State of FORCECOM July 2015

At Ease, Marines,
First off I’d like to welcome LTC Leo Brunelle to the FORCECOM family.
He is stepping into the 11 Brigade Officer in Charge position. 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 your BDE OIC or your Unit OIC to have to dig or badger to get the information out of you. If you did something really cool, make sure your Unit OIC knows about it. If your unit did something spiffy, note it in your report.
Rule Two:

Please don’t wait until the last moment and expect things to happen on your time frame. We all have regular lives along with the time we spend with the SFMC and my abilities as a mind reader or precog have been greatly exaggerated. 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. And today is Friday 13 time zones away.
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. An Internet provider may be blocking 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.
So it’s simple as one, two, three.

** 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 but 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 the Marine Muster coming up at IC it’s always good to know that things are up to date. If something seems wrong, get with me ASAP so we both have time to figure it out and track it down. If an award is missing, I’ll need something that shows it was awarded to you: a scan of the cert, a comment from the issuing authority, something.

** Please, please, PLEASE! Always use your chain of command. Jumping over your Unit OIC and/or your BDE OIC and coming directly to FORCECOM or one of the other Commands may not be the fastest way of getting things fixed.
That’s all for now. Keep it safe out there and be nice to each other.
Stand Easy, Marines.

BGN Jari James

COFORCECOM