Save Award 2010-Extended Deadline
There’s still time to enter the 2010 SAVE Award contest!
Did you create a project that could help the Department of Defense cut costs and operate more efficiently, but shelved it for next year’s SAVE Award? Well there’s still an opportunity for you to share your great idea this year!
The 2010 SAVE Award contest has been extended through this Thursday, and the DepSecDef is calling for all DoD employees to think big and submit their ideas. To enter, simply go to the following website and submit a project you believe will assist in streamlining work at the DoD and eliminate waste: http://saveaward2010.ideascale.com.
It only takes moments to enter, but participants gain the exciting ability to create change that will last a lifetime- as well as the unique chance of explaining their winning idea to the President at the White House.
You have two days- imagine the possibilities!
Read the announcement memorandum.
Helping our National Guard and Reserve Members
Hannah and Ian Clayborn look for their father, Spc. Dwaylin Clayborn, among returning troops during a welcome home ceremony for soldiers of the Arkansas National Guard's 39th Infantry Brigade Combat Team. (U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt. Chris A. Durney.)
By Dr. William Brim, Center for Deployment Psychology, deputy director, Defense Centers of Excellence for Psychological Health and Traumatic Brain Injury
DCoE’s Center for Deployment Psychology is concerned with the question: “Who is treating our guard and reserve servicemembers and their families after they leave active service and return to their communities?” Members of the guard and reserve are more vulnerable to chronic psychological health problems than active component service members, and it is vital that they have behavioral health providers who are trained to care for their needs.
All of our nation’s warriors, veterans and their families need their civilian providers to be aware of military culture and the impact that comes from a deployment. Patients report feeling frustrated when a provider fails to ask them about their military service or lacks knowledge of military ethos and culture.
A reason for guard and reserve members’ greater susceptibility to chronic psychological health concerns may be that after returning from duty, they often don’t have the same access to the military system of support and care as their active component brothers and sisters in arms. They may return to an inner city or a rural area for example, where they don’t have the kind of resources they would on base.
Warfighter Wednesday: Unity Conference in Iraq in the Heat of Summer
Lt. Col. Stanley P. Fugate, deputy commander for Civil Capacity 1-3 AAB FOB Falcon, Baghdad, Iraq
Lt. Col. Stanley P. Fugate is the 1st Advise and Assist Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division, deputy commander for Civil Capacity in Baghdad, Iraq. This is his first deployment to Iraq, but he has been deployed to Kuwait three other times. Fugate is the second in command of the Brigade.
If progress in civil capacity and the critical need for essential services are ever going to get better in Iraq it is going to have to be started and led by leaders in the new government of Iraq – from its provincial council members, its tribal leaders (sheiks), to its Iraqi Security Forces leaders. One way of working toward this goal is to do what the 2nd Brigade, 10th Mountain Division started in their area of responsibility in eastern Baghdad – an area that my brigade (1-3 AAB) took responsibility for in July.
To get the leaders in their area to talk and work together, the brigade (2-10) hosted an Iraqi Unity Conference with representation from across the Rusafa area and the local Iraqi society. The event was attended by approximately 100 Iraqis, comprising of Government of Iraq officials – Provincial Council members and National Assembly representatives, tribal sheiks, Iraqi Security Forces brigade leaders, community leaders, and representatives from the Provincial Reconstruction Team and United States Forces.
Photo: Invincible Spirit
The Los Angeles-class attack submarine USS Tuscon (SSN 770) transits the East Sea while leading a 13-ship formation. The Republic of Korea and the United States are conducting the combined alliance maritime and air readiness exercise "Invincible Spirit" in the seas east of the Korean peninsula from July 25-28, 2010. This is the first in a series of joint military exercises that will occur over the coming months in the East and West Seas. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Adam K. Thomas/Released)
The attack submarine USS Tuscon sails through the East Sea, July 26, 2010, while leading a 13-ship formation participating in the combined alliance maritime and air readiness exercise “Invincible Spirit.” The United States and South Korea are conducting the exercise in the seas east of the Korean peninsula from July 25-28, 2010. This is the first in a series of joint military exercises that will occur over the coming months in the East and West seas. U.S. Navy photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Adam K. Thomas
Receiving Retro Stop Loss Payment, Soldier Shares Story
By Mr. Thomas Breslin, who served in Iraq as a fire support officer in the 1st Brigade of the 1st Armored Division from 2006-2007. He separated from the military in June of 2007 and is currently the Chief of Response Doctrine for the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
I was sent an email by a friend early in the year that the Army was going to retroactively pay me for the approximately one year I was “stop-lossed” while I was deployed to Iraq. My initial reaction was one born of experience: “This is not going to be easy, I’m never going to see this money.”
The stop loss pay website isn’t the fanciest out there, but it no harder to deal with than filling out any other piece of military paperwork. I uploaded my DD214, which reflected my time in service, my original contract showing projected date for release from active duty and my orders to Iraq with the stop-loss language in it.
The website stated that I would need a memo stating my retirement was denied, I simply skipped it and provided the information I thought would be needed to prove I was stop lossed and crossed my fingers.
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