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Staff Sgt. Larry McMillan has jumped out of planes, trudged through swampy wetlands in enemy territory and counted himself among America's elite military men for 20 years.

But the Germantown resident has traded all of that for a new mission: stringing colored lights in the shapes of bears, geese and sunflowers over the flora at Brookside Gardens.

McMillan, a 60-year-old retired member of the army Special Forces, is the man behind the Garden of Lights, one of the Wheaton garden's most popular holiday attractions.

The regimented Green Beret joined the gardens four years ago as a seasonal helper after he was laid off from a 17-year stint at Kmart.

"I saw an ad for a light show—whatever the heck that was—and applied," he said while standing outside the garden's Visitor's Center on Friday hours before the show's premier, a plug for a lighted purple hyacinth in one leathered hand and a switch-blade in the other.

At first, the hardened man in the camouflage cap didn't quite fit the profile for an Earth-loving Brookside gardener.

McMillan is right out of a war scene on "Forrest Gump," said McMillan's boss, landscape supervisor Jeff Patterson: He doesn't eat breakfast or lunch, he drinks two cups of coffee before bed, his arms are covered in tattoos and a pack of Marlboro Lights is never far from his hands.

"He started out as this rough-and-tough-nobody-wants-to-mess-with-him ex-marine," Patterson said.

Maybe it was a result of his years of globetrotting, from the jungles in Southeast Asia to the tropics in Central America, but McMillan quickly slipped right into daily life at the garden. In his short tenure at Brookside, he steadily climbed the ranks from light-show wrapper to turf-maintenance guy to supervisor of both.

And the staff warmed.

"He has a really hard exterior, but he's a big softie," said Katie Hillesland, the designer for much of the displays at the Garden of Lights.

A year later, McMillan's horticulture-enthusiast wife, Cathy Tait, was hired on as a gardener's assistant. Her presence shone a new light on McMillan, said Leslie McDermott, the communications director at Brookside.

"It was funny to see this tough, military guy being called sweetie by his wife on the radio," she said.

McMillan takes all of the tough-guy-gone-gardener jokes in stride. Example one: A tall cherry tree near the reflection terrace that's fondly referred to as "Larry's tree."

It was April, and McMillan was finishing tearing down last year's show, stretched out on an orchard ladder about 10 feet in the air to unwrap the tree. But spring's warmth had not yet unfrosted the frozen ground, and McMillan leaned an inch too far.

"The ladder kicked out from under me, and I landed on my back," he said. He pulled every muscle in his body and almost fractured four vertebrae. But there was no lamenting the month he was forced to stay home—instead the accident became a joke among staff, something to kid him about.

When he came back, was he hesitant to climb a ladder again?

"No," he scoffed. "I used to jump out of airplanes."

It's McMillan's lore that keeps his staff in line, some say. He demands a lot from his staff, and procrastinators beware — his patience for milling about is non-existent.

But the hard-workers always get something in return for following his curt orders.

"Larry will respect the hell out of you if you work," Patterson said.

McMillan admits his style is a bit "gruff."

"I think I get along with people good — even though I can be a bit of a hard-nose," he said with a rare smile twisting across his face.

Of course, he sets the example himself.

"There ain't a whole lot here anybody can ask of me that I won't do," he said.

But McMillan retains some aura of mystery. He can't talk too specifically about where he's been or what he's done in the army. When asked if he served in the Vietnam War, McMillan pulls out a Marlboro Light cigarette from under his faded sweatshirt, lights it and takes a puff.

"I don't talk about that," he said. "Back then, it was either join or get drafted."

He will open up about his moonlight job as a state-certified wildlife-control operator. Wearing that hat at the garden, he traps squirrels, rabbits and raccoons — all enemies of the fertile soil plants need to grow.

He relocates the healthy animals, but any rabid raccoon caught by McMillan is doomed.

"I can put a 22-caliber bullet in their head," McMillan said. The state mandates the disease-ridden animals be destroyed, he explained. He added that he makes sure he kills the poor beast humanely.

McMillan is no stranger to weapons in wildlife or on the battlefield: He's also a hunter-safety, bow-hunter and trapping instructor.

And while he's happy at Brookside, he finds the Washington, D.C., region "too busy."

Perhaps that's why he's found some solace and a home in Montgomery County's refuge.