State of FORCECOM August 2014

Good Day, Marines,
This will be a brief note from the Office of Forces Command.
Now with another International Marine Muster come and gone and with the major awards season over, now is a good time to check out your personnel records on the database. No one’s going to know something is missing but you so it’s a good to get in the habit of reviewing your personal records every couple of months or so.

And besides, you may discover an award or two you didn’t know you received. That’s always a nice surprise.

It’s a fact of life in electronic record keeping that sometimes things go missing. An email may get eaten by a spam folder. Records can be lost on a hard drive. It is the responsibility of the individual to keep a copy of all his personal records, awards received, courses completed, etc. If you find an error, it’s certainly acceptable to point it out and request the data be added, updated or changed. Just know that you’ll need to provide documentation so that the appropriate correction to the database. Documentation can be a scanned copy of the certificate, an email from the issuing authority, a copy of a Unit or Brigade report noting the award, etc.

I can’t emphasis this point enough: if it can’t be documented, it can’t be changed, corrected or added. If this all sounds familiar, it’s something I try to stress every few months or so. It’s never a good idea to wait until the last moment to discover something’s missing, especially if you’re getting ready for a formal dress event like your Unit Holiday formal dinner or an upcoming Brigade Muster.

Just think of it as ‘preventative maintenance’.

And now, to close with a few numbers.

Breakdown of Assigned Marines based off of the August 2014 Brigade reports:

138 active Units spread over 14 Brigades
1BDE: 189 Marines assigned to 23 units [Active 109 / Reserve 80]
2BDE: 128 Marines assigned to 16 units [Active 96 / Reserve 32]
3BDE: 141 Marines assigned to 22 units [Active 85 / Reserve 56]
4BDE: 99 Marines assigned to 6 units [Active 78 / Reserve 21]
5BDE: 75 Marines assigned to 10 units [Active 40 / Reserve 20]
6BDE: 34 Marines assigned to 5 units [Active 24 / Reserve 10]
7BDE: 114 Marines assigned to 19 units [Active 65 / Reserve 49]
8BDE: no units reporting
9BDE: no units reporting
10BDE: 13 Marines assigned to 2 units [Active 8 / Reserve 5]
11BDE: 83 Marines assigned to 5 units [Active 64 / Reserve 19]
12BDE: 116 Marines assigned to 11 units [Active 71 / Reserve 45]
13BDE: 20 Marines assigned to 4 units [Active 13 / Reserve 7]
14BDE: no units reporting
15BDE: 58 Marines assigned to 7 units [Active 23 / Reserve 35]
16BDE: no units reporting
17BDE: 23 Marines assigned to 1 unit [Active 5 / Reserve 18]
18BDE: no units reporting
19BDE: no units reporting
20BDE: 52 Marines assigned to 7 units [Active 29 / Reserve 23]
Unassigned: 522 Marines
If, on review of your own unit or Brigade roster, if you think the numbers are adding up wrong, please contact FORCECOM as soon as possible so we can start figuring out why the numbers don’t match.
Stand Easy, Marines.

With Regards,
BGN Jari “Gato” James
COFORCECOM