we over Japan just bouncing, right? Man, okay.

Ty Jiles 33:24

Yeah, yeah, I know, man. That's crazy why I joined the name, man. Master P for Master P that just came out with his um was it, Mr. Ice Cream, man. I want to say man. We used to, man, that was uh yeah, that was that was good times, man.

Gary Wise 33:38

That was the original tear the club up album, bro. That was the original tear the club up song. That song we was tearing the club up in Singapore, we was tearing the club up in Bahrain, bro. Yeah, you know, and they because we would go to the DJs and we would ask the DJ to play a song, you know, we would give them CDs or whatever, because again, no internet, what no iPods. We would have CDs, we would go out liberty and literally be carrying CDs, CD cases, yeah, because we got to the hotel, right? We needed music in the hotel, right? Um, I remember I yeah, but I could see that I could see you being in Florida, making making friends with a bunch of people from your neck of the woods, and then but then trying to figure out and and the thing about places where the navy is that, whether it's San Diego, whether it's Virginia, whether it's Jacksonville, you've got our military community, and then you got the community who who's been living there, right? Right, that's their hometown. And a lot of us are passing through. Um, but there's a lot of people that call it home, right? And Duvall always had a little rowdy reputation, right? It was always known for being a little wild out there. And I'll never forget, uh, I was a recruiter. Uh like it was like 2000, 2000. I was a recruiter, and I went up to a club in Jacksonville with some buddies of mine. The club is called Jazzco or something like that. Jazzco, yep. Jazzco. So here I come, here I come from Japan, Seventh Fleet. I'm on recruiting duty now. Meet up with my partners in Jacksonville. We're gonna go out to the club. I swear to god, I walk up at the club and the music stopped. And this dude could roll it up. He's hey man, you in the navy, huh? I'm like, Yeah, and then they're like, Hey, you gotta stick with us. And I was just like, damn, that was one of the first places I ever felt like I was like in the south, for real. Yeah, like everyone was looking at me like I was crazy as hell for walking up, but that's what we did as sailors, right? We didn't look, we went everywhere.

Ty Jiles 35:40

That was the club, and that was the club that I used to use my homeboy ID to get in to Jazzco.

Gary Wise 35:48

It was a good club. It was a I had a damn good time, but I walk, but I walked out of there because and I tell this to people, I say, you know, Florida is like five different states in one state, right? Because they all you got different vibes all across the state, you know. Jacksonville, Duball County, it got its own energy. The Panhandle, Panama City, Pensacola got its own vibe, Tampa. Man, like I love Tampa to that's why I recruited. I recruited in Clearwater, Florida. So I could tell you all about Guavaween, Gasparilla, very inclusive, very diverse location, right? So then you got, you know, where I'm at now, North Central. I mean, Orlando got a energy. So Florida is just one of those states. And so, well, I could see people in Jacksonville or in Duval. I just wondered, you know, was that a community that you felt like you wanted to sink your teeth into and you wanted to invest in? Because you did you fall in love with it right away when you were there, or just you just through Florida no matter what was where you wanted to?

Ty Jiles 36:53

Florida no matter what was going to be my destiny.

Gary Wise 36:57

What was that about Florida? Was it just the idea of the state? Was it what was that about Florida?

Ty Jiles 37:02

No, so man, um, when I tell you my brother played for Tampa Buccaneers.

Gary Wise 37:06

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Ty Jiles 37:08

And uh me and deal like, man, that's pretty cool, man. And um, at the time, Lamar Thomas was a professional football player. Uh, and Horace Copeland, him and Lamar Thomas, they played for Miami Hurricanes. Well, they were the like the the superstar for the Miami Hurricane football team where they won the National Championship. I want to say 1993, 1992, it's one of those years. So we used to hang out with those guys all the time. When we were ball boys for the Tampe Buccaneers, okay. Uh, yeah. So we'll go to their door room, whatever, and Luther Campbell, Luke Skywalker, Luke Records, right? Two Live Crew.

Gary Wise 37:47

Yeah, yeah.

Ty Jiles 37:48

Um, we fell in love with them guys through that music, and we're like, Man, we're gonna be some Florida boys, man. Forget Louisiana, man, we're gonna move to Florida. Okay, Jacksonville. When I got to Jacksonville and um one of my homeboys' good friends, man, we met his family, and they took us in like family. So we're like, man, this we ain't going nowhere. And then, you know, three, four years later, I ended up meeting my wife, LaQuandra, because that's where she's from, Jacksonville, Florida.

Gary Wise 38:17

Right.

Ty Jiles 38:18

So, I mean, it all worked out, man. Me and Dion living our dream.

Deployments Port Visits And Money Regrets

Gary Wise 38:23

Well, and I'll tell you what, Florida, Florida is a hard place to get to, bro. Like, especially for surface sailors, at least at least it felt that way for me, right? Come on, I was a West Coast sailor most of my career, and everybody would always talk about the Mayport Mafia trying to get to Mayport because that was where the USSs were, right? That's where the ships were. I remember everyone was super excited when the amphibs came down, then they sent them back up north, and everyone was like, dang, we're never gonna get down there. Um, so okay, you're on the Doyle you're on a frigate. Do you guys deploy?

Ty Jiles 38:59

Oh, yeah, man. We deployed. Man, I deployed in 1996 on a Persian Gulf cruise. Um 97 we did CD ops, I think two counter drug ops. 98, I did a unitas. 99, uh, did another like two CD ops, and then 2000, we did uh a Persian Gulf cruise. So I deployed pretty good on uh the USS Doyle. Yep.

Gary Wise 39:23

How was the C state on that ship? Was it pretty rowdy out there?

Ty Jiles 39:27

So being a being a signal of the watch across the line, man, I was only the I was the last done. Like Master P, I was the last done because I was the only qualified signal of the watch that could that could handle standing on the bridge. Because all my even my LPO, SM1, SM2, they all in their burdens, all in their racks with their seatbelts on, with their boots underneath their mattress, trying to stay in the uh trying to just stay in their in their racks. I'm up on the bridge, man, holding on to a dead life, just going up and down, man. But it was horrible, man. But I I got used to it. I never got seasick. On the time I I was close to getting sick, I got a headache. But as far as like throwing up and all that stuff, I was used to it, man.

Gary Wise 40:18

Bro, congratulations to you because you friggets ain't no joke, bro. And the people don't understand that the ocean, especially I go down by South America and all that, it can get a little rough. Uh how was the port visits? Were you guys hitting good ports?

Ty Jiles 40:33

Man, look, I'm gonna tell you something. 1998, four and a half month deployment in unitals. We hit 18 port visits in four and a half months. Every other day, we'll attend port visits. Sometimes we'll hit a port visit in the morning and go into another port visit that same day in the evening time. We almost had a mutiny when our operation officer uh had us out to sea. We we'll blame it, we'll blame it on him, not the commanding officer, but the operation officer had us out to sea for seven days straight. We didn't like that, man.

Gary Wise 41:06

Yeah, we didn't like that. I know y'all was broke, broke.

Ty Jiles 41:10

Yeah, we were broke, man. And look, you know the paycheck back in the days weren't that much, man. You know what I mean? That's 1998. Yeah, um, but yeah, even on even on my Persian Gulf, the Gulf cruise, the Mayor Cruise is always good port business, man. Um it was yeah, the Seychelles, Malta, Turkey, Paris, um, Northern Lights, all those good ports, port business, Canada and all that stuff, man. And one thing I hated, um, Gary, was uh listen to old guys that never was stationed out of Mayport, Florida, saying, hey, whatever you do, don't never get stationed overseas. Don't go to Japan, don't have whatever. Man, I was like, man, and for the longest all I had in my back of my head, well, my guy that did 18 years, that's a 20 years as this such such rank said, don't go to overseas because that's y. I wish I would never listen to them, guys, man, early on in my career because I missed a lot of opportunity to get do this, uh, get set of orders to go overseas and all that stuff. Because I think Japan, when we're in Japan, that was like my best duty station location, man, at Yokusco.

Gary Wise 42:27

Yeah, well, the thing about Japan is my first ship was in Japan, so I kind of got that pill quick. And then I went back to the my second ship in Japan was the George Washington with you, but then I did two, I did three more tours in Japan after that, and that was just because my wife saw the the money, bro. She was like, Look, because I remember my first ship, I left my first ship, bro, four thousand dollars in my pocket, and that was all. Like, I landed in Tampa, Florida, off of the USS Bellow to be a Navy recruiter. I had four thousand dollars cash, spent it all up big lots, buying a box spring and a mattress, and I was broke, right? I had no money, but I I saved that four thousand dollars in like four months because I decided to stay in the Navy. And I remember thinking, what if I'd been saving like that that whole 36 months, I could have came back to the states with like 40 bands, right? I could have had a whole bunch of money, and so I knew, like you said earlier, I always kind of knew I left money on I left money on the on the table, right? So when Erica and I got the chance to go back to Japan later in life, I was like, look, we're gonna get over there, we're gonna live a simple life, and we are gonna stack. And that's what we did, man. And and that was a big part of our success when it came to retirement. And and that, and I think it's also like, you know, there's no traffic. You live on base, you can walk to and from the ship or whatever it is.

Ty Jiles 43:57

It was beautiful, man. Real beautiful.

Getting Out Then Returning After 9/11

Gary Wise 43:59

Simple. Life. So when you're on the ship and you meet your wife, are you for sure like I'm staying in the navy where there was no thought about getting out?

Ty Jiles 44:09

No, I got it. So it's crazy, man. Fun fact, I did get out the navy. Uh, but it wasn't that long. I got the navy, it wasn't that long though, man. Because I thought I'm serious, man. I got Navy, but it wasn't that long. It wasn't even shoot, like six months, probably. Oh well, I never talked about it.

Gary Wise 44:25

Out of the Navy, I never knew that.

