Family Treasure

I recently got handed down to me various family artifacts. Among them was my great grandfather's Great War stuff. He enlisted with the 38th INF Div in Indiana in December 1916. He was a medic and arrived in France one week before the war ended. So while he saw no action, he did endure struggles of the times and the occupation after. I know as soldier how we complain while traveling during a deployment, but back then, they would go 2-3 days without food rations. They would live off what they carried which was often not much. My great grandfather Vance, kept a diary during his time. I also got all the letters and postcards he traded with his fiance/wife. They married while he was training at Camp Shelby, Miss during a time she visited. The letters were never hot and steamy, they were very formal and talked about everyday stuff. They wrote at least three times a week.

The documents of Vance's I got were awesome. It included a letter from Gen Pershing, who was Commander of the American forces, a letter from King George, and original morning reports. The letters were copies of the day, but are still awesome, as I have never seen them before. I also got his complete uniform except for the "drill sgt" style hat they wore of the day. I did get his helmet, jacket , real leather leggings, and his dog tags. I put alot of the stuff in a shadow box for display in my home. I have a military wall of all in my family who has served in the military of past. I am the only one of my generation of family (both sides) in the military. How sad is that?

Anyways, here is a linktr>SGT Vance Lewis WW1"> to a bunch of photos of what I got and the shadow box.I know most of us currently in the military keep our stuff, but what happens to it over the years? I am lucky I have a great aunt who took care of family treasures and kept them safe for future generations. Now I will keep them in good shape so future generations of my family will know of him. With two WW1 Vets left alive in the USA, it is important we keep their memory alive of what they did foe us.

Green card Soldiers

Couple of nice tidbits I realized recently. I interviewed a gentleman a couple years ago who immigrated here to the US when he was 11 yrs old. I did not understand his status because he was working but did not have a green card as of yet. He was 31 and wanted to serve in the military since he had been here for 20 years and wanted to "give something back". I was not able to work with him because he lacked a green card, plus I was also thinking he thought he could get his green card if he joined. He was working legally due to his status somehow, I don't understand all the alien statuses, maybe I should work on that.

Anyways, two years had passed since I met with him and I get a phone call from him. He told me that he now has his green card and he would now like to join. Awesome! So I started processing him to be a mechanic. H e has had a medical stopper that needs to be cleared, but soon he will be a soldier.

What I learned from this is never assume some one's motivations. While I am a staunch supporter of immigration reform to include securing our borders, there are many people that come here in some sort of legal status and most will contribute positively to our society.

Which brings me to my next recruit, Charles. Charles immigrated legally to the US 5 yrs ago from Kenya. he learned English there and graduated high school there. He went through a 5 year process to immigrate here legally with his wife. When he got here he got a GED so he was able to show employers his understanding of the English language. He is 40 yrs old, has 2 young children and now wants to join the military. When I met with him, he said he came across our web site from a search engine as he was researching military information, he did not know the difference between Guard and active, so I told him about both. He has always had an interest in the military and his wife supports him fully. One thing he told me was the isolation he and his African friends felt. They feel they don't get the same information, but granted, its out there, you just need to know how to look. So, like any good recruiter, I asked him if any of his friends would like to look into this, he said off hand he knew of four to five that would probably like this. Immigrant communities are tight knit and usually do not let outsiders in to their peer group, but once you get in and gain their trust, you can reap the benefits (marketing 101) So Charles is testing today and if all goes well, he will be in boots by end of the month, being 40 yrs old, he has extra medical stuff to go through, so it will not be a quick one. MEPS is really slow in that area.

So remember, we do have a number of green card holders in the military that serve honorably to protect our freedoms we are spoiled on and protect their new found freedoms, even though by joining the military, you give up alot of freedoms sort to speak. I even knew a Iranian who actually served in the Iranian military before immigrating to the US legally, I served with him on a mission for a year. Great guy.

So, whenever one deals with an immigrant alien, I stress look past stereotypes and put them in boots. If you them right, they may help you make mission the next couple months without working hard to find them.

Please share any thoughts!!

Recruit the recruiter

That's exactly what I ended up doing. We had one of the recruiters in my office quit in October, yes you can do that in the Guard. Anyways, I met this teacher at one of my high schools who is a substitute for the JROTC. Nice guy, did 9 years in the Corps, is 40 and still in good shape. His senior instructor was joking one day while I was there that he should get a gig like mine. The comment was made that those opportunities do not arise often. Well, I stepped in, talked to him a bit, pulled his scores and he was qualified. So I made my move. Two weeks later, I had him his physical and enlisted. He starts tomorrow. He is so pumped that he is not waiting for his uniforms to come in, he came with me to the PX and spent $200 to get a complete set of ACU's. Motivation, I love it.

I look forward to working with him, his personality will blend in nicely with the four of us already here, he has no apparent baggage that will wear him down like the last guy who left. The last guy has marriage issues, ex wife, baby's momma he was still in love with etc etc.

This also brings to light a trend that I see in the recruiting world, at least in my world, "older" citizens, particularly men, want to serve. I get alot of prior service people as old as 50 want to serve again. Some of the older guys don't cut it medically, but our office has succeeded in putting a couple nearly 50 guys. Granted, they are not combat troops, but the desire to serve, even part time is there.

