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State of FORCECOM October 2012

Greetings Marines,
I would like to start off this report by thanking LGEN Joseph C
Dorffner Jr and his marines in the 7th Brigade for the great time of
fun and fellowship at the Region 7 conference in Cherry Hill, NJ, I
really enjoyed getting to meet some of his marines and catching up
with some friends.
It is a good thing the General Bob Vosseller, is the CO of the USS
Challenger and not the navigator otherwise who knows where the
challenger would end up. Since he gets lost in his own neighborhood
and took 45 mins to get to the restaurant we went to for dinner on the
Friday which was only 5 mins down the road from the hotel.
One question I get all the time is oh I forgot to apply for the good
conduct award, can I get it back dated 3 times (that is9 years) the
answer to that is NO. The reason is you have to be responsible for
applying for your awards, although the Good conduct might be given
when you have been a marine for 3 years you have to apply for it
within the 6 months window when it is due.
People ask me about the dates of the SFMC reading challenge, the
Reading challenge runs from the report due after the International
Conference until the June report which is normally the report which is
due before the International Conference which is normally held in
August and that gives the office of Forcecom time to finish tabulating
the numbers from the June report and getting the final results for the
years totals and then get certificates created.
One way to encourage your marines to participate in the reading
challenge is to do like the Marines in the 1st Brigade do it, they
have a brigade reading challenge and they give the marine that reads
the most pages in the year a Brigade Achievement and they give the
unit and the battalion a Meritorious Unit award from the Brigade OIC,
this is one way to encourage some friendly competition between units
and if your brigade has Battalions between battalions as well.
I would like to ask all marines out there if you have copies of your
unit logo to please send them to me at forcecom at sfi-sfmc.org
If your ship used to have a marine unit and it does not have one any
more, please send me the details of the Unit like the unit number and
the unit name and the unit OIC’s name as I would like to create a
website to honour the units that made the sfmc what it is today, one
saying I once read said “Those who forget the past are doomed to
repeat it” so we need to honour those that have gone before us
Well until next time,
I hope all those in the path of the hurricane keep safe

John Kiwi Kane
Master Gunnery Sergeant, SFMC
Commanding Officer, Forces Command
STARFLEET Marine Corps
forcecom at sfi-sfmc.org]]>