Ty Jiles 44:27

Dude, I got Navy because I thought that four years, 11 months, and 28 days, and two color courses was gonna take me places. You know what I mean? I thought it was gonna take me places, man. Serious, man. Um I got out the Navy. I was I was an SM2, man, when I got the Navy, and I'm gonna tell you when I was saying when it was quick when I got came back in, because um I'm seeing come my homeboys on the ship. They was going recruiting, one of them got picked up an officer. And keep in mind, I was in reserves though, right? I I joined reserves, but I'm like, man, for real, man. Um command saying she told you that. That's okay, he told me that he didn't tell me that, man. You know what I mean? So um I'm gonna tell you something, bro. The day where I was coming back in the Navy, man, I'm on NES Jacks. I'm in the uh the lobby. And I'm looking at the TV and I seen this damn plane at the Pentagon, right? And then a couple hours, uh a couple uh minutes later, I see that well, a couple hours later, the plane hitting the twin towers. And I'm like, hey man, what's going on here? They said, man, we the we we're under attack. At this time, I'm at the recruiter station, reserve center, trying to get my DD 214 and all that stuff. Because I was gonna join the Navy that day. I was joining the Navy that day, getting back in the Navy, man. I saw that right there, and I did what any 22-year-old would do at that time. I got up out of that recruiting station. I went home, man. I said, I ain't finna join the Navy. I ain't finna get back in that man. But a month after that, I and up, but um, in all seriousness, uh seriousness, man. Um that following month I came back to the Navy. I did what's right. I knew me and Corner talked it over. We prayed about it, and uh she supported me. I got back to the Navy, and that's when I got signed to the USS The Sullivan's in Mayport, Florida. And um, I said, I'm gonna do this thing the right way this time. I'm gonna surround myself with a mentor. I mean, surround myself with positive people, find me a mentor, someone that's gonna give me some good guidance about the United States Navy. And that's what I did. And my dude, when I did that, man, the sky was the limit for me, bro. Yeah, because I came back in the Navy with something approved. Yeah, the following year we went on the well, we went on deployment as soon as I got there because what was going on. That following year I made SM1. I got uh got picked up for seller year. I had you remember uh Almond Brown? Um, what's his name? David David Brown? Yeah, he was coming to his surf pat. He was out of the uh three-star Admiral uh Surface Pacific. I think that's where he retired out of. But also he was uh deputy C CMP at uh Militant when I was an NC Master Chief. But he was my CEO on the US of the Sullivan's man. I was SM1 and he uh proved my package to convert to NC. He said, Hey, look, you can I can approve this package for NC under one condition, you're gonna come back to this ship as my Navy counselor. So I left the ship as an SM1 seller year, came back as an NC one. Um and that dude right there, man, um we kept in touch. When I made chief, he picked up 06. When I made sing chief, he picked up as a one star. Every time I made rank, he would make rank. And we kept in touch. And when um I know I'm probably jumping the gun, but when I rewrote uh helped rewrite the career counsel handbook, his name was he signed our career counsel handbook when he was the deputy CMP and Militant. He said, I would never thought that I'd be in a position. Here I am influencing policy and writing policy, and I had my best seller on the US at the Sullivans as my first class. And I look at you as a NC mastery. So it was crazy how we followed each other when we left the Sullivan's, man. But yeah, U.S. at the Sullivan's man, where well, I think that's when my career really plateaued and took off because I was on a mission and I had a purpose, and that purpose was not gonna be uh distracted by anybody that was in my way. If you were in my way, you didn't see the same thing that I was seeing, you didn't have the same vision that I had. Um, if you didn't believe in me, I wasn't gonna let that happen or let that deter me for achieving my goal. Um, so yeah, the self is man is where I really uh took off in my career, man.

Converting To Career Counselor For Sailors

Gary Wise 49:24

Ty man, what a freaking, what a wow, bro. Talk about dodging, like you about made a big mistake. Yeah, man. You know, talk about, and I'll tell you, I was a navy recruiter during that 9-11 time period. I was I recruited, like I said, 2000, 2003, and it was hard to get people back in the Navy that had got out of the Navy, but maybe 9-11 made it a little easier for you to come back in and to get back going ongoing, and you were blessed to get a ship out of Mayport and to be able to get that opportunity. God is good, bro. Like it sounds like you know, Tom McPlus preparation equals destiny, and and you know, it sounds like you know, you would line it up with the blessings, and that's now when you came back as a now. Why did you convert to NC? Was the SM rate going away and you did not want to become a quartermaster?

Ty Jiles 50:17

So the SM rate was going away. I came back in to be a Sigleman master chief, and the Navy took that away from me. I didn't want to be a quartermaster because you know, as a top snyder, the sigman and quartermasters didn't get along, man. And I didn't want to be a quartermaster uh because that reason I could have gone master arms, you know, post-9-11. The Navy was recruiting master arms. I think it was like 100% advanced to chief. But I looked at it at the time, I was looking at having a career than just to have a job, and I wasn't looking at trying to make chief, man, like that. I want to make chief to do something that I was happy doing. So I was already the command career counselor on the U.S. at the Sullivan's. We had an NC, but lo and behold, she it's only two types of Navy career councils, Gary. Hey, look, can I cuss, man? Can I cuss on the podcast, man?

Gary Wise 51:20

You can cut go ahead, bro.

Ty Jiles 51:22

Two types, man. Either you shit hot or you not. There's no in-between. Yeah, and unfortunately, man, she ain't cut the muscle. So they sent her to the uh Dezron Squadron, and I became the command career counselor, and that's why Admiral Brown was like, Hey, look, you're on such a fantastic job. Hey, you're gonna come back here and be the Navy career counselor. So I chose Navy Career Counselor, man, because I was happy doing what I was doing. And keep in mind, now you know, a couple years ago, before I converted, I was out the Navy. So all those career, all those teaching moments, all those things that I didn't get when I was a sailor that got out, I was making sure that sailors that was behind me made sure they got the tools that they needed to be successful. Yeah, you know, they were making the right decisions, yeah, and caring for folks, man. One of my favorite quotes in the Navy, man uh, people don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. And that's John C. Maxwell. And I wanted to be that for them sailors, man. That's why I converted to Navy counselor.

Gary Wise 52:26

You know what's so funny about that is so it's the same for DC Chiefs, right? You either shit hot or you're not. There's no between, right?

Ty Jiles 52:34

End up as at the squadron.

Gary Wise 52:36

Well, and because if you're not in a lot of those rates that don't have a lot of departmental support, you you gotta stand on your own two feet, right? And a lot of DC men they don't really get the engineering support like some of the other rates, and it's a command-level program, like what NC is, right? It's a command level program, you can't afford for it to not do good, and you got to be able to communicate the problems early and effectively and work with everybody and all the other stuff, right? Well, when I got back from recruiting duty, my intention was to become an NC, right? Because when I was a Navy recruiter, they tried to get me to become an NC, become a recruiter, and I was like, Hell no, I don't like y'all. Y'all, all y'all, we we are not the same. I'm gonna go back to ship, but I didn't want to stay an engineer, so I got back to the ship and I was gonna apply it to go NC because I loved working with people and communicating with people about opportunities that was in the Navy, and I got all that when I was a recruiter, but then of course I got connected to guys that was like go LDO and away I went, right? Right, yeah, but I always had a respect for the NCs, at least for the ones that were the shit hot ones, right? And then as a CMC, I got my other experiences, you know, but it's different conversation, yeah, different conversation. Okay, so now you you're an NC1, you're coming off of the Sullivans, it's after 9-11 now. So did you deploy on the Sullivans in support of anything over Iraq?

Ty Jiles 54:05

Absolutely, man. Absolutely, absolutely. So we did uh the 9-11 uh the deployment, right? It was a 96 to 97. I don't know, 2001 to 2002 deployment. Okay, so we was over there in the Gulf, man, uh putting warheads on foreheads, man. I went in the Gulf, and then I did a 2003 uh deployment, no, it was 2004, and then I transferred from the US of the Sullivan's. But I was the SM1, man. I was on the Snoopy team, I was damaged control, and uh in a repair lock, I was in a repair lock of five, and I was also on the seamanship training team. And I never did want to get on deck it on the Sullivan. They said, Why you don't want to go on Deckett? Because I said, Hell, I don't know what the hell I'm doing a damage control to be a be part of that dam control training team. I want to make sure that I knew what I was doing, so that's why I got my hands dirty as a first class um to be part of the Pike Patcher team, the hose team, uh things like that, because I want to learn, and I can't I carry this uh the same mentality when I got to the George Washington. I don't want to go too fast in my career, but I was content being a repair locker chief on the USS George Washington for three and a half years. I was content because I loved it. Yeah, because I was training repair locker one brother with the best repair locker on board the USS George Washington.

Making Chief And Learning The Mess

Gary Wise 55:32

That was your baby, bro. That was your baby. But no, man. So after the Sullivan's, where do you end up going after the Sullivan?

Ty Jiles 55:41

I ended up going training support Santa Hampton Roads in Damneck, Virginia. Uh uh, the name would be fisty land. And I think it was so I was a damn neck. Okay. So so it was 50 land. Used to be, and it was transitioned to that because of revolution in training, they were training all those training centers out, and they changed the TSC Hampton Roads. So that consisted of Damn Neck, Oceana, Norfolk, Northwest Annex. And I'm missing something else, Little Creek. So I was a command career counselor, man, for all these sites. And I had a my I had a counterpart. We had a career counselor's office in Norfolk. So I would take care of Damneck, Oceana, Northwest, and my counterpart would take care of Norfolk and Little Creek. It was three billion, no, four billion NCCs. No, four billet NCs. I was NC1, and we had two NCCs and another NCC. But uh it was great, man, because um I got to see different people, and I ended up making uh sell the year again on it at TSC Hampton Roads the following year, and I got uh advanced at Chief Petty House in 2007.

Gary Wise 56:56

So you picked up Chief there in Norfolk in Virginia Beach at TSC Hampton Roads. Yep. Okay, so how was that initiation? Were you a part of like an installation to group, or was it just TSC Hampton Roads had their own selectees?

Ty Jiles 57:11

Yeah, then that we had our own selectees, so all the schoolhouses. So from IS's to the FCs to the Ghana's to the OSs to all those little learning sites, man, had we all had a combined CPO uh initiation season, yeah, because it was initiation seal, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it was pretty cool, man.

Gary Wise 57:33

It wasn't when you look back on your initiation, the one you went through, because I'll tell you, the one I went through versus the ones I did for other people, I think I gave a lot better than I got, right? Like I made sure my initiations met the objective, right? And I think that when I got initiated, I think they were all kind of trying to figure out what the new what this normal looked like, what this new the year I got initiated, I think it was 06, and I think it was like transition or or something.

Ty Jiles 58:02

It was transition, it was still transition for us.

