Camp Lejeune: The General's Visit

We had a gathering of all the activated reservists who will be a part of 1st Battalion 10th Marines’ Task Force Military Police (TFMP) while in Iraq in order to hear from Lt. General Bergman of the 4th Marine Division (the Reserve Division). He had a lot of motivating things to say and helped remind me that there are very smart and competent leaders in our military (sometimes a few errant NCO’s and SNCO’s give me doubts!) The general came primarily to check up on us reservists to see how we were doing and how we were coming along in our mobilization pre-deployment training.

He said that it was good that many of us had not deployed before because "multi-deployers have the potential to be the most dangerous." This is because the war in Iraq changes so often that what worked 6 months ago may not work today and those who have already developed habits or a ‘know-it-all’ mentality about that war would be at a greater risk to themselves and their fellow Marines. This came mostly as a warning to us that we should all keep an open mind and seek first to understand the nature of the war and our task before developing and sticking to arbitrary SOP’s (standard operating procedures).

The General also spoke of the vitality of cultural awareness training for this particular conflict. He emphasized the necessity of winning the hearts and minds of Iraqi’s as the way out of Iraq and as personally important to our safety because the Iraqi you offend today may become the terrorist that kills your comrade tomorrow. He also put our minds at ease about the political turmoil over pulling out: "if we pulled out tomorrow we’d be somewhere else, we (The Marines) wrote the book on small wars," meaning that as reservists we would be effected the same way by pulling out because of the many micro-fronts on the war on terror (to include Indonesia and the Philippines) which would still require our service. The Marine Corps has a rich and vibrant history and successful record of fighting small conflicts all over the globe in ‘every clime and place.’

He went on to say that "the American people believe in you" and that we should walk with our heads held high despite the seeming out lash everywhere that is created by the loud cacophony of a liberal minority. Finally he exhorted us to live by our Marine Corps values and assured us that if we do we would not have any problems in Iraq like those that have dominated the recent media spotlight (Haditha, etc.). He asked us "would you do the right thing while alone?" I was surprised that he spoke in these terms. In a way, the General reminded me of a wise Bishop or Stake President in my church.

A few questions were asked, two in particular that caught my attention. The first was about tattoos which will become the topic of my next blog entry and the second was about the accessibility of Tricare health care benefits to our dependents while on active duty. Apparently, as reservists we are entitled to Tricare benefits for ourselves and dependents for up to 90 days prior to our mobilization (activation date). However, those benefits are only accessed once you have been issued your official activation/mobilization orders. In our case we were notified that we were being activated way back in January, a full 5 months prior to our activation date, however we were not given our orders until approximately 2 weeks prior to our actual date of activation. The problem here is that many people had to quit jobs or make serious life re-arrangements prior to our activation date because there were a number of training days and annual training for 3 weeks right before our activation date. This would potentially leave many people without health insurance coverage for a time. According to the General, we were supposed to be given our orders around the 90 day prior mark and thus yield the health insurance benefits. He wasn’t sure why our orders were not issued in a more timely fashion but he promised to find out. All in all it was neat to have an afternoon with the stars! Oh, by the way, Camp Lejeune is very hot and I think I sweat continuously every minute of every day here.