Ethan Treacy ‘23
Interviewed by Devon Chenelle ‘23
Where are you from?
I’m originally from a little town outside of Tallahassee, Florida, called Quincy.
And then after high school, you went to UGA [University of Georgia]?
Yep. It was just right. It was far enough away from home so that I was in a new place, but close enough that I could easily make it back when I needed to.
What did you do between your graduation from UGA and joining the Marine Corps?
I moved to Austin, Texas, and got a job as an insurance salesman in January 2013. It took me about eight months to realize I didn’t want to do that, and then I spent the next two years preparing to join the Marine Corps. I reported to Quantico, Virginia, in January 2016 for training, amidst a bitter winter storm. I commissioned as an officer ten weeks later on March 26, 2016, the proudest day of my life.
What did you do in the Marines?
I was a public affairs officer. Your role as a public affairs officer varies drastically based on what unit you’re with. My job while I was with the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit was primarily media relations, handling the public-facing image of my unit and managing our team of public affairs Marines, which I did for roughly a year. For an example of what my job entailed, on my first deployment one of our MV-22B Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft impacted the flight deck of one of our amphibious assault ships and went over into the water with twenty-six Marines onboard. Three of them tragically died in the accident. That’s a situation where my job is immediately implicated. Our unit is going to get a lot of media attention and my boss, the commanding officer, needs to have a public affairs officer to help advise him on how to handle the media side of the situation as it develops in real time.
Could you talk a little about your time working at the U.S. Embassy in the Philippines?
The United States has a very close relationship with the Philippines, and I was assigned to serve as the military public affairs representative at the US embassy in Manila. In this capacity, I stood at the intersection of the public affairs efforts of the U.S. Department of Defense, the Department of State, and the Armed Forces of the Philippines. I was briefing the ambassador two or three weeks after I got there, and it was this mind-blowing experience, where I was one of the youngest, most junior officers to ever fill that billet. The most interesting project I worked on was not well known on our side of the Pacific but is very well known in the Philippines: the return of the Balangiga Bells. When we fought the Philippine-American Wars, an army unit took three bells from a village in the Philippines. President Duterte and many others over the decades badly wanted these bells back. President Trump and Secretary of Defense Mattis got an authorization to return the bells, and it was the story of the year, perhaps the decade, for the US—Philippine relationship. People had been working for their return for decades, and a couple days before I left, we had a big ceremony where the bells were returned.
Let’s talk about your time as a liaison officer to a Japanese military unit.
There is a unit in Tokyo called the Bilateral Coordination Department where the ground services of the Japanese and American militaries coordinate their efforts. In that unit the US Army is represented by a full bird colonel, the Japan Ground Self-Defense Force is represented by two-star General, and 1st Lieutenant Treacy represented the Marines. It was quite surreal, because when we had meetings, the representative of each service would be at the table, and it would be two star general, a full bird colonel, and then me. I was representing to a foreign military and sister service unit of 30,000 Marines commanded by a three-star general, so it was extremely important that I be accurate, professional, and that I do my job well.
So why did you leave the Marine Corps?
Leaving the Corps was the hardest thing I ever did during my time in the Marines. Given my age, I felt that my choice was leaving when I did or staying in until retirement. There were too many other things that I want to do in life, so I decided I wasn’t going to stay for a whole career. I had always been interested in the law, so law school was the next logical step. None of my family or friends are surprised that I am here.
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ect6r@virginia.edu