Gary Wise 58:04

Yeah, like the the the uh this I remember my CMC, he was he he he had his qualms, right? He would tell us he had his issues, his concerns, but I had a good initiation season, but then I went to my next one as a chief at ATG and I saw so many things I never saw on my own initiation, right? So when you look back on your initiation, was it was it good for you? Do you did you get what you needed to get out of it?

Ty Jiles 58:32

I got what I got out of it, and I'll tell you, um going with going in with 30 plus CPO selectees at that time, and you got all these chiefs, singing chiefs and mass chiefs. Um whatever we did, right, man, was it's like we could never mess together, right? Um, for whatever reason it was. But we made it work, and I got what I got, and I got so much out of it. And that following year, I transferred to the USS Joe Washington, Japan. I was like, damn, this is what St. Chief Rachel was trying to tell us. This is what this person trying to do. You know what I mean? So I was like, man, I feel like an idiot now, you know what I mean? But you know, and so it it really came back full circle. Well, okay, this is what it is, this was this is what it was trying to tell us, and wasn't registering with me at the time. I had an aha moment. And I was like, man, okay, it was a good season, and I took some nuggets from that. Um, and I learned a lot. And to this day, even to after uh made Chief in 2007, I was still referring to my charges every uh month, especially during the CPO initially season, just recharge my recharge my battery, get back in that CPO prize season. I was looking at my charger from some people. You have some people that say some meaningful things in there, and then you have some other people just wanting to take that that chance or take that opportunity to say stuff they didn't want to tell you in your face, but they're putting in your charge book. I was like, man, really, really do. You know what I mean? So, but yeah.

Gary Wise 1:00:18

Oh yeah, yeah, I got mine, mine's right there. Right, I got my charge book right up there on the wall. And whenever I would whenever I read through it, yeah, I get those some of those same pillars, right? And I remember just when I was going through it, there was just like a lot of validation, there was a lot of communication conversations, and there was a lot of learning how to trust people that maybe I never that I didn't know, right? Because I made chief on a ship or I went from being a second-class petty officer to a chief. These guys raised me, right? So I was it was a little weird going into the mess and like, hey Bob, what's up? You know, can you talk? But but just like so. I went to eight, I went to I made chief on Ogden, and then I went to a float training group, San Diego as a chief, had a very successful tour there, but ashore chiefs' messes is not the same as a float, right? Offshore, everybody can go home, right? Everyone can just go their own way, but when you're on the ship, so much stuff that connects you, bro. 3M, right? GQ, zone inspection, cleaning station.

Ty Jiles 1:01:32

Yeah, you're right.

Gary Wise 1:01:34

So much lunch, breakfast, dinner, like hanging out on the porch and talking, talking smack, right? Like those things will connect you, and that was that's where you'll see it all come together, really. Is that afloat chief specs? So when you got to when so when you got orders to GW, it was still in Norfolk, right?

Ty Jiles 1:01:55

So look, I got orders still in Norfolk. I'm gonna tell you something. You remember I'm telling you that I this this the four circuit moment at the time, I'm a young chief now. I'm trying to get to an uh aircraft carrier, and I I didn't care whether that carrier was stationed at. I wanted the hardest assignment. So I called my detailer. I said, look, I heard it, I want to go to USS Joel Washington. I heard they're going to Yakuza, Japan. He was not trying to hear me out. So I made my um I contacted Fleet Force Command, um the Navy Career Counselor Mashi, for um, she was at my retirement ceremony. I said, Look, I'm trying to take me a hard job. What you got? She said, I got the USS George Washington to go on to Yakusa, Japan. Uh, are you good with that? I well, I've been trying to tell the detail of who I want to go to, but he's not hearing me out. Not even 10 minutes. She called me back to say you got some orders. I transferred July 2008. At the time, you George Washington was going across um across the uh there was at the uh just had a fire, man. They just had a fire. Right.

Gary Wise 1:03:12

We got there after the fire.

Ty Jiles 1:03:13

Yeah, so he just had the fire, man. And then my CMC said, You heard where you heard about your ship you're going to, huh? I said, Yeah, I saw on Navy Times. He said, You sure you ready for that? I said, Yeah, I ain't got no choice. I got hardcore orders now. I'll be ready. So I checked on board in July, man. The day I checked on board, uh met the CMC. Well, here's his name. I I saw the when the ship was in Norfolk, I talked to the CMC. And he wasn't he wasn't making a trip over there to Japan. He said, Why do you want to come to Joy Washington? You know, they're going to jacuz, Japan. So already we already hit it all wrong. I was like, man, I'm glad this guy transferring because this dude right here, negative Nancy, trying to downplay me why I want to get there, right? So when I get to Joel Washington, the new CMC, everything, uh checked in with him. Um an hour later, Mustard All Hands on the flag deck for all hands star. The commanding officer just got relieved. The uh three-star armor for surf uh surf pack came on board. Was surf well, man. I've been out the navy for a while, man. What do you call those three stars? The the it's it, the tight comms.

Gary Wise 1:04:25

Air pack, yeah.

Ty Jiles 1:04:26

It's air pack, air pack, air packet came out there.

Gary Wise 1:04:29

Well, they were on the ego at this point.

Ty Jiles 1:04:31

It was the thing they go at that time, yeah. So I'm like, man, I'm a brand new chief. Like, man, what the now I'm like, I got myself into man, you know what I mean? So everybody, and with a couple chiefs went down. Uh the chain, thing got a paper, the DCA, the DCCS, all them guys, man, got some paper, whatever, and all that stuff, man.

Gary Wise 1:04:53

And uh my um AOK, bro.

Ty Jiles 1:04:58

Yeah, my AO said, Hey, look, I need a I need a locker chief for repair locker one bravo. You ready to be it? So my me and my ship set looking at he said, I thought you'd be good. You want to do it? I said, Yeah, I'll do it. Man, we used to run drills all the time, man. When we got when we left San Diego going to Guam, we're on drills all the time. I remember I was the guy drilling. Look, yeah, this is my first time on a carry, and never when this is when I met you. Yeah, I didn't know that, I didn't know the heck I was doing, man, but I was I was in learning mode. But I had so many Chiefs, man, uh, that was stationed on carry the four. This is a different breed of Seven Fleet Chiefs, man, than any other Chiefs mess. And those guys, man, took care of a young NCC Giles to show me ropes on what rights looks like. And I got my hands dirty on being a repair locker chief for repair locker.

Gary Wise 1:05:57

It was a tough time, right? Because it was a tough. It was a tough, very tough time because I remember when I first got to GW after the fire, they called me over because I'm this carrier damage control guy. They're going to be in the inspection team. And I'll never forget there was a mass chief I was there with from Norfolk, and he's the one that told everyone, like, Y'all are too busy worried about who you're gonna fire. What we need to figure out is what the heck happened and how we can prevent this from happening on other ships. Because what happened on the George Washington was so just unbelievable, right? Like you still can't make it up. Like what happened on that ship, how the fire started, where it burned. There ain't no fighting that. There's not no right way to do it, no wrong way to do it. And of course, everybody in the Navy, they also are armchair quarterback in it, right? Same what they would have done. So when I got to GW as a the ATG trainer, there was a lot of abrasive people pushing back, like because we we weren't there and they had fought a major fire, right? And I give them credit for that. That's it. Everything aft of like hangar bay two was like damn near up and it was hot, right? They went through it. Yep, but then we had to get them trained and certified, and what you had was you had a conglomerate coming together of kitty hog sailors with GW sailors, and that was uh a complicated mixture, if you know, to say the least, because you got dudes from Virginia who just was gonna do a year in Japan and go back to VA. Yeah, and you had a bunch of dudes from Japan with that Seven Fleet Pride, but they're pissed off because they love the kitty hawk and now they gotta go to George Washington, and they're mad that you know, whatever. And uh it was, I remember that was a turbulent time and chip changeovers, home board ships are always like that, right? You're always gonna have the crew that takes them over and the crew that gets them up, and they got to go through that change. But that was our generation. Like when I got to the GW, I got there in January of 2010. So I was about a year and a half behind you. And when I got there, you know how bad it still was? They had the DC men. One shop was all kitty hawk sailors, another shop was all GW sailors from Virginia. That's how bad it still was. And I was like, Well, we're fixing that right now. Like, I'm messing that all up because we're all GW sailors, and I don't give a damn about that, and we're gonna make that change. So when you first got there, uh coming there and you said you got there in 09 or 08? What did you say?

Ty Jiles 1:08:34

Oh eight, July. The shit was in San Diego, yeah.

Gary Wise 1:08:37

So you you guys finally get out of San Diego, you guys finally get trained up because that's that that delays you guys in San Diego, right? Getting getting fixed, everything getting restored. How was it once you guys finally got to Japan for that first for that first year? How was that?

Earthquake Tomodachi And Family Evacuation

Ty Jiles 1:08:54

Hey man, it was good, man. Uh, like you said, we still had a lot of those Norfolk sailors on there, man. So, you know, it was it was crazy because you're trying to get those guys' orders, they're trying to get back to the states, and then you got uh post coming from the kitty halt there, man. So everyone's just trying to unify as one team. You know, uh so it was it was it was it was weird to to to see that transition. Um but like I said, man, phenomenal CMC. We had a good captain um and a good ex though. Um so I think that really made things uh uh better for the crew, um, especially port visits and stuff, man. And that was good. And being there, my first time being overseas, my wife and um Tyrrell at the time, so it was pretty cool, man. Um but I definitely first, right? I had and I had and I had Jeff Clark, man. And but then I had all the other DLCPOs and these chiefs, man, was phenomenal. I learned so much from each of those guys. And I took a I took a I took nuggets from each interaction I had with the DLCPO with Chiefs, and I just put all that stuff together and uh and I figured out what I want to be, what kind of chief I wanted to be. Uh building those relationships, walking the deck plates, uh and just making uh impact wherever I could, where I was uh leadership training, uh with the junior sailor, because you know we had the leadership training, so I was doing those, I was part of that. Being a command career counselor, I had uh Brent Emerson, and then I had OG Feaster. And um, but yeah, man, it was just it was it was good to be there. I and as a young chief, man, that the GW they raised me to be a great chief, man. I I owe it all to the GW uh for showing me how to navigate to adversity where we as parents operation Tomadachi. Um that was a scary moment, man, because we didn't know that we would come back to Japan. Um, at the time, you know, taking our families to the airport, you and I with Erica and Lawrence and our two boys. Yeah, that was like the last, that was like the last ship. Really, right? It was.

