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MARINE CORPS
DIAMOND DRESS WATCH
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Or, Mail to: Veterans Commemoratives™
2 Radnor Corp. Center, Suite 120, Radnor, PA 19087-4599
YES. I wish to order the Marine Corps Diamond
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Initials ( 3): ___ ___ ___ Svc. Yrs: _____ to _____
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* Plus $7.95 for engraving, shipping, and handling. © ICM 2005-2007
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consider joining the SMCR to earn hundreds of dollars a month while working
toward retirement pay.
If they join a SMCR unit, “it’s not a
ticket out of Fallujah, but you can set the
time” of deployment, MajGen Davis told
them.
He said the Marines are “working very
hard” to correct a number of problems the
reservists encounter. One is a lack of the
“good family-readiness system” available
to active-duty Marines at the bases and
stations.
When active-duty Marines return from
the war zone, they have their buddies to
talk to and have access to counseling services. When reservists finish a mobilization,
they “are scattered all over the country”
and are surrounded by people who may not
understand what they have experienced.
The Marine Forces Reserve command
is “really going to throw our arms around
them on redeployment home. That’s when
we’re seeing the most stress—with families and employers,” the general said.
“A gap between military and VA health
care” also remains, although that is getting better, he noted.
Additionally, they are trying to find ways
to help college students. Although federal
law protects reservists whose civilian employment is disrupted by activation, there
is no guarantee that a college student can
get a refund of tuition and fees for an interrupted semester or be readmitted to
school after mobilization, he said.
To help alleviate some of those problems, the Corps is forming Peacetime Wartime Support Teams (PWST) at more of
the Reserve centers around the country.
Made up of Individual Mobilization Aug-mentees (Marine reservists who drill regularly, but are not members of SMCR
units), these teams will try to provide some
of the support available to the active force.
Those teams will become responsible
for IRR musters. “This will be the last of
the grand hotel [located] musters by MobCom staff,” MajGen Davis said. Future
musters will be conducted at Reserve
centers by PWSTs. “I’m urging them to
be done on drill weekends, so IRRs can
see other [Reserve] Marines and maybe
want to join,” he said.
The Marines also are working to reduce
the frequency of Reserve mobilizations.
Members of the selective Reserve have
been activated under a 1-4 ratio, meaning
they are mobilized for one year, then remain in the Reserve for four years. Under
new guidance from Defense Secretary
Robert M. Gates, they will be able to stay
at home for five years before being mobilized again.
During this muster, Marines updated their personal information and also heard briefings from Marine Corps
Mobilization Command partners: the U.S. Departments
of Veterans Affairs and Labor as well as the Arizona Department of Veterans’ Services.
Marines are “working very
hard” to correct a number of
problems the reservists
encounter. One is a lack of the
“good family-readiness system”
available to active-duty Marines
at the bases and stations.
—MajGen Andrew B. Davis
To achieve that, the number of Marine
reservists on active duty at any one time
will be cut to 6,000, Marine officials said.
“We think in following that, we can
provide one battalion from the [Fourth]
Division for every seven-month deployment and can provide the needed logistic
support,” MajGen Davis said.
“That force generation model gives
predictability. The Marines know when
they are going to go.”
Editor’s note: An additional IRR muster
was held Feb. 23, at the Reserve center in
Anacostia, Md., just across the Anacostia
River from Washington, D.C.
A former artillery fire-direction con-trolman, Otto Kreisher became a U.S.
Navy officer through the flight program.
As a correspondent for Copley News Service, he was with 1stMarDiv in Operation
Desert Storm. He is now a national security reporter for Copley News Service.
