LCPL. Elise O’ Keefe-Edson
U.S. Marines - Administrative Specialist
MCAS Miramar, San Diego, CA
2008-2011
U.S. Marines - Administrative Specialist
MCAS Miramar, San Diego, CA
2008-2011
Li O’Keefe-Edson was born in 1988 and grew up in the Williamsburg section Brooklyn. “I lived there before it was cool. It was pretty tough. ” Williamsburg was smorgasbord of cultures. A Hasidic Jewish population, infused with various Hispanic cultures mixed together with Polish and Eastern Europeans. “We had really good food.”
“Being a New York kid you just grow up with so many different cultures and religions and everybody speaking a different language and you pick up words from other languages. I just thought that was normal. I thought that’s what life was.” Living in the midst of this cultural explosion Li thought she wanted to grow up and be part of a National Geographic Magazine or maybe an Anthropologist. Whatever would let her travel to far off places to meet exotic people, speak new languages and try all kinds of cuisines. Li was a good student and she thought all of this would be possible. “And then in 9th grade 9/11 happened and it changed everything.”
“My city was attacked. Suddenly there was a lot of people in our county terrified of anybody different.” On the other hand the City That Never Sleeps did what it always does in a crisis. It banded together, helped their neighbors, dug out dead, got their chutzpah back, restarted businesses and marched forward. On the day of the attack Li was attending St. Savior High School in Park Slope. That morning the teachers turned on the televisions in the classrooms to watch the coverage of the attack. She remembered her father had told her about when War of the Worlds was read on the radio in 1938 by Orson Wells and everyone thought it was a real attack by Martians. “I thought it was trailers for a new movie.” The teachers, like many other New Yorkers, didn’t know what to do. Her father was a schoolteacher at the time in Queens. All phone communications were down and Li could not reach her father. Eventually all of the teachers headed home to their families and Li was left alone on the school steps. The subways and buses weren’t running and it took her father quite some time to reach Li.
“That was the moment where I realized I have to be more.” 13 year old Li recalled reading a newspaper article about Sergeant Jason Thomas. Sgt. Thomas was a Marine Corps veteran who grabbed his gear as soon as the first plane hit and headed to Ground Zero to help. Once a Marine always a Marine. “I remember reading that and I said that’s who I want to be. I wanted to go to the Middle East and figure out why these people are still in the frame of mind of war lords and us against them and why are we evil? Why did they attack us? I wanted to know why. I was so confused.”
Li decided to be a Marine but first she completed high School. Li had some trouble with in high school and went to boarding school for a year before returning to Bishop Ford High School to complete her senior year in 2006. She had not told her parents, who she described as recovering hippies. When she did announce to her family that she was going to be a Marine her great uncles Dick and Bill, both WWII Army Air Force veteran, gave her encouragement and told here should would be a great Marine.”
Li decided to attend Hunter College before joining the Marines. She was living in on her own in Bushwick, Brooklyn, working part time, attending college full time and was having a hard time juggling all the balls. “I was hardly eating. I would date to eat.” At the suggestion of her friend who was a Marine, she decided to enlist. There she met Sargent Morillas who asked what can you do? Li wanted to be an MP (Military Police). “I was tiny. I was 100 pounds soaking wet.” Sgt. Morillas had to submit a waiver for her to be an MP because she was too short. The waiver was not approved and now Li had to decide what to select as an MOS (Military Occupational Specialty). Li said she would take anything because she just wanted to be a Marine. So, she selected Admin and she was on her way to Parris Island to be made into a Marine.
I asked her what she thought of Basic Training. She had been a dancer for a long time and played volleyball soccer, lacrosse in high school. “The training was fun. It wasn’t that challenging for me.” I asked what it was like dealing with the Drill Instructors. The first day, while still on the bus, she smiled at the Drill Instructor while he was yelling. “His eyes popped out of his head. I was in trouble a lot.” When the time came to issue uniforms Li looked at the cover (hat) and told the women issuing the uniforms “this isn’t the cover. I’ve seen it on TV commercials.” Li was told the females were issued a different cover. “Since I got out they changed the cover and now the females wear the same as the males.”
In April of 2008 she completed basic training and went home for two weeks and married her boyfriend which she said was a big mistake. Li received orders to Marine Corps Combat Training in South Carolina. Li really liked her instructor who had served in both Iraq and Afghanistan. “He was my first look at a real Marine. “He smoked, he probably had a drinking problem but he could kill you in two seconds.”