Gary Wise 1:11:24

We thought we were never coming back to Japan again. Yeah, we thought we were. Learning how to be strong. Yeah.

Ty Jiles 1:11:32

Learning how to be strong as a chief. Uh, because you got joining sales looking up to you. I couldn't fold in front of them. Um, we couldn't fold that. We need to be there for them, even that means that we're doing three GQs a day. Um these picnics, all those things like that, man. Trying to keep them motivated and not do the the the the crazy stuff, like getting in trouble and all that stuff, man. Japan was hard, man, for you for young sailors, man.

Gary Wise 1:12:03

Japan was hard. Well, and and look, there was the GW experience I think you had going over there, but when I got there in 2010, it was hard because the CO was a hard man, like he was just kind of mean at that point, right? I remember we did an inspection one time and we had done very good. And he was like, damn, it's controls of cancer on the ship. And I was like, Yo, we did good. What the hell? And what I learned, and then I learned this from Marty, I learned this from just other people, was this that's how he was, and I learned how it is to be a CMC when you got a CO like that guy. Um, because he was tough. Like, let's be honest. We were very, very unified as a mess and trying to stay and trying to stay out of trouble. We would look out for each other, right? We you could when the block was hot, we would pass along the word, like, hey, they out and about, be be ready. Because I remember they they'd be in your spaces calling you out over the duty. Oh my god. Wise, I'm a forward pumper. Wise, your forward pumpers. Everybody getting it again, man. You know, it was that was hard. And then when you got Sean Bromstead and Captain Fenton, which was maybe after your time, it was after my time, yeah. It was completely different, right? And so I looked at my time on board the GW as really before Tomodachi and after Tomodachi. Because after Tomodachi, uh a lot of that stuff kind of people started rotating, people started leaving. And with Tomodachi, uh, do you remember? Do you remember the day the earthquake happened? Yeah, we were in the hangar bay for all hands.

Ty Jiles 1:13:46

We were in the hangar bay. So I was um so I'm gonna tell you something, man. I was in the career council's office. You guys in the hangar bay. Yeah, and I thought people was running on the in the hangar bay. I thought people was running because I'm in the office with me and our rogue, Romere Ellis. And we're like, man, what the what are they doing up there? And y'all came down. OG said, Y'all ain't hear that, y'all ain't feel that. I said, Y'all just walking, right? He said, No, that was an earthquake. I said, What we turn on the TV and we see water just overcoming the streets of Tokyo, people running into their cars and and just dying right in front of us on the news channel. That was devastating.

Gary Wise 1:14:33

Where was was your wife on the base? Did she have to evacuate base housing that day?

Ty Jiles 1:14:38

No, she didn't. She didn't. She didn't do it. She was actually working at she was actually working at the CDC at the time.

Gary Wise 1:14:44

Oh, okay. Okay, yeah. I remember watching the news, same as you. We were doing H blef checks that day. I worked till like 10 o'clock that night doing H B F checks on the ship. I didn't get home to my house till late, like it was damn near 10:30 at night when I got home, and my house was jacked up, bro. Because we lived on the seventh floor of a tower, and stuff was just knocked all over the place. Erica was crazy scared. And then I don't know if you remember all the aftershocks that happened for the rest of that weekend, right? Remember, it just was shaking. It was like those aftershocks were damn near earthquakes on their own.

Ty Jiles 1:15:21

They were earthquakes on their own.

Gary Wise 1:15:22

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Ty Jiles 1:15:24

And then you're right, you came in the work. Oh man, that was scary, man.

Gary Wise 1:15:28

Scary, bro. Man, and remember that was when Facebook really started happening, and like the spouses was talking on the groups, and we were watching northern Japan, seeing all that was going. And I never forget because we had GQ on Monday morning. Remember that? We had ATG coming on board Monday morning for a GQ. And uh so I had gone into work the following. So we had an earthquake on Friday. I worked till 10 o'clock that night, back on the ship Saturday morning, doing SCBA checks, getting ready for ATG on Monday, right? ATG on Monday, and it was during that Monday morning that the radiation alarms went off on the ship. Uh-huh. And that we knew we had a problem. And we knew we had a it was snow and ash. Remember that? It was snow.

Ty Jiles 1:16:17

Yep. Man, just and then after that, man. I think we start getting uh orders in, man, from Sato, man. We start getting a tiger team over there, and they start pumping out the the orders for families to evacuate and all that stuff. And then we that's when we start making we got our we got our families out of there even before that happened.

Gary Wise 1:16:37

Like, yeah, I don't know. Yeah, we sure did. I pulled the trick. We didn't, we didn't wait.

Ty Jiles 1:16:42

I was we didn't we didn't wait, man.

Gary Wise 1:16:44

No, I told Erica, I was like, you might as well just go ahead and pack your stuff up and leave because I don't know what's happening next. And remember, we had just got back from like six months underway, straight. We had just got home, you know. We had Erica would remember she was frustrated because she was like, You said you're only gonna be gone like three, four months. Y'all been gone six months because remember that they've gonna cancel Thanksgiving that year because Thanksgiving.

Ty Jiles 1:17:07

Yep, yep, so it was gone, man. We didn't come back to after Christmas or right before Christmas.

Gary Wise 1:17:13

After Christmas, right before Christmas, but we missed Thanksgiving. Right before Christmas. We missed Things six months in the area in the AOR, so you could have caught into Yoko, right? But not everybody was going home. But I remember it was so Monday we have the alarms go off. Tuesday we have the meetings as to how fast y'all could get underway if you had to get underway, and we're like 18 days max. Wednesday, it's like you're getting underway on Sunday. Remember that was I walked out of the I walked out of the hang out of the wardroom and I called Erica's like book a flight, you're out of here, you know. And and that was when you would I found out you had your wife on the flight that same day, and I remember the traffic to get up there to the airport, bro?

Ty Jiles 1:18:00

Like it was taking crazy. I think it thinks it took us though, uh normally uh a trip to to the airport, no, like under two hours. I think it took us like close to three hours to get there, but it did we down and back. We were we was man, we was we was doing good speed up there too.

Gary Wise 1:18:20

Well, and you know it's crazy, Ty. So after you and I went up there, dropped off our wives and our sons that left, I came back to Yoko, picked up my DCA's wife and son. I drove them back to the airport, I dropped them off. I come back to Yoko. I'm literally pulling into Yoko. My sailor calls me, my DC3 says, Senior chief, my sister's here, she's on vacation, she's got a flight out, but there's no trains. So I go pick up this girl who I never met before, throw her in the back of my car. I drive this young girl all the way to the airport, drop her off. I come back, I go to my house, I pack all my wedding photos and everything in sea bags. Yep, yep. I go to the quarter deck. Hey, and Marty's on the quarter deck at like midnight, and he's like, Where the hell have you been all day, Skittle? Yeah, I was like, I've been driving the freaking young to freaking airport, bro. Like, what are you doing on the but but at that? I remember I had told all my sailors, like, look, y'all got a day to get your affairs in order because come Friday, I'm coming on the ship and we're not leaving again until we get underway. Like, that's just it. Like, we're going to sea, we're gonna figure this out, and you gotta just and that was when people started getting the evacuation orders, and that was hard because now they're trying to work through Sato, work through the government, and thank God we already got our families out, like we was already clear, clear headed. Like, but that's the way we do things, bro. We take control, we don't just wait for the we got reimbursed later, thank god. But at the end of the day, it really wouldn't have mattered. We was we was getting out of it.

DCAT Training Standards And Pride

Ty Jiles 1:19:57

It wouldn't matter, we're getting them out of there, man. Ain't no way, ain't it's no, there was no way that we're going out to see and keeping it behind. We're gonna take care of that first. I'm glad I'm glad we were proactive on getting them out. RJ Cousin.

Gary Wise 1:20:10

Yeah, we got ahead of the we got ahead of the power curve for real. Um the other thing you helped me out with on the George Washington is you were part of the damage control assessment and training team the DCAT, right? Remember when I made that up. Uh to this day, people ask me, they they still want to know how we did it. And I did it on the Ashland too, a CMC. I did it there, and I just thought I said it's what every ship should be able to do. Every ship should be able to train and assess. We just made our own team.

Ty Jiles 1:20:43

You know what's crazy, man. You know, as a massive gone to uh the USS George J.W. Bush. You know, I try to give some nuggets to our young DC men. I forgot who the DCCS that I had at the time. Like it's not registered, it's not done on me because I think they were like, I was kind of disappointed. I was trying to give some ideas to empower or help out his damn control training team.

Gary Wise 1:21:10

Yeah.

Ty Jiles 1:21:11

Hey, look, I ain't the smartest, but I sure ain't the dumbest person in the world. I'm just letting you know some things that we did on board at USA Joe Washington, which I think will help you if you find some strong damn control training team members and make them DCAT damn control assessment training team. This is gonna help out all layers of your damn control uh affecting this on the ship. But anyway, listen, but that would never be another damn control team from 2010 to 2013 when you was on a uh yeah, whole time, whole time.

Gary Wise 1:21:49

Never it would never be it would never be uh nothing like that again.

Ty Jiles 1:21:55

Uh, because for once everybody was on a damn control assessment training team, was validated and educated and knew what the hell was doing. And I always told my going forward, and that JWGW and meeting you helped me out because when I became a CMC and even DLCPO, my sailors are anybody that came to me that want to be a part of Decad, I always tell them no. Until you know what you're doing in each area of your pair locker, then you can go and jam the control training team. Because you know a lot of people wear the red hats because they it's cool and it's an e-boy bullet and they're trying to make rank. I don't need that. I need when stuff hit the fan, I need you to know what you're doing so you can train those sailors, your peers, and your subordinates on the importance of damn control because you're a sailor, but you're also a firefighter as well. You know what I mean? And Chiefs need to know Chief was the worst because they'll check on board and try to get their red hat. Not on my watch.

