State of FORCECOM April 2014

Good Day, Marines.
First off I’d like to welcome MGN Edward Tunis III to the FORCECOM family.  He is stepping into the 3BDE OIC slot.  As always, my thanks to those who volunteered for this position. People willing to give of their time are what keep this organization running.
Now on to some points I’d like to make this month.

** Three simple rules to enact change in the SFMC.

Rule One:
If it’s not written down, it doesn’t count.  It’s not the responsibility of FORCECOM or you BDE OIC to have to dig or badger to get the information out of you. If you and your unit did something spiffy, note it in your report. My abilities as a mind reader  or precog have been greatly exaggerated.

Rule Two:
Please don’t wait until the last moment and expect things to happen on your time.  We all have regular lives along with the time we spend with the SFMC and have to budget our lives. Remember the 5P’s: Prior Planning Prevents Poor Performance [I’m using the shorter polite version].  If it’s an honest mistake and time critical, just let us know and we’ll work with you. But don’t go all ‘AARRRR! I’m gonna eat your face!’ on us if you forgot to bring up something that should have been done three weeks ago, but is now due this Saturday.

Rule Three:
If you ‘did’ bring it to someone’s attention and so far nothing has happened, double check with the first  person you sent it to.  Sometimes stuff happens. The Internet eats emails.  And provider may block a particular service from time to time. Please give folks the benefit of the doubt. Don’t go postal on the individual. Don’t go postal on an email list about the situation.  Don’t go over the individual’s head and come to me going postal or badmouth them to me.  None of these are wining propositions.

** Reporting: Reporting date for Units is the first day of every reporting month [February, April, June, August, October, December].  If you need an exception of a day or so, contact your Brigade OIC in advance and get approval.  And remember, this grace period ‘is’ an exception.  It should not be the rule.  From the date you submit your Unit report, you know you have another one due in 60 days.  Don’t wait until the last moment.  This is not rocket science folks.  Late reporting or failure to report at all not only deprives your Unit the opportunity to earn it’s ‘REPORTING’ streamer for that year; depending on how much of a situation it has been it may put the continued existence of the unit in jeopardy.  So please remember, reporting does not just affect the individual Reporting Officer or NCO, it affects everyone in the Unit, Battalion and Brigade.

** As usual, this is your reminder to double check your personal data, course listing and awards records on the database.  With various Musters and IC coming up it’s always good to know that things are up to date.  The Database Management and CompOps teams are putting champion work and a lot of long hours fine tuning the code for the database.  Sometimes one simple change will make things go cranky for a bit. If, for any reason, your personal data or award listings don’t look quite right, please contact your Brigade OIC [with a cc to FORCECOM] as soon as possible.  We may have to dig a bit to get things sorted out so remember ‘Rule Two’ from above.

To close, as always, remember if you’ve got questions, remember to use your chain of command. Everyone from your Unit OIC up to the members of the General Staff are here to help you. Just run your thoughts and concerns up the chain and we’ll help you out.
Stand Easy, Marines.

BDR Jari “Gato” James
COFORCECOM