The 9-11 Generation

Lt Col Marvin Gray's Service is Emblematic of the GWOT Generation

Airman Basic Jerry “Marvin” Gray (personal photos)

Summers in the military are hectic. Across the globe, thousands of change-of-command ceremonies are endlessly rehearsed and executed. While most civilians would find those ceremonies fascinating, they are routine in the military. The outgoing commander gets a medal and makes a speech, then literally passes the baton in the form of a guidon to a new commander, who closes things out with a short, crisp speech. 

Rinse. Repeat. 

Retirement ceremonies, however, are anything but routine. While they often last over an hour, they can range from solemn events to raucous parties–or sometimes both. They are usually emotional events solely focused on the retiree’s sacrifice. For the retiree, this will be the only ceremony entirely focused on them and their families, specifically the sacrifices they made to protect and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. 

All military retirees sacrifice for their country. That’s the nature of serving at least twenty years in the military. However, it's a little different for the 9-11 generation. Never before in American history has an all-volunteer force shouldered two decades of war across the globe. The media often solely focuses on those fighting on the front lines in Iraq and Syria, if they focus on them at all.

However, a hidden workforce has gone largely unnoticed—mainly by design. America’s intelligence community conducted intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance operations around the clock for twenty-plus years. They supported kinetic operations, executed their own covert ops, and executed thousands of targeted killing operations from nondescript buildings scattered across the country. It was a grinding war in the shadows for millions of America’s intelligence professionals. 

That’s where my brother, Marvin, thrived by relentlessly hunting and killing the most deadly terrorists in the world. When the history books are written, names like Petreaus, McMaster, and McChrystal will likely get the lion’s share of historians' attention. However, men and women like Marvin, who deployed 15 times across his 32-year military career, are the true heroes of the 9-11 generation. 

I’ve served alongside some of America’s deadliest soldiers. These men shoot, move, and communicate effortlessly, like a perfectly choreographed Broadway play. They were lethal on the battlefield, especially up close and personal. 

However, their body counts pale in comparison to Marvin’s. 

At his retirement ceremony, the presiding officer said, “Marvin’s performance reports read like something out of a Jason Bourne novel.” 

---

Marvin gearing up for a mission.

When I ran into Marvin in 2021, he was already a legend. His ribbon and medal rack would make a North Korean general envious. Unlike them, however, he earned those accolades on the battlefield.  

Raised in rural Tennessee, Marvin joined the United States Air Force in 1992. He scored so high on his Armed Service Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB-think entry-level exam) that the Air Force sent him to study a foreign language at the Defense Language Institute in beautiful Monterrey, California. Upon graduation, Marvin quickly became a star cryptologic linguist, earning accolades throughout the intelligence community for the first ten years of his thirty-two-year career.

Marvin was already a technical sergeant when he was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the United States Air Force through the University of Tennessee’s Air Force ROTC Detachment in 2005. During his illustrious career, Marvin would log 1,000 combat hours on various intelligence aircraft over some of the deadliest battlefields in the world. But his time at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, at JSOC, and later inside OGA (other government agencies) made him a star. 

How much of a star? The Director of the National Security Agency, Four Star General Timothy Haugh, recorded a video praising Marvin’s selfless service to his nation.

I’ve never seen that before in my twenty-year career. 

---

Although Marvin was a legend when we met, I had never heard of him. We both played in the shadows but swam in different lanes. He played with more elite units and agencies while I focused on training and advising Afghans. 

While our careers were very different, the wars had taken their toll on both of us. When we met in 2022, I was on the verge of a breakdown. I strained to juggle command and running an off-the-books global operation to help our Afghan allies trapped behind enemy lines. My nightmares, PTSD, and hallucinations played havoc on my mental health.

Shortly after we met, I decided to retire. As an Afghanistan expert, the Air Force had made it abundantly clear they no longer truly needed my skill set, so we departed on less than amicable terms. 

After my time in command closed, I spent the next three months in treatment desperately trying to jump-start the healing process. When I finished, I felt better and somewhat happy for the first time in a very long time. 

