Recruit to gunny: 1st Marine graduates from talent acquisition program

When Justin Kelley left the Air Force in 2015, he was an E-5 – a staff sergeant in the service’s rank structure. But when he graduates Marine Corps boot camp at Parris Island, South Carolina, on Friday, he’ll be a gunnery sergeant — a two-rank promotion that will propel him directly into the Corps’ seasoned noncommissioned officer ranks.

This unconventional promotion, particularly for the Marine Corps, which often requires service transfers to start from the beginning of the rank structure, is thanks to the Marine Corps Talent Acquisition Program, or MCTAP, an initiative announced earlier this year designed to attract high-demand cyberspace warfare and signals intelligence talent into the service with the added incentive of seniority.

First promoted in June, the program quickly received some 50 applicants, representing prior-service Marines who’d gotten out; prospective transfers from other services; and civilians who’d never served before, said Master Gunnery Sgt. Sage Goyda, the program’s lead planner.

From that group, three were selected in an intensive application and interview process to participate in the program. Kelley, the only selectee who was not a prior Marine, was the first to enter the pipeline, checking into boot camp in September alongside all the other young recruits.

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In an interview with Marine Corps Times shortly after completing the final Crucible exercise and receiving his Eagle, Globe and Anchor emblem, Kelley, 38, acknowledged he’d had some misgivings about attending boot camp as a mid-career dad with 20 years more experience than most of his fellow recruits.

“What I thought was going to be the most challenging was what I ended up loving the most about this entire process,” Kelley said. “As an older man, I was not looking forward to a squad bay with 17, 18-year-olds. … What I found, though, is that I loved being with the young Marines. I loved being a part of their journey of becoming Marines.

“They looked at me as an older individual that had expertise to give, and from teaching them how to share to going through ‘Dear John’ letters with some of them, it was a rewarding experience for me that I didn’t expect to have.”

If the other recruits saw Kelley as a boot camp “dad,” Kelley said he made sure that the drill instructors knew he respected them. In a high-pressure panel interview before senior officers and NCOs as part of the MCTAP selection process, he said he was asked about that dynamic in particular.

“The answer I gave them was, absolutely all those Marines and drill instructors know infinitely more about being a Marine than I do,” Kelley said. “We can’t think about it in terms of age.”

For their part, he said, the DIs treated him no differently than any other recruit. Appointed a “guide” for his platoon, Kelley was even on the receiving end of extra incentive training when recruits in his unit fell short of expectations.

“Honestly, that ended up being kind of a blessing,” Kelley said, explaining that the experiences gave him a chance to mentor the younger recruits and encourage them in their growth.

Kelley’s drive to return to service after a decade in the Air Force and a civilian career as an entrepreneur, software developer and contractor training troops stemmed from a desire to put the skills he’d acquired to the most effective use possible in preparing for future conflicts.

With his cyber skills, that made him exactly the sort of candidate the Marines were seeking for the MCTAP.

“By wearing the uniform again, you’re putting skin into the game and saying, ‘I’m committed to making this a better process,’ and you’re also able to make those decisions, effect that policy change in a way that you would would never be able to [out of uniform],” Kelley said.

Boot camp, an immutable requirement for all MCTAP participants except for prior Marines, did come with intense physical challenges, but Kelley said he actually found these easier in his late 30s than he had in entry-level Air Force training as a younger man, crediting “a different type of mental fortitude” he’d acquired over the years.

His most memorable experiences, he said, were the extreme physical tests that forced the recruits to work together.

“The bond that you felt with that was so strong,” Kelley said. “It’s a very special feeling to have such a bond with young men that you never knew before, and in normal circumstances, you never would talk to.”

After Kelley graduates boot camp Dec. 20, he’s headed to Marine Corps Cyber Command, his destination unit, to begin putting his expertise to work as a member of the Marine Corps Reserves.

He knows that his presence may be viewed with suspicion by some Marines in a service that places a heavy emphasis on earning rank and status.

“Even in my short time here, you know, there have been some individuals who have been … concerned that this is going to be tarnishing the respect that is due to staff NCOs and NCOs in the Marine Corps,” Kelley said.

“I have no illusions about the fact that I know more about anyone else, about learning constantly from all the way from a staff sergeant to a lance corporal. Once I’ve had that conversation with them, every one of them to a T has said, ‘Well, okay, you know, maybe this program will work.’ Are there going to be those that are still naysayers? Absolutely, and the only way to prove them wrong is to do the job and do it well.”

The two MCTAP applicants in the final stages of selection, Goyda said, are both prior Marines who left the service as junior NCOs. They would not have to attend boot camp but may have required follow-on training before being able to report to their unit.

MCTAP, currently a pilot program set to expire in 2026, is still accepting applications, Goyda said, at talentmanagement@usmc.mil. He emphasized that MCTAP is not intended to be a shortcut to rank and seniority, but a recognition of expertise.

“They’re not being fast-tracked,” Goyda said, “They’re just earning their experience and education outside of the military.”

As for Kelley, he hopes that MCTAP will eventually work its way out of a job as the Corps’ ranks of cyber and signals intelligence experts become more robust.

“The point of the talent acquisition pilot is to find those skillsets that are desperately needed in the community and bring them to the Corps,” he said. “If I’m not doing my job, that means that a replacement for me in industry needs to be brought in.

“My aspirations are that this is no longer necessary and that we’re able to transpose our knowledge and build a core cadre of individuals that know what needs to be done, how to do it, and thus make this unnecessary. That’s my big picture.”