Gary Wise 1:23:09

Yeah, you well, you remember what I told y'all. I told y'all I said you're training your team because it was my expectation. If we go to real gq and you're one bravo D set, you're at repair one bravo, and you're in that you're a part, you're on the job, like you going to do the work. If you DCAT, you go into there because you got some young lockoffs, or you got some young chief. No, no, no. It's time for the A team, bro. Like, nothing against you, dog, but see, there's levels to this, and if it's an actual casualty, we all gotta go put in, you know, and and that's just and I and I would tell you that was so much fun seeing that whole thing come together. We had some fun debriefs, we had some fun briefs, right? Yeah, kicking atg around the room because they came on board GW, they knew we was they already knew it, man.

Ty Jiles 1:23:54

It was not they already knew it, man. Yeah, that's one thing I already go ahead. Go ahead.

Gary Wise 1:24:01

No, go ahead. I'm listening to you.

Ty Jiles 1:24:03

I said that's one thing that I really learned, man, from chiefs like yourself, man. The importance of fire fighting. You gave me that passion, man. So here's the thing good leaders uh attract great leaders. And what you did for my young career again, I think I was what 2010, 15, 16 years in the Navy, that gave me extra motivation and purpose on what it means to be a chief. Purpose of what it means to impact our sailors' lives, to work with a team of teams. Because what we was doing across the GW. If we wasn't uh firefighting, we was doing career counseling. If we weren't doing career counseling, we was doing leadership training. We weren't doing leadership training, we were doing X, Y, and Z. And it was enough food for everybody. We had that mentality on the GW. We did first we had that conversation.

Hawaii Tour And Chiefs On Waterfront

Gary Wise 1:25:01

It was our mentality, that my that monster was 100%. And we were going through the suck, right? We were doing host handling training in the winter, and like we were we would just look at each other and be like, all right, man, let's go, might as well get it done. Because we are lead with two GQs a week, no matter what. You're not gonna find me another aircraft carrier, bro, that they held to that standard, like what we got held to. It was I had we we had to do two GQs a week, and we had to do one flying squad drill a day, every day, except for Sunday. And it was our our our leadership was hard on us, but it made us better and better and better because we got a lot of repetitions, a lot of sets, and we had a lot of underweight time. Right. We were operational for sure for real. Uh, as you as you got to the end of your time on the George Washington, did you did you want to go to Hawaii? Because that's where you go next, is Hawaii, right?

Ty Jiles 1:26:00

I did want to go to Hawaii, man, uh, because I wasn't ready to go back to the States yet. And we were making a lot of money in Japan, right? So me and I was like, hey, look, let's let's let's go to when even when I told her about Hawaii, now keep in mind that she didn't want to go to Japan to begin with. Um but she liked it. She said, you know what? When I told her about Hawaii, she was all on it. So I went to Hawaii, man. That was a good good tour, man, because at the time I was a senior chief. Um just got to run the CPO initiator season with my boy Al and Met Mater. And uh I was I was ready to go to Hawaii, man, to be the regional career counselor. I was a regional career counselor on uh in Hawaii, man. And I'll tell you, I thought Yocouska Chief's mess was off the chain. Hawaii is good too.

Gary Wise 1:26:50

Yeah, Hawaii is legendary, bro. Hawaii is legendary, bro. Yeah, because they got their own culture, yeah.

Ty Jiles 1:26:59

So so I get to Hawaii, man, as a young NCCS man, and JJ Gonzalez. You remember JJ Gonzalez? Stay right down street from me, man. Stay stayed right down the street from me, man. Uh, and I knew him as an NCCS in Japan. But every Friday he would bring me all this fresh fish, and I I didn't do nothing with it. I'll put it in the freezer and then I would throw it away because it was fresh. I didn't feel like cutting it, but I would I'll tell him that one day. Uh, but anyway, then I and then when I met J J Bell, J Bell stayed like a block down from me. Um, but it was cool. Hawaii, I had marked the ball of my CMC. We developed this CPO initiative called the Chiefs on the waterfront. And what it was every Friday, Chiefs show up in force. Um, we showed president, the Navy's change. We we had CSAT, we we uh empowered CSAD to do stuff around the base, and we was right there. Chiefs Chiefs was doing the same thing, show up on our khakis, just having a positive um impact on the island of Oahu, just making a difference and impact, whatever we could. And though Hawaii Chief was all about that, man. I built a lot of good relationships. And I'm running another CPO initiation season. Um, that was that was a beast, man. You're talking about tenant commands and the ships, being a C CPO initiation coordinator, yeah, all those CMCs, all those belly buttons, man. So that was good. Um, that was good for me. And then I um short toured at the region Hawaii, and I went to to the uh the fleet career counselor at US Pacific Fleet.

Gary Wise 1:28:46

How was that? How was that? I mean, because being a region is one thing, right? So getting into the pack fleet world, into that space, did what did you think when you saw the Navy through that lens?

Ty Jiles 1:28:59

It was good. So I was NCCM then, right? I made NC Master Chief in 2013. Yes, sir. So this one thing that I would say was a blessing and a curse for me. Uh because I made a lot of opportunities, well, I had a lot of opportunities to make a difference with policy for the sailors, changing programs, changing stuff like that, would allow me to travel with Fleet Mass Chief Ramirez and Fleet Mass Chief Suze Whitman and the Admiral occasionally. But I tell you, Gary, uh I never had no aspiration going command master chief.

Gary Wise 1:29:42

I remember I used to be on you. I used to be on you.

Ty Jiles 1:29:46

Yep, because at the time, the reason why I didn't want to go there, because when we I traveled with the uh fleet master chiefs, I had a we had a lot of command senior chiefs at the time. That's when command master chief, when you was a command senior chief, you go if you was a rated source-rated, and you go command senior chief, you were going for two reasons, because you want to be in a command program or you was trying to make E9. Right. 85% of those guys that was going in and they were trying to make E9, they wasn't in about for the sailors. All the calls, all the the meetings with the the um the fleet mass chief was hey, what about I want to get this job, I want to get this job. But it was like three months into their current jobs, and they never said anything about sailors, never say anything about nothing but themselves. And that and I wasn't built like that coming from the GW on how we look out for one another, how we took care of sailors. Them guys were all in for themselves, man. And I was like, man, I don't want to, I don't want to go into a uh program like that where um I'm trying to do the right thing about sailors, but I got other guys that's they're just uh what you call that job hopping, or looking for that that opportunity to be a force or fleet or whatever the case may be. I ain't want to be that man, you know what I mean? Um I do, I definitely do 100%. Oh, I was content being an NC Mastery, and uh, but that made me look at the Navy different, um in a different lenses because I was involved with a lot of decision-making stuff.

Gary Wise 1:31:35

Well, at the highest levels, bro, highest levels you made they took our race away.

Ty Jiles 1:31:40

Oh my god, I was right there. I I was there and see all the finger pointing between McPond Stevens, sec, Segna Mavis, blaming the Force Master Chiefs. With that, wasn't the Force Master Chiefs idea. That was Mekpawn Stevens and uh Segnap Mavis idea, and they're trying to finger point Jason Wallace, uh Ozzy, all those guys saying that was that was they was the saying they wanted to do that. When it all started out, we were just trying to take the man away from the ratings. I'm in Yokuska, I'm in Yokusuka, Japan with Suze Whitman doing an all-hands call with the Seven Fleet staff. And I'm looking at my phone and she's talking. I say, I have to stop at Suze. They just took our rights away from us. She was probably like, What the fuck? We had no idea, man.

Gary Wise 1:32:35

So that was was that after the was she there? Was that after the ship collisions had happened? Um after this, was that it was right about the same time, right?

Ty Jiles 1:32:45

That was in 2021. Oh no, no, 2016. That was in September 2016.

Gary Wise 1:32:51

Okay, so that was before the collisions.

Ty Jiles 1:32:54

Before the collisions, yep.

Gary Wise 1:32:56

Okay, but I do yeah, I remember I was on Ashland when they took the rates away. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, just you know, I remember I flew out to Pac Fleet one time for a CMC meeting, right? They when I was Seven Fleet staff CMC, I went out there for preppers in Seventh Fleet, and they fly us out there and they got all these mass chiefs from all over the world in this room, and a four-star is briefing us, and he's a pistol, right? And he he asked us basically, does anybody got me questions? Because I basically said, you know what, sir? My question is, how come the rest of the officers in the Navy don't talk like you? Because you're a war fighter, and I appreciate that, but it doesn't, they don't sound like you on the deck plates, they sound like a bunch of you know, essentially wussies, for lack of a better word. And he's in there talking about China, Russia, all that stuff, right? And he gets all pissed off at me and starts yelling or whatever it was. So anyway, he leaves, right? And the other master chief is like one of the other master chief is like, hey Gary, bro, we don't really come here to ask questions, we just come here to talk to each other in between the briefers. And I was just like, that's dumb, dog. Like, why did we all fly here? They're briefing us on the eval system. And I I I asked the question on the eval system, and you and you could see all these other CMCs. They're like, Oh, this dummy asking another question because he don't know. We've already heard all this before, and I'm just thinking to myself, like, but y'all are supposed to be the ones that are QA in this crap, you know. What are we doing? And that was that was exactly when I realized that that life was not for me. Put me back on USS Somebody. I want to go back on the deck plates, bro. I want nothing to do with that level of crap.

Ty Jiles 1:34:45

Hey, so I can tell you something. Meg Pom Bushy got a lot of respect for that guy. Suze Whitman brought him to Hawaii for a leadership round table. You had Jim O'Neill. All right, he was at Korea. You had Jason Wallace, you had Ozzy from Connell AirPac. AirPac. You had uh you had Regent CMC from Hawaii and a couple other force master chiefs. We're in a round table. Mk Pond Bushy was strategically uh uh helping out the force and fleet master chiefs on convincing the CNO on getting the Navy rapes back. This is in November 2016, and I'm right there talking away because he was like, Do you want to do this strategically? Um and that dude right there, um, because there was no, it was it was not well received in the fleet. And then what happened when we got the when we got the the paper written for Admiral Swift, December 21st, 2016. I remember that day. We got our race back. So Mick Pond Bush was on the side, definitely.

Gary Wise 1:36:08

Admiral Swift is solid, though, bro. He was a seventh fleet guy too. Yeah, like Admiral Swift was solid. He was probably somebody that was like, why would they do this to begin with? You know what I'm saying? Like, yeah, I can see that. So, and I remember harassing you a little bit, trying to get you to come under the CMC program. And my dog in the fight was I wanted the best Master Chiefs in my community, right? Like, I'm like, I know that we need to be, you know, I wanted to become a CMC because I believed in the mess, I believed in the community, and I learned eventually by all that other bureaucratic crap and figuring out your jobs and but that was never my end goal. My end goal was I wanted Master Chiefs in the mess that wanted to be leading deck plates of sailors on ships, yeah. And and I and so you went from pack fleet. Is that when you went to the bush?

