By: Scott Cason
Photos by: Will Burns & Provided by: BILL TINNEY
ain is a sign of weakness leaving the body.” This is a saying most often connected to the ethos of the United States Marine Corps. Retired Marine Corps Chief Warrant Officer William “Bill” Tinney lives every day with pain in his back and neck from an improvised explosive device (IED) detonation in 2011 that nearly took his life in Afghanistan. This past May, Bill graduated from Fort Hays State University with a degree in organizational leadership, a credential he believes will aid him immensely in his post-retirement career as a high school teacher and counselor.
Bill grew up in Grove, a small town in northeast Oklahoma near the Missouri border. He admits that he could have been a better student, and if not for classmate Jessica Williams, he might not have made it through high school math, let alone high school graduation. Thankfully for him, Jessica saw more in young Bill than a struggling classmate. The two quickly became inseparable, and in 1999, four days after Jessica graduated from high school (she was two years behind him), the two eloped and married in nearby Harrison, Ark.
After high school, Bill worked for a landscaping company and as a “banquet coordinator” at a nearby lake resort, but he wanted to find something more meaningful. At the time, he knew nothing about the various branches of the military, but he liked the crispness and swagger he saw in the Marine Corps recruiters he met.
He decided to become a Marine and shipped off to recruit training in San Diego, Calif., in 1997, a destination he would return to 20 years later to close out his military career.
Bill’s service as a Fleet Marine began in the 6th Marine Regiment, a legendary formation that fought in major battles in World War I and World War II. He was assigned to a mortar squad, and as the team’s junior member, he usually had to lug the heaviest pieces of the unassembled weapon every time they changed position. Early in his service, Bill had the misfortune of falling out of the back of a Marine helicopter as it struggled to recover from an attempted landing gone wrong. He fell approximately 15 feet and landed on his back with his 30-pound mortar bipod stand strapped to his chest. He would avoid helicopter flights whenever possible for the rest of his military career.
In 2010, Bill shipped out for Afghanistan’s Helmand Province to take on his new role of providing weapons procurement, maintenance, and repair services for the front-line Marines fighting in the most hotly contested combat zone in the beleaguered country. His job required extensive travel to and from a network of widely scattered forward operating bases to ensure his Marines had the weapons and ammunition they needed. Bill knew the quickest way to move between bases was via helicopter, but his dread of rotary wing travel remained strong. If given the option, he preferred to move about the countryside as a passenger in a truck convoy.
In May of 2011, Bill was riding in the middle of a 136-vehicle fuel convoy when the column drove into a Taliban ambush. The fuel truck immediately ahead of his vehicle struck an IED. He knew the damaged vehicle would have to be towed clear of the dusty road before the convoy could continue. As a Marine Officer and a passenger without any actual convoy duties, he knew he needed to be the one to step up and get the job done. He exited the truck under Taliban gunfire and hooked the tow chains to the damaged vehicle.
As he was finishing his task, he saw the Afghan driver of the fuel truck immediately behind his vehicle begin to panic. Unable to intervene, he watched the driver put the truck in gear and attempt to drive around Bill’s truck. A seasoned combat and convoy veteran by this point in his career, he knew the driver’s panicked move was a recipe for disaster. Bill immediately began to dash back to the relative safety of his truck’s cabin, but the passing truck triggered a second IED before he could get back.
The IED blast blew Bill into the side of his truck, immediately rupturing several of the discs in his back and neck. Based on the nearness and ferocity of the blast, Bill’s colleagues thought he was surely dead. But seconds later, the truck door swung open, and there he stood, covered in dust and blood.
Deafened and severely injured, Bill and his colleagues went on to complete their fuel delivery mission and returned to Camp Leatherneck, the main Marine Corps base in Helmand Province. Bill knew he should have sought immediate medical attention at Camp Leatherneck, but he feared doing so would jeopardize his plans to finish his tour and make it to the 18-year mark of service, a point in his career when he was pretty much assured of making it to a full 20-year retirement.
Luckily, right next to Camp Leatherneck was Camp Bastion, the main military outpost for British forces in Afghanistan. He was treated there by British medical personnel, who didn’t report his treatment to their Marine neighbors. Ultimately, Bill’s hearing returned, and despite the constant pain, he completed his tour in Afghanistan.
Bill returned to the U.S. and was assigned to manage the armory at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot in San Diego, where his military career began nearly two decades before.
After his retirement in 2018, Jessica and Bill had to decide where they would begin the next phase of their lives. Bill wanted to move to Montana. Jessica wanted to return to Oklahoma. After two decades of Marine Corps-directed moves, it was finally Jessica’s turn to call the shots. Bill, Jessica, and their three children would return to Oklahoma, where Jessica resumed her teaching career.
Returning to Oklahoma, Bill accepted a position with Bixby High School as an instructor in the Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps (JROTC) program. JROTC at Bixby High is not a recruiting service for the military. It is a program modeled on the college ROTC program that seeks to prepare young men and women for life after high school, including college.
Bill immediately recognized that he knew nothing about college. He thought the best way to counsel young people about the value of a college education would be to learn firsthand by going to college.
He searched the internet for a college degree program that would best allow him to leverage his Marine Corps training and experience. His search led him to FHSU Online’s bachelor’s degree program in organizational leadership. In FHSU, Bill found a university that has earned recognition as a Military Friendly School for 16 straight years.
Bill enrolled and moved quickly through the program. He credits his leadership studies professors with helping him complete the challenging program.
One of those professors, Omer G. Voss Distinguished Professor of Leadership Programs, Dr. Donnette Noble, is herself a member of an extended military family. She saw qualities in him that she immediately recognized as the result of his Marine Corps experience.
“Bill is very diligent in all aspects of his life. He never missed a deadline, even when dealing with personal and family medical challenges,” Noble said. “He has a remarkable thirst for learning and enjoyed sharing how he was applying the principles he was learning in his work.” Noble worked with Bill on his Leadership 310 course service learning project. In this course, the student must identify an issue or problem and practice leadership by developing and implementing a community project. Bill’s project was to revamp a Junior ROTC program at Bixby High that was in decline. Noble admired the energy and commitment he put into the project.
“Bill was committed to turning his ROTC program into a vehicle for building character, not as a pipeline to military enlistment,” Noble said. “He has made it fun to be a cadet, and he’s instilled a sense of camaraderie and fun in the program that has turned it into a great draw for the students.”
Bill Tinney graduated from FHSU in May 2023. His only regret on that beautiful spring Kansas day was the memory that a Marine Corps change-of-duty assignment that moved the family from the east coast to the west coast cost Jessica her opportunity to participate in her own college graduation ceremony in 2012.
Fortunately, resiliency is as much a characteristic of a Marine Corps family as it is of the most hardened Leatherneck. Jessica, son Rhett, and daughter Kaydence, along with Bill’s twin sister, Annette Threeton, all made the 350-mile trek from eastern Oklahoma to Hays to attend commencement. After lingering a few hours to enjoy a reception hosted by the Department of Leadership Studies, the Tinneys piled back into their SUV to get back to Oklahoma in time for their oldest daughter Faith’s high school graduation. If Bill and Jessica Tinney have their way, nobody will ever have to miss another graduation ceremony again.