---

I didn’t see much of Marvin during those three months. Finally, our paths crossed again, and I could tell Marvin was conflicted. Marvin wanted to retire, and after 32 long years, who could blame him? But the Air Force knew what it had in Marvin: one of its most experienced and lethal intelligence officers. They desperately needed him to posture their Airmen against a revanchist Russia and a rising China. Senior Air Force officers spent some precious time keeping Marvin inside the company. 

But, as Marvin often does, he made a courageous decision: He chose to retire to focus on his family and finally heal. 

Retiring was probably one of the most agonizing decisions in Marvin’s illustrious career. It’s hard to walk away from anything, especially something as noble as military service. It’s especially astonishing, considering the Air Force would’ve put him in positions that could have vaulted him to the general officer corps. 

But fighting in the shadows takes its toll. When you slay your enemies at the top-secret level, you often bear the scars of those wounds alone, and the toll on those in the shadows and their families is immense. We cannot bring our work home with us or talk to anyone about some of the most traumatic moments of our lives. And there’s a level of paranoia that is hard to explain to those who’ve never played in this realm. That paranoia, stress, and trauma often bleed into family life.

It certainly did for me. 

Despite finally deciding to hang them up, Marvin spent the twilight of his career building a mental health program to prepare America’s next generation of warriors for their generation’s struggle. Even in the waning moments of his 32-year career, Marvin focused on creating programs and structures to help your sons and daughters protect their children from tomorrow’s enemies. 

Many talk of selfless service, but few American officers ever displayed it like Marvin. Even in his retirement speech, he read the names of every Airman who helped set up his retirement ceremony. That’s because Marvin remembers what it was like to be a young Airman. 

Marvin’s Basic Training Class

Although the Air Force will miss Marvin, his family finally gets him back, even as they possibly prepare to send some of Marvin’s children into the service. Military service is often a family business. Should some of his children follow in their father’s footsteps, I’m confident they will courageously carry Marvin’s proud legacy forward.  

His wife, Mary, finally gets sole custody of her husband. Nothing adequately describes the sacrifices military spouses make. Mary kept the home front together and tended to the needs of their seven kids while Marvin deployed repeatedly. Their marriage isn’t just inspirational; it’s also a miracle. 

And so is Marvin’s service. It’s a miracle and a treasure we’re lucky to have borne the fruits of. Now it’s time for Marvin and his beautiful family to enjoy the freedoms their father provided his fellow countrymen for 32 years. 

---

Over the next five to ten years, America’s 9-11 generation will slowly but surely retire from active duty. Those members who grew up fighting America’s Global War on Terrorism will find a country radically different from the one they joined to serve. 

Some of those changes are for the better. The LGBTQ community has made tremendous strides throughout the country. Gay marriage is legal, and transgender Americans have more rights than ever before. Religious and individual freedoms have also never been more robust. America’s economy is still the envy of the free world. 

The good doesn’t necessarily outweigh the bad. Americans, while largely appreciative of the military, no longer understand it. The 9-11 generation will not face the same despicable treatment America’s Vietnam generation received at home. However, while Americans are no longer hostile to their veterans and service members, they are ignorant about the wars fought in their names. 

But even more depressing is that Americans are ignorant of the heroes who fought for them. Other than Medal of Honor winners or celebrity generals, American society only encounters the military at halftime shows or before boarding domestic airline flights. Accordingly, a ‘Thank You for Your Service’ culture, which exalts the military but never holds it accountable for losing wars, struggles to comprehend the immense sacrifice of those who carry the flag to distant lands. 

The American people claim to support the troops, but the results are lacking. That’s not intentional; it’s made of ignorance. Ignorant of the systemic problems plaguing their combat veterans. Ignorant of the toll military families face supporting less than 1% of the population who, in turn, protects 300 million Americans. They are ignorant of honor, specifically, the dishonor and humiliation that many Afghan veterans feel for abandoning their allies to the perpetrators of 9-11.

Spending lavishly on veterans, while appreciated, will not fix this issue. Americans must begin reconnecting with those who killed for them. They must spend time with men and women like Marvin so they can help communalize their trauma. Regardless of your position on each war, Americans owe the 9-11 generation their most precious commodity: their attention.

Americans often ask me what they can do to help better support the troops and veterans. I always say, “Instead of thanking them for their service, ask them to share their stories.”

It’s time we all listen to those affected by war.