Ty Jiles 1:37:02

Yep, after that, I went to the bush, man. And uh I remember coming and seeing you, man, when you was on the Ashland, man. And uh I I did have uh working with the fleet CPO trainer team. We had Jason Nup, yep, and Jeff Stanley. Yep, I was doing my CMC package, you know. I mean, I was getting the signatures and everything, but uh no, no, I ain't mad at you for I was like sometimes you got there. Um I got toward the strip, man.

Gary Wise 1:37:32

But but when you got to the bush, right? How much different was that carrier tour than your tour on board the George Washington?

Ty Jiles 1:37:40

Okay, man.

Gary Wise 1:37:40

So it seems like so.

Ty Jiles 1:37:44

I'm gonna tell you something. When you a George Washington sailor, when you're on the deck plates, you gotta talk a certain way. You can't be in the politics, none of that stuff, right? Yeah, when you go to these staff commands, you gotta walk different, you gotta breathe different, you gotta eat different, you gotta everything you say, you represent the four-star or the one-star commands, right? So I had the mentality, I was really polished, man, because I had to speak in front of these uh these leaders, these triads, and all that stuff. So I get to the bush, I got that same mentality, right? I got the same mentality, but it was a blessing and a curse because I seen both sides of the world. I seen the policy side, but I was also I was also that singular on the deck play side where I see if I ever get back to the deck plates, I want to run it just like this because I see how policy works. So it was a blessing and a curse because my CMC loved it. Um because I was real in tune. I was real like then. I had built a lot of relationships. And talking to Sailors, I had to I had to try to talk to them politically correct, but I like that went out the window like within the first seven to hours, right? With the sailors. Um but that blessing was my CO at the time and my exo, my CMC gave me one shot. He said, Man, nobody wants to be acting for CMC for me. Can you can you fill in for me uh for this week? He gave me a week. I said, All right, I'll do it. So I did it, and I did it again. He said, Time in, I'm trying to get the other DLCPOs to do it, trying to get Mr. Camp, hey, I want uh this person to do it. He said, No, we want Mass Chief Taj to be the uh acting CMC when you're gone.

Gary Wise 1:39:50

Right.

Ty Jiles 1:39:50

So I'm like, okay, okay, all right. But start winning for me. Start I start going my favor. Um because now he gets selected to be the force mass chief at Erland. Now I'm the acting CMC for six months. I'm also the MDLCO. I remember watching it on social media. So now I'm doing I'm doing ranking boards and all that stuff. I'm doing SOQ boards. So guess what? I've been getting out of love. So I'm the small department's DLCPO too, right? Right. What I mean by the small, oh you know, the small department like CRMD, legal, uh deck, uh navigation, they got singing chiefs. Why was they their masterie representing at the ranking boards? Oh so guess what? All the guys start getting EPs, they start promoting and all that stuff because I was their voice. So for any masters that are watching this podcast, do the right thing when it's time to go back out to sea, go out to see because CDB matters for a master chief. It really does matter because here's in that same list of market detailing place, whatever they got right now. I love it because master chiefs need to go out to sea. Me and you were cut for a different cloth because we knew what we wanted to be. We wanted to be mass chiefs, and we did it the right way. But also we took a step uh uh above, we went back out to sea. Yeah, and I was the second uh Navy career counselor mass chief that worked at a four-star command at a fleet level to ever go back out to sea because all the other mass chiefs that worked at a four-star command, they they either went back shore to shore. I wanted to change that narrative to do the right thing as a mass chief to go out to sea because that was sailors need you. Yeah, and uh I tell you, man, when I took that tour on the bush, it was no way that I was going back to be a uh uh DLCPO. I'm ready to be a command mastery, man.

Gary Wise 1:42:03

Yeah, once you get access to the information, man, and once you get to influence the change, yeah. So then you dropped your C package, yeah.

Ty Jiles 1:42:12

That was because my CMC on the push, man. He I love that program because they help him.

Becoming A Destroyer Command Master Chief

Gary Wise 1:42:19

Awesome. I mean, that's what you needed, right? That's what you needed, and yeah, I I think that matters, you know, a thousand percent. Because you got to come to the program, in my opinion, to do it the right way for the right reasons, you know, because you got those people that applied, like you said, unfortunately, with the command scenary program. One thing that I saw, especially I think it was like 2016 when they made it its own rate and they like promoted everybody that applied for it. That was they swept a lot of people in that would have never had a chance of getting selected if they had not done that, right? And I think they got unfortunately probably a lot of people in the program they didn't really need, and now they're working their way up the food chain to be key leaders and God bless them. Hope they all do good things. We're retired now, right? Yeah, so when you dropped your CMC package, you went to a ship out of Mayport, yeah.

Ty Jiles 1:43:13

USS Last and D D G 82, and there was a selling point for mom. There was a selling point for my wife. She said, Hey, because she didn't want me to go CMC. I said, Babe, yeah, if I go CMC, I got an opportunity to go to Mayport. She said, Well, go put it in. What you waiting on then? So, yeah, so we did that. That's I did it. That's that's right.

Gary Wise 1:43:33

I told Erica the same thing. I was like, You want to go back to Japan? I gotta go CMC. I can't go there as a DC master if there's not that many billets, yeah, right? So, not only do I want to go into this job, but it also lines up with our duty station of choice, too, and it gives you more options to pick from.

Ty Jiles 1:43:49

Um, absolutely, you yeah, that was good, man.

Gary Wise 1:43:52

Did you have a ball on the last thing? Because it looked like you was having a good time.

Ty Jiles 1:43:56

I I did, man. I'll tell you, by the humble myself. I'm always humbling myself when I go to these different duty stations, man. From a four-star command to going to the USS George A. W. Bush, but then going to CMC. Now I got the big stake room, I got the big old office. You know what I'm saying? I got my uh the CMC being, I got a yeoman as my secretary. I'm I got all the perks, man. Get my uniform, got uh jerseys, you know what I mean? Uh yeah, life is good, but then I go to the USS Lassen, man, humble man.

Gary Wise 1:44:34

Yeah, back in regular old Chief Smith Burden, Jim Pop, you know what I mean?

Ty Jiles 1:44:40

Chief Mas Burden. I mean, so I like man, it was like a foul for grace. Oh five co five co all the department heads, seven or ten.

Gary Wise 1:44:52

First tour department heads, yeah, average chief or 12 years old.

Ty Jiles 1:44:57

First tour chief, and and then you know, here's the thing, man. You heard that saying before you try to set things right, you gotta see things right. Oh, Lars, on uh think about it, on the carriers, all those department heads are post-door COs for the most part, bro. Yeah, all those DLCPOs on there are mass chief, they're CMCs at the departments. I go to a DDG, I got my average chiefs, my average years of Chiefs mass are 13 years, man. 14 department heads, the COs and stuff, man. So I was doing more training than I was doing anything, man. Training those guys, man, it was exhausting sometimes. But it was fun. Yeah, it was fun, man. I loved that ship. We went on deployment. Um man, I loved it being part of I was having my red hat walking around training, um, just talking to Sailors, man, being visible, doing career development boards, loving. I knew all my cellulars on there. They said, CMC, how do you do it? How do you know how do you know this much about me six months after they check on board? I said, that's just the NC side of me to know Sailors, to know their families, to know what they like, what they don't like. Because that would be surprised. When we walk when I do cleaning stations, I'll bring some of the text. You oh, you remember that? Yeah, man. People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. And that's stuck with me, man.

Leading Maintenance Teams And Winning Awards

Gary Wise 1:46:30

Especially when you have an authentic conversation, right? You're gonna remember authentic conversations, surface conversations, maybe not so much, but authentic conversations, you remember those. Um, and then after the last end, you go to was that Sima Norfolk? Is it or Mayport?

Ty Jiles 1:46:45

Yes, uh uh Southeast Region Maintenance Center.

Gary Wise 1:46:50

And I came to visit you. I came to visit you there when I was retiring, but I just remember thinking, like, you're the CMC of like all the engineers damn near, all the tech reps, all the people keeping the waterfront alive, and that looked like a pretty fun duty station, too.

Retirement Medical Benefits And Identity Shift

Ty Jiles 1:47:07

And people said, What's the people people say, Where's and that was kind of like scary. That was like, where's the admin background guy going to an engineer heavy man? What is he gonna do there? Well, I'm gonna tell you what we did. We got free retention lessons award. I got the sale of the year who was became the not only the Tycom sale of the year, but the Op Now Sale of the Year. Got Meritosaurus Advanced and Chief Petty Officer, then my follow-on sale of the year, got command sale of the year and the Tycom sale of the year. Politics came to play why he didn't go out now, because they said uh his uh record didn't um didn't meet the cut, they did paper grading, but I know it was. They were scared to see Sir Mac get the back-to-back op nav. Back to back, yeah. I know our and I know I know it was all politics right there that came to play. Yeah, but we also got the sec dev maintenance award. My advancement percentage were higher than not only than uh San Ego, but Norfolk and uh Italy for Chief Petty Officer and E6 and Below all three years that I was there. Um, so it don't this was this is what it's all about, man. In order to be a CMC, it takes a special type of great deck plate leader to lead deck plate leaders, you know what I mean? And I came in that I came I came in that mindset that, like I said, when I came in the navy, came back in the navy, no one's gonna finish my shine to stop my purpose. Yeah, and I did that, man. And those end up being the best tour that I had because it gave me the opportunity to not only help me transition to the civilian sector, but also make a difference in impact going out the Navy and making the command such a certain um uh a good command um going out in style, but man.

Gary Wise 1:49:11

So yeah, has such a certain so you recently retired. What is life looking for like for you now as a retired as a veteran?

