Articles

With the draw­down going strong, the mil­i­tary is look­ing for dis­crim­i­na­tors to ensure only Soldiers with good records can reen­list. We now have Brigade Commanders review­ing Soldier per­for­mance his­tory to see if they should be allowed to REUP! Team, this is seri­ous when your future is in the hands of a Colonel and not your com­pany com­man­der. Read more»

Bullying is counter to mil­i­tary val­ues and team­work. Yet, it is fre­quently a fact of life in the mil­i­tary. In part, this is because rank gives bul­lies power over peo­ple they out­rank. In addi­tion, yelling at peo­ple and get­ting in their face is noth­ing new in the mil­i­tary. This is why there is often a fine line between moti­vat­ing sub­or­di­nates and being a bully. Read more»

The Army, like any orga­ni­za­tion, must react and adapt itself accord­ing to chang­ing out­side con­di­tions. We are now enter­ing a part of the cycli­cal lifes­pan of the U.S. mil­i­tary called a draw­down. What does this mean to Soldiers? Simply put, if you have com­mit­ted an unfor­giv­able sin such as: DUI, drug use, lying, cheat­ing, or steal­ing you will have to work very hard to be retained. Read more»

There is a lot of work to be done before you sep­a­rate out of mil­i­tary ser­vice. It not only marks the end­ing of a career, but likely a com­plete uproot­ing of your life and dras­tic mod­i­fi­ca­tion to your lifestyle. Read more»

Now that we are through the hol­i­day sea­son and charg­ing for­ward towards Spring we face 2012, a pres­i­den­tial elec­tion year. That poten­tially spells prob­lems for mil­i­tary per­son­nel (active, Guard, Reserve, or retired) who want to be involved in the polit­i­cal process. This arti­cle is a quick ref­er­ence to help you nav­i­gate the var­i­ous polit­i­cal restric­tions that apply to you as a Service Member.

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What hap­pens after the deci­sion has been made to pur­sue Article 15 action? The fol­low­ing gen­eral advice is writ­ten pri­mar­ily for Soldiers fac­ing Article 15 pun­ish­ment and lead­ers who have sub­or­di­nates under­go­ing an Article 15. The focus is on Soldiers, but the same prin­ci­ples apply to Sailors, Marines, Airmen, and Coast Guardsmen. Read more»

The Bear Went Over the Mountain has been around since the 1980’s.  When Les Grau orig­i­nally wrote Bear it was printed only in lim­ited quan­ti­ties and largely over­looked because the mil­i­tary estab­lish­ment saw no real value in the book. After all, America had learned its les­son about fight­ing an insur­gent war in Vietnam. The Soviets got their butts kicked in Afghanistan and there was no way we would allow America to become involved in another insur­gency. Hmm… Funny how his­tory has a way of repeat­ing itself! Fast for­ward to 2001 and we were (and still are) in Afghanistan fight­ing the same enemy the Soviets fought, on the same ground, using the same tac­tics. Read more»

Staff Sergeant [now SFC] MacArthur Ocampo was born in Southern California, but at the age of ten he moved to the Philippines to live with his rel­a­tives. Graduating from high school at age fif­teen (yes, fif­teen), he entered uni­ver­sity and earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science with a minor in Computer Science. His goal… go on to law school and become a lawyer prac­tic­ing in his adopted coun­try of the Philippines. Read more»

New phase for the Afghanistan Campaign Medal, Transition I

HRC Awards Branch has pro­vided the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense (Personnel & Readiness) memo which announces the estab­lish­ment of a new cam­paign phase for the ACM.  The new cam­paign phase is “Transition I”, and the begin­ning date is 1 Jul 11. “Consolidation III” has been closed out effec­tive 30 Jun 11.  HRC Awards Branch will be pub­lish­ing a MILPER mes­sage at a date to be determined.

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According to MILPER MSG 11–306, Soldiers will see an adjust­ment in pro­mo­tion point dis­tri­b­u­tion for mil­i­tary edu­ca­tion on their Promotion Point Worksheet (PPW) on 5 December 2011. The change will become effec­tive for Soldiers being pro­moted on 1 January 2012 and later. Read more»

Moving. That one word can set fear into any­one who has done it once, twice, or 20 times like most mil­i­tary fam­i­lies have. Knowing you only have six months before the truck arrives to pack up every­thing you own is bad enough, but a one-week notice is some­times all you get. How many partially-used ketchup and mus­tard bot­tles have you given to (or inher­ited from) neigh­bors? Read more»

When you first come into the ser­vice, get­ting pro­moted seems easy. You do your job, and when you have enough time in ser­vice, you make E-2, then E-3. But sooner or later, it seems that you get stalled out. Your boss keeps rec­om­mend­ing other peo­ple for pro­mo­tion, but not you. What’s the deal? You’re just as good as they are, maybe even bet­ter. So how do you get out of this rut? Read more»