A Soldier's Perspective

What Have I Been Up To: The Answer

Hello, my loyal minions, er I mean readers. Or whatever you want to call yourselves. A couple of weeks ago I put all of you on task to make me laugh with an explanation of why I was very quiet during the month of July and most of this month. A few of you really made me laugh. Here are the top few.

1. Burning latrines? -stlview

2. Oh, I've got it, Cpl M is developing a new camel food. One that will be more fortified than what they feed them over there so the camels won't spit so much! -Donna

3. Growing a rock garden and populating it with pink flamingos and garden gnomes? -Miriam [Background story. Oh, and I ended up naming him Floyd.]

And the "Why I oughtta strangle you award" goes to. . .CJ, who will be firmly put in his place here before too long.
I'm going to spoil the fun and tell you what he's really been up to. CPL M has been working behind the scenes to trade in his Eagle and Globe for the much-coveted Army of One star. He's tired of being one of the few and the proud and desires to be Army Strong. To accomplish this, he has given up profanity, started to read books with words more than two syllables long, and realized that he wants to Be All That He Can Be.

Oh, and its Eagle, Globe, and Anchor you so-easy-a-caveman-could-do-it soldier.

While those are great guesses, well except for CJ's, they aren't anywhere near right. Still want to know? You don't?! Well, too bad. I'm telling you, even if you don't want to hear it.

During the month of July, a group of senior staff noncommissioned officers, called monitors, who deal out assignments traveled through MNF-W on what we in the Career Retention business call a Retention Assist Visit (RAV). Usually a Reenlistment/Lateral Move (RELM) request takes two to four weeks to get approved by HQMC, but during the RAV Marines can get approval on the spot with a greater chance of getting sweet duty stations. It takes a lot of work to get packages ready to be seen by the RAV team, even more work during the RAV to make sure all your Marines get seen and what they want, and then even more work after the team leaves to get contracts and certificates ready. All the Marines who get approval during the RAV have 48 hours to execute their reenlistment vice 10 days to several months taking the usual route. In the end, I had sixteen Marines get approved to reenlist! My population of Marines I take care of out here is relatively small, so sixteen is a great number.

I wish I could take all the credit for those Marines deciding to reenlist, but I can't. All of them love the Corps and believe in what we as Marines do. They are proud to wear the uniform and it really shows. I wish I could tell all of you the names so that you can congratulate them on their reenlistment, but I'm sure you understand the need for privacy and OpSec. So, for blog purposes, we'll call them the Gang of Sixteen. Congratulations to the Gang of Sixteen!

Those aren't the only reenlistments I've had while out here. I'll be sure to give out full retention results once I get back home.