Lt. Gen. James Glynn speaks during a ceremony at Marine Corps Base Hawaii, Thursday, Sept. 12, 2024, during which he assumed command of Marine Corps Forces Pacific. (Wyatt Olson/Stars and Stripes)
MARINE CORPS BASE HAWAII — James Glynn was just a young Marine lieutenant when he and his future wife, Denise, gazed at the beauty of the cloud-catching mountains of central Oahu.
“If we could get a set of orders back here, what a day that would be,” Lt. Gen. Glynn recalled telling her during a ceremony Thursday at Marine Corps Base Hawaii, where he assumed command of Marine Corps Forces Pacific.
“We pursued those orders for more than 30 years,” Glynn, most recently the deputy commandant for manpower and reserve affairs, said with a laugh.
“I finally became the guy that cut the orders and somehow convinced the commandant that maybe that would be a good idea.”
Glynn took the reins from Lt. Gen. William Jurney, who is retiring after 37 years in the Corps. He began as an enlisted infantryman and became an officer via the Enlisted Commissioning Program.
Jurney told the audience he felt proud of a career “pushing hard every day” with planning and executing operations “in the field and in the fight.”
“So going out with my boots on, as I would say, is exactly where I wanted to be and how I wanted it,” he said.
“I’m the guy who says you’re either getting better or you’re getting worse,” Jurney said while reflecting upon his career. “There’s no staying the same.
Lt. Gen. James Glynn, left, assumes command of Marine Corps Forces Pacific from Lt. Gen. William Jurney, center, at Marine Corps Base Hawaii, Thursday, Sept. 12, 2024. (Wyatt Olson/Stars and Stripes)
“Because I submit to you that if you think you’re staying the same, our adversaries are working harder than us, and by default, you are, in fact, getting worse.”
Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Eric Smith praised Jurney as almost — almost — irreplaceable.
“You can’t replace a Bill Jurney,” Smith told the audience, then paused.
“But if you’re gonna, you do it with Jim Glynn and Denise,” Smith said. “He and Denise are the complete package.”
Glynn now commands a force composed of roughly 80,000 Marines, sailors and civilians.
Marine Corps Forces Pacific, headquartered at Camp Smith, Oahu, includes the I Marine Expeditionary Force based in California and Arizona and the III Marine Expeditionary Force based in Hawaii and Japan.
It is the Corps’ largest operational command and comprises two-thirds of the service’s active-duty combat forces.
Under Jurney’s tenure, Pacific Marines were involved in the first deployment of the Amphibious Combat Vehicle with the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit, the redesignation of 12th Marine Regiment to 12th Marine Littoral Regiment and the transition of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Squadron 3 from the RQ-21A to the MQ-9A MUX/MALE.
Glynn was commissioned in 1989 and served as a rifle platoon commander during Operation Desert Shield and Desert Storm in the early 1990s.
During Operation Iraqi Freedom, he was a battalion landing team commander with both the 15th and 31st Marine Expeditionary Units.
He is a graduate of the Marine Corps Amphibious Warfare School, Army War College and the Harvard Business School Advanced Management Program.
“You should expect me to be out front, ensuring that you have what you need and that you’re taken care of, so that we can achieve the things in support of our partners and allies,” Glynn told the troops on the parade ground for the ceremony.