Ty Jiles 1:49:20

Yeah, life is good, man. Uh, that retirement ceremony, man. My family's still talking about the retirement ceremony, man. Oh, yeah, I was gonna I was gonna have an ocean breeze, man. It was a smaller venue on on base. But one of the ladies at security said, Hello, you sure you want to have an ocean breeze? As many people that you know, say you need to do it at the gym. And I was at the time, I said, You know what? You're probably right. I'm gonna do it at the gym. And the gym was packed, man. We had people standing up, so I'm I'm glad we did it. That man, so uh life is looking for me right now. I'm I'm I'm living good, man. I'm making the same money I was when I retired. Here's what I want to say for any veteran that's retiring, make sure you're taking care of yourself medically. Because when we came to the Navy, man, to go to medical, uh, you were labored as a sick bay commando, or especially as men, you don't want to go and get stuff documented or whatever.

Gary Wise 1:50:20

Yeah.

Ty Jiles 1:50:20

But hey, it's no same. I think any veteran that's retired 20 years or 30 years should be automatically 100% disabil disabled. Me personally. Because the same way we came in the Navy, 20 years, 30 years, or whatever, it's not the same way that we leave the Navy.

Gary Wise 1:50:37

Um, and I'll tell you the other thing, bro, is retiring as a CMC, there ain't no time all the way up until the end, right? There ain't no skill bridge opportunity. Ain't no skill bridge, no skill bridge opportunity. I was running a base as the base master chief and still trying to make my appointments and still trying to make my things. And there wasn't no down, there wasn't no time off. And so I feel like for the CMC community in particular, or for the name, for the military, they should look at giving them like a six-month stash somewhere to get all their medical taken care of, get all their stuff taken care of, because it's hard, man.

Ty Jiles 1:51:22

I said, if I was the fleet career counselor, and I brought this up, I had a talking uh paper to the fleet career counselor. I said, look, any I think any E7 above that's retiring, just give them a six-month blanket on their back part of the EOS so they can transition, do a skill bridge to do all those medical things like that. But um, yeah, but but I I think that's so important, man, because the transition to tap, tap tap is okay, but there's so many resources out there, like wounded warrior, it's overwhelming opportunity, it's overwhelming, man.

Gary Wise 1:51:58

It's overwhelming, and then I think the other thing that they don't really prepare, like you're still in the same community that you retired from, um, which I think is is is a blessing. But like people like me, I am I mean I'm two hours west of you, right? But I'm in a I'm in a town where there's no other navy, no other community. And yeah, right, right. That that took some that took some getting used to. Believe it or not, this podcast has kind of become my way to to catch up with all my friends, talk to people, and still live my life that I live here in O'Cala because I came here because I want to Florida, I want to teach high school ROTC and God, right? God brought me to O'Cala. I put it, I give it to God. Like on the remote bro, I give it to God. But a lot, not all veterans, especially career sailors, make that transition. And I think they go you go through things when your phone stops ringing, right? When you stop getting all the phone calls, and and yeah, it is a it is a change of pace, especially when you've been so busy for 30 years, right?

Mentoring Kids Through Nonprofit Work

Rapid Fire Leadership And Life Questions

Ty Jiles 1:53:05

And then I'll tell you, you're right, Gary, man. And I would say, man, my thing to help me out that Slayer Mac was able to help me transit to the civilian sector, connecting with those folks that retired, such as yourself, whatever, learning how to turn their identity off. Because when you retire, the phone, their phones are gonna start ringing. Yeah, their phones are gonna ring with your real ones, right? And I say this, I posted this on Facebook like two years ago. People are gonna rock with you for two things either because you've been official or you've been official. The ones that are gonna rock with you because you've been official, they're gonna rock with you to the end. You know what I mean? We may not talk every day, but they're gonna check on you. Yeah, the ones that's beneficial, dang on, I don't need you no more. Hey, CMC wise, oh man, that boy retired like five years ago, man. I ain't got he ain't got nothing off of me. You know what I mean? Uh time's ain't got nothing off of me. I expect that, man. I expected that when I retired, so I was meant to prepare for that. So, like for me, man, I'm living the life, spending time with the family, uh, you know, uh, nonprofit, nightbridge, Jacksonville, we're all rocking right now. Yes, doing a lot of mentorship with the kids, um, in inner city, north side, east side, come from single-parent homes that doesn't have a father. And we try to teach these kids um just trying to be a gap with the kids. So we have mentors assigned to each mentee, giving them basic life skills, uh, teach them how to navigate through adversity, public speaking. I mean, like two weeks ago, man, we had some guys come out there, educators, man, teaching our kids how to write resumes, how to interview, and all that stuff like that. Man, that's important, man. You know what I mean? So give them those formal life lessons. We had it when we were growing up, but that was from people that your mom knew or your parents knew, or neighborhood kids, or your neighbors. There was a village that was raising us. But these guys are coming into our organization or taking time out their days, their evenings, to make sure that our next wave or generation are have the tools to be successful, given something that we didn't have wars growing up, man. So that keeps me fulfilled, it keeps me happy, and just continue to make a difference and impact, not just so in the military capacity, but in the civilian capacity, man. So I'm blessed to be able to do that, man. You know what I mean?

Gary Wise 1:56:07

That's amazing, brother. All right, Ty, as we land this thing, I'm gonna ask you some quick questions, and you just go ahead and give me your answers to the best of your ability, bro. We'll wrap this thing up. Uh, what do you see as one of the biggest leadership challenges facing organizations today?

Ty Jiles 1:56:26

The biggest challenge I would say is people not empowering their um their folks to the best of their abilities. And using the excuse as our generation is weak, their the young generation is weak, or they don't have the the work ethic, they do have it. Those those those young generational leaders are smarter than we were. Um yes, you may have to come come conversate with them differently. You gotta change that mindset. The way we was brought up in the uh when we was coming up, you can't conversate how you did back in the days to the younger generation. So I say that was the biggest challenge that we have to learn how to change your leadership and adapt to times because the talent is richer and it's better. Um, you just gotta learn how to adapt your leadership. Um work at it. Uh, and you're you're you're everything's gonna be okay, man. You know what I mean? So that's that I think that was the biggest challenge that I would say for uh next generation.

Gary Wise 1:57:48

Okay. And would you so my next question is gonna be uh it's gonna connect right to that. I already know how you're gonna do it because a lot of my listeners are my students, uh, and their parents, maybe even. And so, how can a parent best communicate with their teenager or their child? And honestly, I think you just nailed it with how you was addressing uh working with the kids you already worked with, right? But do you think a parent should do it the same way or is it different for a parent?

Ty Jiles 1:58:18

Hey, so here's the thing you and I got two boys. You may say Hayden, you tell Hayden something until you blew in the face. And he doesn't do it. But I come around and tell Hayden the same thing. Oh, Ty said, do it like this. You know, don't we can't get frustrated as parents. Um, but what we have to do is take time out, maybe having a dinner or whatever, and just take the phones away and just have a conversation, be real, be listener, be a listener. Um, sometimes just be a listener because of what kids probably need, especially in today's generation. Um, because we're fighting a battle. We're fighting two battles: the streets, social media. All right. We're fighting to keep our kids on the right and narrow path. And what we see what they see on social media, hey, look, that that person may show the the good stuff, but they're not showing you the real. And we we gotta make sure that our kids are staying grounded on that. So have those tough conversations with them, have those uncomfortable conversations. We gotta have those uncomfortable conversations. Like I said at the beginning, there's no blueprint on being becoming a parent. You just gotta you gotta adjust, readjust, adjust on them fine, find something that's gonna work for you and your kids.

Gary Wise 1:59:50

Yep, that's and never quit trying. You know what I'm saying? Don't stop trying because as long as someone's talking, there's always an opportunity to get the conversation going again. It's when everybody shuts up that we all of a sudden recognize that we're all we're all jacked up, you know. Um, yeah, what's a piece of advice you would give to somebody who's in an organization that they don't feel values them or they don't feel like they're getting the opportunities they're supposed to be getting.

Ty Jiles 2:00:19

Okay. Um, ask the questions. Don't suffer in the silence. Um, and what I mean, what I mean by that is if you're in an organization that you if you don't feel that you're being valued, ask the questions on why you don't feel value to your supervisor or whatever. And they can't give you a real answer on why you don't feel the way you feel, or whatever, if they're beating around a bush, then maybe it's time to leave. Go to an organization that you feel feel value. Um, and here's the thing, too. Sometimes you just gonna have to embrace the suck like we did. We did on a GW. I ain't feel value 75% of the days, but we did it, right?

Gary Wise 2:01:08

Um, yes, but sometimes to that point, though, what I would tell him, everything you just said, and then it's also like, why am I letting this dude bother me? Right? Like, why does this person gotta validate me? Because I'm I'm beneficial, mother. I've been official, I'm an official. Yeah, exactly. Check my files, man. Check my files. I I will grab you by your hair and drag you down the street face down, bro. Like, you don't know me. Yeah, I will choose to let you work for me today. And many times I'd have to do that because I'd be so angry or so upset. I have to calibrate myself and be like, but Gary, you're not that person, you're a professional. And you but like I teach my students, you cannot control what everyone, what anyone else is gonna do, you can only control how you're gonna respond.

Ty Jiles 2:01:58

Yep, right? Be quick to listen to someone.

Gary Wise 2:02:01

That's it. And so, but there's but you have to, if someone's bothering, if it's bothering you, the thing is you gotta ask yourself why is it bothering you? Right. And then, like you said, then do something about it. Like ask the question, have a tough conversation, make the move, right? Punch out, go do something else, figure it out. But I think too many people suffer in silence, or they get they start doing some bad self-talk or whatever it is, like you said about that CMC that you had spoken to, and you're like, Well, I'm glad he's leaving because he's not the one that I need to be with, right? And there you go. Okay, all right, we're gonna move through this a little faster now. All right, bro, it's Saturday night. We're on the ship. You want pizza? Are you looking forward to pizza or wings?

Ty Jiles 2:02:47

Man, I'm looking for the wings, man. You're looking for the wings for the wings for the simple fact, man. I'm looking for the wings because I don't like all that cheese like that. Um, and I and the wings, I can I can get a multitude of flavors. I get the buffalo style, I get the barbecue style. Yeah, I can I can I can dress up how I want it, man. So I'm I'm looking for the wings, man.

Gary Wise 2:03:11

Okay, yeah. Hey, I I need someone for the burden cleaners or I need somebody for the working party. Which one do you want?