Li got her first glimpse into the world of sexual harassment. It was clear to her that some of the female recruits were inviting sexual advances and some of the instructors were looking for it. She also remembers being told that she should decide what kind of female Marine she wanted to be. You had to choose, and you had to look that way. In the Marine Corps. perception is reality. Li was unaware if anything happened, but this wasn’t the standard she was expecting.
Li received her MOS as an Admin Specialist and received orders to the Marine Corps Air Station in Miramar, CA. She and her husband packed up their belongings and headed west. Her husband had a tough time transitioning to the role of military spouse. This created friction and eventually they divorced. Now Li was a single mother in the military.
Li struggled through several poor leaders in her time in the Marines. “Leadership is so important. If you have piss-poor leadership you’re not going to want to do anything.” She thought that some leaders forgot to show they cared about the Marines under their command. They apparently never learned the old adage, ‘need to show them you care about them before they are going to care about you.’ Li had a great deal of respect for her last boss and speculated that if she had that kind of leadership earlier in her career, she might have re-enlisted.
“I did enjoy my job. Mostly my job was taking care of our Marines.” Li coordinated travel arrangements, coordinated training, helped with certain family issues, and helped with the payroll. She enjoyed getting the calls to help troubleshoot and resove problems. Li was a single mother and had to juggle all that comes along with that. “My daughter called her baby-sitter mommy and it broke my heart.” Li knew it was time to move on.
After leaving the Corps Li went to school for massage therapy. “I loved it and tried to concentrate on sports injury therapy so I could continue to work with veterans and law enforcement.” Li hung out her own shingle and found the road of entrepreneurship wasn’t an easy one and she couldn’t get the business to a level to support her and her daughter. Since then Li has worked in other roles where she was helping veterans. “My oath of enlistment is never done. My responsibilities to my fellows in uniform is never over. I feel very committed to those who wore the boots and uniforms like a did because they don’t always get taken care of.”
Li has remarried to an active duty airman in the Air Force National Guard and has three children, 13, 3, 2.
“I love the Corps.” Would she let her daughters join the Marines? “Yes, but I would warn them. You can’t be too pretty, you can’t be too flirty, you can’t be too mean or too rough.” It’s a tough needle to thread.
It’s worth noting that Li’s recruiter showed a keen interest in helping her and they have stayed friends through the years. Now 1st Sargent Morillas is the Godfather to Li’s daughter.
Thank you Li, for paving a path for female Marines to follow. Maybe you can find a Drill Instructors cover (the male version) to help you keep the mini-Marines at home squared away.
“Being a New York kid you just grow up with so many different cultures and religions and everybody speaking a different language and you pick up words from other languages. I just thought that was normal. I thought that’s what life was.” Living in the midst of this cultural explosion Li thought she wanted to grow up and be part of a National Geographic Magazine or maybe an Anthropologist. Whatever would let her travel to far off places to meet exotic people, speak new languages and try all kinds of cuisines. Li was a good student and she thought all of this would be possible. “And then in 9th grade 9/11 happened and it changed everything.”
“My city was attacked. Suddenly there was a lot of people in our county terrified of anybody different.” On the other hand the City That Never Sleeps did what it always does in a crisis. It banded together, helped their neighbors, dug out dead, got their chutzpah back, restarted businesses and marched forward. On the day of the attack Li was attending St. Savior High School in Park Slope. That morning the teachers turned on the televisions in the classrooms to watch the coverage of the attack. She remembered her father had told her about when War of the Worlds was read on the radio in 1938 by Orson Wells and everyone thought it was a real attack by Martians. “I thought it was trailers for a new movie.” The teachers, like many other New Yorkers, didn’t know what to do. Her father was a schoolteacher at the time in Queens. All phone communications were down and Li could not reach her father. Eventually all of the teachers headed home to their families and Li was left alone on the school steps. The subways and buses weren’t running and it took her father quite some time to reach Li.
“That was the moment where I realized I have to be more.” 13 year old Li recalled reading a newspaper article about Sergeant Jason Thomas. Sgt. Thomas was a Marine Corps veteran who grabbed his gear as soon as the first plane hit and headed to Ground Zero to help. Once a Marine always a Marine. “I remember reading that and I said that’s who I want to be. I wanted to go to the Middle East and figure out why these people are still in the frame of mind of war lords and us against them and why are we evil? Why did they attack us? I wanted to know why. I was so confused.”
