BHA’s Armed Forces Initiative

[thebestusernamesaretaken]

The deployments have little to do with the moves. They might shift dates a little to plus up a unit prior to deployments. More has to do with "career progression". If you can make rank without moving and get a series of good commanders you can extend and stay with a unit(encouraged by army regs) but some dipsh#t commanders have their own ideas and refuse to sign extensions. There are lucky guys i know who have done 15/20 in one duty station.

The Marines call that homesteading and isn't normally encouraged except in heavily deployed units. Some units a Marine can spend their careers in without affecting promotions (heavily deployed and always on the move), and others will have a negative impact. Some of this seems to be changing now due to issues with life and family, they even try to keep Marines together for at least the first term because they become your family.

They want well rounded Marines who go to wherever the fight is. We moved all over time and time again, and were requested to do more. It was often a Unit move every 18 months to 36 months and a geographic move often after that 36 months. They even tried to move me just prior to getting out because they didn't believe I would actually leave.

I was in a unit that had one of the more active deployment schedules in the Corps at the time when I got married. We typically had a deployment schedule when we were just gone, and a training schedule that was used to train for the upcoming deployment and time to take leave. My wife and I got married at the beginning of this training cycle. During our first 12 months of marriage, I counted the number of nights that I actually slept in my own bed and it was 3 days short of 2 months. I counted every evening that I slept in my bed to include those nights when i came home after she was already sleeping and getting up and leaving a couple hours prior to dawn. I like to sleep in now!

Go Grunt Wife! Still married btw!