Ty Jiles 2:03:18

I'm gonna get somebody for the uh burning cleaners. Because I know I'm gonna be the burning cleaner, man. Because as soon as I get my as soon as I get my job done on the burning cleaner, I can chill out in the lounge and watch the TV, watch the sports center. On the working part, I hey, I got a lot of uh I got a lot of elements that I gotta deal with. It may be cold outside, it may be hot. I don't know what I'm getting. And then you know it just how many pallets, how many pallets are we receiving today? Are we getting 10 pallets or 100 pallets? Or two hundred?

Gary Wise 2:03:52

You might get put in the freezer, you might be in the freezer humping freaking hamburger.

Ty Jiles 2:03:56

Never know, man. So at least I know my well way forward, my path way forward.

Gary Wise 2:04:01

If I'm a burning cleaner, I ain't managed. Hey, bro, we're gonna meet up in the mess and watch a movie. You want to watch De Niro or Pacino?

Ty Jiles 2:04:10

I'll watch who now.

Gary Wise 2:04:12

You want to watch a De Niro movie or a Pacino movie?

Ty Jiles 2:04:16

Oh, Pacino movie, man. I want to watch Pacino movie. Yeah, yep.

Gary Wise 2:04:22

Okay. When you look back on your career, what was your favorite duty station?

Ty Jiles 2:04:28

Man, I think I told you, man, the USS George Washington, CBN 73, Yakuza, Japan.

Gary Wise 2:04:35

Uh, because all of them, that's your favorite.

Ty Jiles 2:04:38

Yeah, it's my favorite one, man. And I know a lot of people are probably gonna get mad, man, but that was um uh a duty station where I learned a lot uh about myself. I had to get out of my comfort zone a lot. Um I learned how to navigate through adversity. I learned how to just be a leader in general, learn a lot of stuff, man. Um as a young chief. Like I said, that set the tone for my career, just as a chief, make a singing chief and make a massive chief. And that was that was that was that was a good tour for me, man.

Gary Wise 2:05:19

And you gotta remember, Ty, our generation on the GW took that ship from being the ship that caught on fire to being the back-to-back battle league winner, right? Yep, and it like that was a heavy lift, bro. That was people don't understand how much we had to climb back from after that whole casualty and everything. So that that generation of sailors, and I love when Rory Bacon shows me pictures of our D set briefs and all the people that were on there, and like he's like Master Chief, Master Chief, Warren Officer, Officer, we were pretty stacked, bro. We had a we had a squad. Yeah, we had a stack. Looking back on your career, bro. What was your favorite Liberty port? Oh man.

Ty Jiles 2:06:09

Oh, I I can't pinpoint one out, man. Um it can be Hong Kong, China, it can be Philippines, it can be Perks, Australia, um, it can be Real Deanero, uh, when Snoop Dogg and Jaru film uh beautiful. Um Acapulco, Mexico. Well, we had MTB Spring Breakdown in 1988. Um man, it can be Ireland, man. Um Dubai. It's too many, man. It's too bad. It's too many.

Gary Wise 2:06:48

All right. Looking back on your career, what was the hardest qualification you ever had to achieve?

Ty Jiles 2:06:55

My IDW pen, my information warcraft pen. It was my hardest, and I wasn't looking to get that pen. I was on the USA George A.W. Bush, Master Chief, right? Keep my telling you a small department LCPO, and I was doing career development boards with my two young two, my two singing chiefs, me and my CMC. We're doing career development boards record reviews for all our singing chiefs. And our top two singing chiefs, man, they are our runners and gunners, man. So we think these guys uh have you guys have y'all did anything? Did y'all have y'all done everything to maximize your opportunity to make E9? Well, we ain't got our IW pen. Well, guess what? Y'all finna get your IW pin right now, and and and look, I'm getting my pin with you guys. Oh man, it was the work for state. Well, we I ended up getting my pin with them guys with them because I made a promise. So we all got our IW pens, and when the results came out, I had a BMCM and I had an OSCM. You know what I mean? So that was that was it was a lot of acronyms, it was a lot of stuff, man. I I didn't have no, yeah, yeah. So I w pin was my qualification, man.

Gary Wise 2:08:07

Okay. I I got mine when I was a seventh fleet, and like you said, it was a whole nother world. I I learned stuff I had no idea was out there. Okay, Ty, if you had the chance to do it again, would you go overseas or stateside?

Ty Jiles 2:08:23

Um, I would do overseas. Okay, I would do overseas. Knowing what I know now, I would I would definitely go overseas first just to get their experience, uh, to see the other side of the world. And yeah, I would do overseas first, definitely.

Gary Wise 2:08:38

Yep, I'm with you, bro, for sure. Hey, you got a favorite movie series?

Ty Jiles 2:08:44

A favorite movie series, uh man. So a movie series, I would say probably the Fridays, man. I like the Fridays. Uh those are great. And I was I'm gonna stick with the Fridays, those my movie series. TV series will be the wire. Um, I like the I love the loss. Lost was uh was a good TV series. 24 was a good TV series.

Gary Wise 2:09:17

Uh you ever you ever watch uh Silo?

Ty Jiles 2:09:21

I did I have man. That was pretty good. Yeah, I'm into that one.

Gary Wise 2:09:26

Okay, yeah. Wire. I like the mayor of Kingstown too. I'm into that one right now.

Ty Jiles 2:09:31

Yeah, so you are you in the mayor of Kingstown? I'm watching Tulsa King right now, man.

Gary Wise 2:09:37

The same guy that wrote mayor of Kingstown wrote Tulsa King. Yeah, he's it's like him and 50 Cent, they're making all the good TV shows, making all the good shows, man. Yep, they're making all the good shows, man. Yeah, all right. Next up, all right, Ty, would you rather be independent or on a team?

Ty Jiles 2:09:58

Be part of a team. Um, my last 30 years, that's all I know is being a part of team. You know what I mean? Um being a team of teens, that's what we know as United States Navy's sailors, man. Being part of the team, being something greater. Being independent, why would I be? You know, I've been independent, you know, as a CMC, sometimes lonely at the time. But in order stuff to work, you need you need some good teammates. All right. Yeah, so yeah, but being part of the team all day, man.

Gary Wise 2:10:29

Okay. Do you have a personal leadership philosophy?

Ty Jiles 2:10:35

Yeah, um, my personal leadership philosophy, I like that John C Mask well, man, because that just cared me for so long. That people don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. And I that just resonate with me, man. If you show people that you care, you're gonna build that trust, you're gonna build a connection. End result, they're gonna go the bat for you. They gonna, if something needs to go down, they know you got their best interests in their mind when they know that you care. And this is that's gonna open up so many doors, so many opportunities for the all relationship, because they know that you got their back.

Gary Wise 2:11:17

I agree, man. Okay. In the Chiefs mess, we got deck plate leadership, institutional technical expertise, professionalism, character, loyalty, active communication, and a sense of heritage. You know, those are our principles. I use them still to this day. Uh which one of those is your favorite?

Ty Jiles 2:11:39

Man. All of them, but the most important is being an active communicator, man. Because that's how you're gonna manage expectations, communication. Um you know you've been on there, man. Uh With his hand, this is how I did on my last show. We did it, we did it this certain way. But don't complain, contribute. If you got a great idea that's gonna help us out to win, communicate that, man. Be extra communicated. Stop sitting on the sideline. Hey, get off the bench, man. You know what I mean? Hey, go ahead and go ahead and contribute, man. Be it. So I think add the communicator, man, is it it goes up and down across the chain, man. Um, because that's how, but one, the morale is gonna be good if you communicate across the masses, up and down laterally. And two, it's no confusion. Um three, it just better camaraderie when you communicate and communicate. So that's why I chose that man.

Gary Wise 2:12:53

No, and I think it's the most everybody when I ask them what needs to get better with leadership, they say communication. And it's really just the need for everyone to have an idea that they can know the information or they're gonna get the information when there's time to get it, and there's gotta be trust involved, right? Um, and I agree with you, bro. Accurate communication up and down the chain of command, and that's exactly what leaders are gonna inspire, right? They're gonna get out there and shake the trees and make it happen. Okay, Ty, would you rather lead or follow?

Ty Jiles 2:13:26

Oh boy, man, that's another tough one, man. Because both of them are so more so important, but um I'd rather lead, man. Um, because I know I'm gonna lead the right way. I'm gonna lead by example. I'm gonna do, I can't I can't tell someone to do something if I'm not willing to do it myself. All right, yeah. Um, so I I'd rather lead, man, than follow. Because leading, I know I know that I'm gonna make the right decision. I know I'm gonna do the right thing. I know that I'm gonna get it done. Whereas a follower, you know, you gotta be in order to be a good leader, you gotta be a good follower, right? So that question is twofold, man. I rather lead. Um, and I tell my I tell my tell my kids to be a leader, not a follower. Because I don't want the follower to the the first person that they see that they see on social media or that cool person where I would be yourself, man. Be your own, yeah, be your own person.

Final Thanks And Future Link Up

Gary Wise 2:14:32

Yep, yeah, nope, for sure. All right, bro. Hey, I really appreciate your time. Do you have any save rounds or alibis, dude? Because we are wrapping this baby up.

Ty Jiles 2:14:44

Oh no, man, I appreciate it, man. And look, I can't believe we've been on so long, man. But you know, it is just go for sure, man. That uh no matter how long we go without talking, man, when we click up, when we sync up, it's all genuine, man. It's all love, man. I really appreciate the opportunity, man, to get me on here, man. I hope we can do some future collaborations here in the near future, man. But uh definitely, man, thank you for what you're doing for those kids in our ROTC program. Uh showing what a passionate leader looks like, showing what rights looks like day in, day out. Because I know that's not an easy job. Um, because you have to deal with some, you got to deal with some uh some some tough uh individuals, man. So I appreciate you and Erica, man, for the opportunity, man.

Gary Wise 2:15:35

Hey, bro, I appreciate you too, man. Thank you very much for everything you all you are, my man. You I got you. You ever need anything, you call me. If I can get if I got it, you can have it. It's yours, right? All right, bro. For sure, man. I definitely would love to have you back on here again. Maybe we talk about some other stuff besides just life in general. We'll chew on some. All right, bro. Absolutely. All right, you have a good night. Tell the family I say hello. And if you ever need anything, brother, hit me up, okay?

Ty Jiles 2:16:03

All right, man. You stay up, man.

Gary Wise 2:16:05

Always. All right, I'll see you later, brother. Bye, everybody. Take it forget it, I think it's forget it.