Li decided to be a Marine but first she completed high School. Li had some trouble with in high school and went to boarding school for a year before returning to Bishop Ford High School to complete her senior year in 2006. She had not told her parents, who she described as recovering hippies. When she did announce to her family that she was going to be a Marine her great uncles Dick and Bill, both WWII Army Air Force veteran, gave her encouragement and told here should would be a great Marine.”
Li decided to attend Hunter College before joining the Marines. She was living in on her own in Bushwick, Brooklyn, working part time, attending college full time and was having a hard time juggling all the balls. “I was hardly eating. I would date to eat.” At the suggestion of her friend who was a Marine, she decided to enlist. There she met Sargent Morillas who asked what can you do? Li wanted to be an MP (Military Police). “I was tiny. I was 100 pounds soaking wet.” Sgt. Morillas had to submit a waiver for her to be an MP because she was too short. The waiver was not approved and now Li had to decide what to select as an MOS (Military Occupational Specialty). Li said she would take anything because she just wanted to be a Marine. So, she selected Admin and she was on her way to Parris Island to be made into a Marine.
I asked her what she thought of Basic Training. She had been a dancer for a long time and played volleyball soccer, lacrosse in high school. “The training was fun. It wasn’t that challenging for me.” I asked what it was like dealing with the Drill Instructors. The first day, while still on the bus, she smiled at the Drill Instructor while he was yelling. “His eyes popped out of his head. I was in trouble a lot.” When the time came to issue uniforms Li looked at the cover (hat) and told the women issuing the uniforms “this isn’t the cover. I’ve seen it on TV commercials.” Li was told the females were issued a different cover. “Since I got out they changed the cover and now the females wear the same as the males.”
In April of 2008 she completed basic training and went home for two weeks and married her boyfriend which she said was a big mistake. Li received orders to Marine Corps Combat Training in South Carolina. Li really liked her instructor who had served in both Iraq and Afghanistan. “He was my first look at a real Marine. “He smoked, he probably had a drinking problem but he could kill you in two seconds.”
Li got her first glimpse into the world of sexual harassment. It was clear to her that some of the female recruits were inviting sexual advances and some of the instructors were looking for it. She also remembers being told that she should decide what kind of female Marine she wanted to be. You had to choose, and you had to look that way. In the Marine Corps. perception is reality. Li was unaware if anything happened, but this wasn’t the standard she was expecting.
Li received her MOS as an Admin Specialist and received orders to the Marine Corps Air Station in Miramar, CA. She and her husband packed up their belongings and headed west. Her husband had a tough time transitioning to the role of military spouse. This created friction and eventually they divorced. Now Li was a single mother in the military.
Li struggled through several poor leaders in her time in the Marines. “Leadership is so important. If you have piss-poor leadership you’re not going to want to do anything.” She thought that some leaders forgot to show they cared about the Marines under their command. They apparently never learned the old adage, ‘need to show them you care about them before they are going to care about you.’ Li had a great deal of respect for her last boss and speculated that if she had that kind of leadership earlier in her career, she might have re-enlisted.
“I did enjoy my job. Mostly my job was taking care of our Marines.” Li coordinated travel arrangements, coordinated training, helped with certain family issues, and helped with the payroll. She enjoyed getting the calls to help troubleshoot and resove problems. Li was a single mother and had to juggle all that comes along with that. “My daughter called her baby-sitter mommy and it broke my heart.” Li knew it was time to move on.
After leaving the Corps Li went to school for massage therapy. “I loved it and tried to concentrate on sports injury therapy so I could continue to work with veterans and law enforcement.” Li hung out her own shingle and found the road of entrepreneurship wasn’t an easy one and she couldn’t get the business to a level to support her and her daughter. Since then Li has worked in other roles where she was helping veterans. “My oath of enlistment is never done. My responsibilities to my fellows in uniform is never over. I feel very committed to those who wore the boots and uniforms like a did because they don’t always get taken care of.”
Li has remarried to an active duty airman in the Air Force National Guard and has three children, 13, 3, 2.
“I love the Corps.” Would she let her daughters join the Marines? “Yes, but I would warn them. You can’t be too pretty, you can’t be too flirty, you can’t be too mean or too rough.” It’s a tough needle to thread.
It’s worth noting that Li’s recruiter showed a keen interest in helping her and they have stayed friends through the years. Now 1st Sargent Morillas is the Godfather to Li’s daughter.
Thank you Li, for paving a path for female Marines to follow. Maybe you can find a Drill Instructors cover (the male version) to help you keep the mini-Marines at home squared away.