I am also speaking to alot more 30 somethings about military service. they call me and some end of joining. The oldest person I have enlisted who never served was 38 and went to be a medic. I am excited about this trend, I do tell them about having much younger guys as their NCO's and they are not phased. They come from all walks of life, family guys, single, divorced, laborers and professionals. Their reason for joining usually is service to country or they want a change of career field and look to the military for the training.

The area I see the most lacking is the 23-29 age frame. Most of these young men think they are above military service and I have met some pompous asses for sure. I do find good one in the mix though.

Be assured readers, that as long as I am recruiting, there will be qualified good people who will enlist to protect our freedoms for years to come. They know what they are getting into and no one has ever accused me of lying or hiding something from them.

Till I blog again( I promise it wont be so long)

Loss of a Hero

Received some bad news on Friday. One of our Guard soldiers was killed in Baghdad on Oct 25, from a "penetrating IED". Four others in the hummer where critically injured. I did not know him, but he was about my age and assigned to a the Engineering Battalion that I recruit for. This is the third Virginia Guardsman killed this year. The two others were killed when their Blackhawk was shot down, killing all aboard. I knew one of them by acquaintance. Our state went two years without a deployment death in 2005 and 2006. Seven Virginia Guardsman have died since 2002, two in Afghanistan and five in Iraq. Two were killed in that Christmas time mess tent explosion 2005.

The shaped charge screams Iran made all over it. I believe we will have to deal with that in the near future as well.

I bring these up because it brings back to light the issue every recruiter deals with. Fear of deployment and the thought of getting killed or injured. While I do not downplay the fear, I try not to making it a focus of joining the military. I do address directly. That is the chance we take choosing to serve. We do not have a safe job by any means. yes its great to join the Guard and get all these great benefits, but I never let them forget why we are around. I don't want to scare a young to be warrior, but it is something they will have to deal with and think about if they choose to join our team. Many continue to join, there are no short supply of recruits. Most of my recruits find me before I find them. That's the way it should be, men and women wanting to serve, not me chasing them down asking if they want to join.

October is on track to be the lowest death rate in Iraq yet this year. That would be continued decline since summer over all. Hopefully the surge is working, which it seems to be, and we are taking their will to fight out of them. I do long for the day our troops will all come home, but I hope we do when the job is done and not a day before.

Pray for our troops, pray for the families of the ones we lost so that they may have the strength to continue on.

FY07... the forgotten.

Well, FY07 is behind me. I finished the year above mission and looked like a hero. But now that the new recruiting year has started, I am back to zero. What I did last year does not matter.

As I look back at my enlistments, some were hard, some were easy, but one thing is for sure, I am very proud to enlist all of them but one. The one I am not proud of is a dirt bag, he was joining for the wrong reasons, but whom am I to deny him, if I didn't enlist him someone else would have. He wasn't a criminal or anything, just a dirt bag in general, he had served before, I knew him when he was in before so I judged him appropriately. But he was a number and that's how I treated him.

Alot of my enlistments were to help pay for their college. Some joined to serve their country. And some joined to get some good training, usually mechanics. All of them understood the risks of possible deployments overseas, and they accepted the risks. I hope they are still willing when the call comes for their turn in a combat zone. None yet have come to me asking me how to get out of going to boot camp or anything, they have stayed pretty motivated and the ones that have come back from training have all had positive things to say about their experience. One thing they tell me is that it is exactly as I told them it would be, from the good, bad and ugly.

Not only did I exceed mission, two of my office mates exceeded as well and one just made mission on the last day of the year. Our fifth is new and fell short a couple, but he should do fine. So it was a great year for our team.

I look forward to another year in recruiting, I am already about to roll my first for the year, and should hit three enlistments this month.

We have our awards banquet in a couple weeks, we shall see how I fare. I don't expect much, just a overproduction award for the quarter and year. I do not wish to win the big stuff, then they come to expect it all the time, and I do have a family to hang out with, so recruiting does not consume all my time. This is not USAREC!! Thank-god.

Dale Jr is our boy!

Great news came out yesterday, Dale Jr, will drive the number 88 car sponsored by the National Guard and Amped energy drink. The most recignized name will be associated with our great organization! I don't know what this will do to recruiting, but it will sure bring the Guard to the lime light with him on our team!!

Can't wait until next year when the race comes thru town and I get to take around the Jr car. I like the last two cars design better, more patriotic, but the publicity and excitement he generates is is more than I can do by myself. Marketing just got a bit easier for me.

New view of California.

Last week I took some well deserved vacation. I already achieved mission for recruiting, so my wife and I ventured out to Northern California where my mother now lives. She lives in a suburb of San Francisco, the armpit of liberalism, which I despise. I saw things like medical marijuana clinic ads, lots of advertisements for houses of sin, etc, etc. However, the country side is beautiful! I went to redwood forests, wine country, the northern coastline, isolated lighthouses and even went to Santa Cruz to check out the coveted Mystery Spot. So I decided I would stop campaigning for California to form their own country and secede from the Union. L.A. can do so.

Now one thing I did see was a lot of protests to stop the war, wasn’t surprised there, but I did see a protest hat shocked the hell out of me. I saw protesters with signs to secure our borders!! In California!! There is hope for that state yet. There are people who understand what’s going on and they live there. Yeah for conservatives in California!!

With that said, if you have never visited California, do so, but make it northern California though. Go see the coast, the Golden Gate Bridge and other out of the way places like Point Arena. You will not be sorry.

PS: the above picture won me 2nd place in the state Fair photo contest for "scenec". I got some skillz, woo hoo