Pentagon leaders announced last week that they were rescinding the 1994 Combat Exclusion Policy that kept women out of ground combat units, raising a host of questions about what will change for rank-and-file service members. This week, Marine Corps Times addresses many of those concerns. Our cover story is splashed across four pages inside the magazine, and includes interviews with Lt. Gen. Robert Milstead, deputy commandant for manpower and reserve affairs, Sergeant Major of the Marine Corps Mike Barrett, and other senior leaders. By now, it seems safe to assume that nearly all of our readers are aware of the…
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More than 237 years ago, the Marine Corps was born at a bar in Philadelphia’s Tun Tavern. No matter: top brass is getting serious about squashing binge drinking. This week’s Marine Corps Times cover story focuses on the service’s new initiative: requiring surprise breathalyzer tests from Marines on duty. They’ll get them most frequently when they show up to work in the morning, and face additional testing, alcohol abuse counseling and other consequences if they’re identified as binge drinkers. This is the latest piece to the Corps’ war on alcohol abuse. As Marine Corps Times reported in August, the service…
This week’s Marine Corps Times takes a look at the Marine Corps’ intense efforts to bring all Marines in line with the service’s body fat standards. After the growth to 202,000 Marines ended, leadership cracked down on fat Marines, and thousands were assigned to the Body Composition Program in 2010. But with the drawdown now underway and competition at its peak, those numbers have fallen steadily each year since. Other services, which have also re-emphasized fitness standards, have seen even more dramatic results than the Marine Corps, with significant increases in the number of soldiers, sailors and airmen getting the…
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The Marine Corps’ ongoing reduction in forces means many things to our readers — including fewer promotion opportunities in many military occupational specialties and expanded incentive programs to leave the service. This week’s Marine Corps Times weighs in on both of those issues. The main cover story outlines the ranks and jobs where the Corps’ promotion system is jammed up, and what the service is doing to fix it. We also lay out the details in the fiscal 2013 version of the Voluntary Enlisted Early Release Program, which will allow eligible enlisted Marines to leave the service up to a…
Marine Corps got you down? Worried about your next career move? Some people reach out to “Dear Abby” for advice. That’s the case, at least, based on this recent installment of the long-running advice column. The themes captured will immediately be familiar to many Marine Corps Times readers: DEAR ABBY: My son is 24 and was honorably discharged as a corporal after a four-year enlistment in the U.S. Marine Corps. He was deployed twice to Iraq. Since his return he has been attending community college, but he lacks the focus and is bored. He has recently announced that he would…
The Marine Corps may be in the process of drawing down from 202,100 Marines to 182,100, but there are still plenty of opportunities for personnel to cash in if they’re willing to take on the right job. That immediately becomes obvious when examining the Corps’ 2013 Selective Reenlistment Bonus plan, which is the subject of this week’s Marine Corps Times cover story. First-term Marines are eligible to receive up to $69,750, and 18 military occupational specialties actually will see larger bonuses in 2013 than they did in 2012. With assistance from Manpower and Reserve Affairs out of Quantico, Va., we…
By now it’s no news that the military is facing serious cuts. The Marine Corps alone will drop 20,000 over the next five years. But just how leaders will make those cuts has been a mystery — until now. To get the lowdown on how the Marine Corps will drawdown by 2016, and what the plan means for you, check out this week’s edition of Marine Corps Times. For our cover story, we traveled to Camp Lejeune, N.C., to sit in on a briefing by the drawdown’s architects who are now on an eight-week tour of the fleet. In it,…
It’s no secret that the Marine Corps will trim 20,000 Marines from its end strength by fall 2016, but Commandant Gen. Jim Amos has offered few details so far about how that will occur. Amos and other top Marine officials have been clear about how it won’t be done, of course. The Corps will not “break faith” with its Marines, they’ve said repeatedly, a catchphrase that represents their promise to not authorize reductions in force, which would result in existing contracts being broken. What about how it will be done, though? This week’s Marine Corps Times cover story addresses that,…
Throughout the Corps, anxiety is high as Marines and their families wait to learn how the commandant intends to execute massive force cuts ordered in January by Defense Secretary Leon Panetta. And their uneasiness certainly is justified. The reality is that over the next five years, the service will purge some 20,000 from the active-duty force — about as many as it added during the latter part of the last decade to sustain operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. This week’s cover story, which was co-reported by Marines Corps Times’ senior staff writers Gina Cavallaro and Dan Lamothe, examines how the…
