Greg Ballard grew up in a crowded Indianapolis home, struggled through six years at Indiana University Bloomington and found direction only after walking into a military recruiting office. The former two-term mayor of Indianapolis traces a childhood shaped by four brothers, family secrets, his father's severe rheumatoid arthritis and his father's years working at Eli Lilly and Company. Ballard recalls earning a full academic scholarship to Cathedral High School, hitchhiking home from school, living with a broken front tooth for years and arriving at college unprepared for the freedom he suddenly had. At Indiana University Bloomington, Ballard started on a pre-med track before eventually majoring in economics. With withdrawals, incompletes and no clear plan, he wandered into a recruiting station expecting to speak with other military branches. Instead, a Marine recruiter convinced him to finish his degree and return as an officer candidate. Ballard describes the shock of Officer Candidates School at Quantico, where 110 of roughly 200 candidates finished. He also recounts the leadership lesson that changed how he thought about responsibility: as a squad leader, he was no longer judged only by his own performance, but by what his people were doing. The conversation follows his early assignments in transportation, his move into logistics after serving as an aide-de-camp to a general, and the wider view of the U.S. Marine Corps that came with the job. Ballard also talks about meeting Winnie in Southern California, their understated decision to marry over a conversation at Wendy's, and starting a family while his military career continued.
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