Men’s group participants get together weekly to specifically talk about issues men face

Photo By Adele Uphaus-Conner | The Men's Group, held weekly in Yale Hall, the Headquarters and Service Battalion headquarters, is a place for Marines, sailors, and civilians aboard Marine Corps Base Quantico to talk about events happening in their careers and personal lives and ask for advice and input.  

QUANTICO, VA, UNITED STATES

07.22.2016

Story by Adele Uphaus-Conner 

Marine Corps Base Quantico

“In the military, if I don’t know how to do a job I can always find an order or a manual that will tell me,” said Silbert “Harrison” Grant, Substance Abuse Control Officer (SACO) for Headquarters and Service Battalion aboard Marine Corps Base Quantico, and facilitator of the battalion’s weekly Men’s Group. “But there’s no manual for me, for Harrison.”
Grant said the Men’s Group, which he started in 2012, is a place for Marines and civilian Marines to come together and talk about how to be better sons, husbands, and fathers.
“We really tackle issues—what do we believe it takes to be a man?” he said.
Grant, who is from the New York City borough of Queens, retired from the Marine Corps in 2010 after serving for 22 years. He said that when he joined, he had no idea what he wanted to be, and he credits the Marine Corps and the mentors he encountered throughout his career in the service with giving him a sense of direction and guidance on how to be a good father.
During his post-retirement job as H&S Battalion SACO and through conversations with Sgt. Maj. Michael Moore and Col. James Brennan, battalion sergeant major and commanding officer at the time, he realized that uncertainty about basic life skills was a common factor among young Marines.
“There’s this sense of, ‘I don’t know how to manage growing or developing’” Grant said. “In the Marine Corps, many people never had a father, so how do you know how to be a good father if no one taught you? And if you never had someone talk to you about your feelings, how do you know how to talk to your children about theirs?
And we’re always thinking we’re the only ones with these questions. But we all have concerns and problems—trouble communicating with spouses, trouble raising teenagers, whatever.”
So he conceived of the Men’s Group.
“It’s about letting people see that they’re not alone,” he explained. “Guys can go and hear about how others might work through similar things.”
“It’s a rich environment of learning and sharing,” he added.
Grant said that in relationships with women, men tend to think of themselves as the fixers, the ones who have to figure things out. He said it can be hard for men to admit to their spouses that they don’t have the answers.
“But when men are with other men, it can be easier to admit that they don’t know,” he said. Touching on the common stereotype that men who are lost will never stop to ask for directions, he said “It’s OK to stop and say ‘I’m lost!’—or we can all just be lost together.”
The group meets on Wednesdays from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. in Yale Hall, the H&S Battalion headquarters building. Chow is provided courtesy of the battalion chaplain. Attendance is voluntary and fluid. Last names aren’t given, rank doesn’t matter, and everything shared in the group is confidential.
Contrary to the stereotype of what men talk about with each other, at a recent meeting of the group, the subjects of sports or sex did not come up once. Each man shared how his week had been and these stories led into a discussion of larger themes such as whether it is appropriate to discipline the children of family staying as extended houseguests, how to reconcile different parenting styles with a divorced spouse, and how to talk to children about the recent shootings of African American men and police officers.
Grant, who recently graduated from George Mason University with a master’s degree in social work, said that he doesn’t come up with specific themes for each meeting but that “there is always something to talk about.” What he tries to do always is highlight the importance of listening, communication, and respect for the individual—whether it’s the individual perspective of a Marine in the group or the individual perspective of a child at home who might be acting up.
“We all have something to bring to the table,” he said. “Everybody’s opinion is valid. You make someone invisible if you disregard their opinion.”
Grant wants Marines to think of the Men’s Group as “another tool in the tool box.”
“This base has a lot of great programs,” he said. “From the Consolidated Substance Abuse Counseling Center to the Suicide Prevention Program to the New Parent Support Program—there are a lot of people here working on furthering the person who wears the uniform.”
He credits the Marine Corps with “saving me from myself” and hopes he is helping other Marines on the road to being successful in their careers and their personal lives.
“I love watching people make that change and become empowered,” he said.

• Date Taken: 07.22.2016
• Date Posted: 07.22.2016 11:58
• Story ID: 204720
• Location: QUANTICO, VA, US
• Hometown: QUEENS, NY, US