CONVERSATIONS WITH JUSTIN CONSTANTINE
Some may say RETIRED U.S. MARINE CORPS LIEUTENANT COLONEL
JUSTIN CONSTANTINE’s story is nothing short of a miracle. By all accounts, he
should have been dead after he was shot in the head by an enemy sniper while on
a routine combat patrol in Iraq in 2006.
In his book My Battlefield, Your Office, he wrote: “I cannot see out of my left
eye. I am missing most of my teeth and the end of my tongue. I cannot run—the
doctors removed several bones in my legs to use in reconstructing my upper and
lower jaws.”
And yet, despite these challenges, Constantine not only survived and
recovered, but went on to work for the Department of Justice and for the Federal
Bureau of Investigation’s counter-terrorism team. He also worked as senior
advisor to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Hiring Our Heroes campaign and later
became a TED speaker. Rightly so, he calls his new life his second act.
PULSE: You were pursuing a degree in law when you
decided to serve and join the military. What inspired you
to serve?
Justin Constantine: A good friend of my father’s had been
a U.S. Marine officer who served in Vietnam,
and when I was in high school, he
encouraged me to join the U.S. Marine
Corps. I applied for a Reserve Officers’
Training Corps (ROTC) scholarship for
college, but did not make the cut. I had to
work several jobs each summer during
college to pay for school, so going to Officer
Candidate School during the summertime
was not an option. Ultimately, I was working
at the school gym during law school and a
friend came by to talk for a few minutes. When
he left, he said he was going to see the officer recruiter. I asked
him what he was talking about since we were 27 years old. He
said there was a specific program for attorneys in the U.S. Marine
Corps, and I told him to tell the recruiter I would be down the
next day. That was April 1, 1997.
P: You have survived one of the toughest adversities few
could imagine: a catastrophic gunshot wound in the
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PULSE
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head. How did you manage to not only survive but rise
above such life-changing adversity?
C: First, I have been extremely fortunate during my recovery. This
starts from the amazing Navy Corpsman George Grant, who
saved my life in Iraq, to my amazing wife Dahlia who
dropped everything in her life to be with me after I was
injured and who accepted my marriage proposal two years
after I was injured—it also includes the myriad of programs
designed to support our veterans that I have participated in
over the years. Second, I always knew I was going to have
a successful recovery, and I made a conscious decision to
not only do really well at everything I spent time on, but
to also focus on the things in life that were consistent
with my short- and long-term goals. I also learned that it
is okay to ask for help when it is warranted, and I
encourage people to do a lot more of that.
P: Much like in the U.S. Marines wherein teamwork is
deemed critical, you’ve stressed in your book the need for
those in management to take care of their team. Can you
share some advice on how managers can put their team
top priority?
C: Yes, taking care of your people should be a manager’s top
priority. There are several easy ways to demonstrate this. Of