Mark Murphy on Marine Corps Leadership, Retirement, and Learning to Start Again
Mark Murphy wanted to be an infantry officer. The Marine Corps assigned him to air support and sent him to Okinawa.
It became a career he valued enough that leaving was difficult.
In this episode of The Unsung Veteran, the retired lieutenant colonel joins John Smith to talk about discovering purpose in an unexpected assignment, trusting senior enlisted leaders, and finding his footing after retirement. His story also includes a demanding first civilian job and the former colleagues who helped him find his next opportunity.
Watch the interview
Finding purpose in an unexpected assignment
Before becoming an officer, Mark served briefly as an enlisted reservist trained in heavy equipment maintenance. Going through boot camp gave him experience he later valued as a young officer, including a greater understanding of what enlisted Marines had been through.
Air support was not the career he had pictured. Even after his occupational training, he remembers still trying to understand what the work meant in practice.
His deployments to Iraq in 2003 and 2004 changed that. Seeing what his unit provided to Marines on the ground helped him understand the job’s purpose and become passionate about it.
He credits those deployments, and the people alongside him, with giving him reasons to stay.
Trusting the people who see what you miss
When Mark talks about command, he returns to the senior enlisted Marines he relied on.
He remembers two sergeants major with very different personalities. Both brought judgment and experience he trusted when difficult situations required a decision.
That trust extended to evaluating officers. After discussing their performance with other officers, he would ask his sergeant major for another perspective. What did they know that he did not? What might he be missing?
Their answers sometimes led him to reconsider.
For Mark, those relationships mattered because the people advising him understood the unit from a different position. Their perspective helped him make better-informed decisions.
Recognizing that the institution will carry on
Mark speaks candidly about the demands of Marine Corps life. Long hours, responsibility, and time away from family can become ordinary parts of the job.
He also cautions against believing the institution depends on any one person.
Looking at younger Marines, he saw capable people ready to carry the work forward. Passing on experience was part of his responsibility; accepting that someone else could take over was another.
That perspective did not make balancing service and family easy. He describes becoming more empathetic later in his career while still facing decisions that required accountability and attention to the mission.
Choosing where life would happen next
Mark says he would have stayed in the Marine Corps, but his family was ready to stop moving.
By his recollection, they had moved five times in five years. When retirement approached, they considered opportunities that could have kept them in Northern Virginia doing familiar work. They decided they wanted to live elsewhere.
They returned to Philadelphia, where Mark was from. He took some time during the summer to coach his child’s football team before beginning civilian work.
That experience shaped one of his first questions for people preparing to leave service: where do you want to live? For his family, choosing a place also helped define which work opportunities he would pursue.
Learning from a first civilian job
Mark’s first job after retirement was as an operations manager at a manufacturing facility. About a year later, he became the plant manager.
He learned a great deal and believes he helped put the plant in a better position. He also discovered that manufacturing was not the right fit for him.
The hours and stress were demanding enough that he jokes he had found a job tougher in those respects than the Marine Corps.
Looking back, he values what those two and a half years taught him. He developed new practical knowledge and gained experience leading outside the military. By the time of this interview, he had returned to defense work.
Accepting help from people who know you
Introducing himself to strangers and asking for help did not come naturally to Mark.
Reconnecting with people he had served with felt different. Former colleagues, including retired senior enlisted Marines working across defense organizations, helped him find his next role.
He connects those relationships with a straightforward principle: treat people respectfully. Being firm and doing the job well can coexist with being considerate.
Mark also encourages realistic expectations when entering a new field. Military leadership experience has value, but learning a company and its work takes time. In his view, accepting a position with room to learn can help someone build toward greater responsibility.
Your experience is worth sharing
Mark’s story includes a career he did not initially choose, people whose judgment he trusted, and a transition that took more than one step.
If you’re a veteran with a story to share, The Unsung Veteran welcomes you. Interviews are recorded remotely using Riverside. You’ll need an internet connection, a webcam, and headphones.