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Sgts. major offer 6 ideas for improving Corps

A tougher warrant officer selection process, a crackdown on late fitness reports and shorter unaccompanied tours to Japan are among six recommendations the Corps’ senior enlisted community has pitched to Commandant Gen. James Conway.

Conway was briefed on the recommendations in August, said Sgt. Maj. Carlton Kent, the sergeant major of the Marine Corps. The proposals were generated after a week’s work at the Sergeants Major Symposium, an annual meeting in Washington where 68 policy concerns were whittled down to the top six suggestions.

The other recommendations pushed up to Conway include backing equal assignment incentive pay for sailors extended with Marine units, updating the amphibious doctrine guiding the Corps and Navy and removing Social Security numbers from dog tags.

If history is any indication, Marines can expect at least some of the six recommendations to become policy. In the past two years, for example, recommendations have included cracking down on body fat standards, approving campaign stars for operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom and barring forearm tattoo art.

All three of those recommendations have been adopted.

Warrant officer selections

The Corps has had a shortage of warrant officers for some time, but the sergeants major don’t want standards to slip when it comes to filling those positions, Kent said. With that in mind, they recommended changes to the warrant officer selection process, making it tougher for Marines passed over for promotions to become warrant officers.

Kent’s example: Two staff sergeants in the same military occupational specialty are up for a promotion to gunnery sergeant, but only one gets promoted. The following year, the passed-over staff sergeant is passed again, meaning his days in the Corps could be numbered.

Despite a second pass at moving up in the enlisted ranks, the stalled staff sergeant can apply to become a warrant officer, and hypothetically move into a position of authority in the same MOS as the new gunny deemed more worthy of a promotion.

From the sergeants major, the recommendation is twofold. First, the group said a form should be required in warrant officer application packets outlining a Marine’s promotion history, Kent said. Second, the Marines recommended changing the board precepts to preclude any Marine twice passed for an enlisted promotion from becoming a warrant officer.

“We’d rather be short than promote someone who is not maintaining the standards of the Marine Corps,” Kent said.

Fitrep crackdown

A longtime gripe in the Corps is that fitness reports are not submitted on a timely basis, negatively affecting both retention and Marines, as they go to their promotion boards without their latest evals. The sergeant major community wants that solved, Kent said.

Kent said that of all the fitness reports filed between Aug. 1, 2007, and July 31, 2008, about 95,000 — 52 percent — were submitted at least 30 days late. Of those, 44,000 (24 percent) were 60 days late, 27,000 (15 percent) were 90 days late and 18,000 (10 percent) were at least 120 days late.

“It’s in the best interests of these Marines and the future of the Corps to get these in on time,” Kent said. “You’ve got thousands of fitness reports annually that are submitted late, and that’s not fair.”

The trick, Kent said, is to hold reporting seniors accountable.

The sergeants major recommended that Conway publish a “white letter” to commanding generals, commanding officers and all officers in charge requiring that “all reporting officials … intensify both their reporting and supervision efforts regarding performance evaluation requirements,” according to the briefing presented to Conway.

The sergeants major also recommended required inspections on the timeliness of submissions by using the Automated Inspection Reporting System, where fitness reports are filed.

Shorter Japan tours

In 2004, the Corps extended unaccompanied tours to Japan from one to two years, putting it in line at the time with deployments by other services and giving commanders a chance to build continuity.

But the policy change has not come without pitfalls. The long tours are tough on families, and they prevent a large number of junior Marines from deploying to Iraq or Afghanistan, Kent said.

“The commandant’s motto is ‘Every Marine to the fight,’” Kent said. “But a lot of these Marines, they never get a chance to go because they can’t get back to a unit that’s going.”

The new recommendation out of the Sergeants Major Symposium is to drop unaccompanied tours from 24 months to 18 months, a compromise that allows some team-building in Japan but doesn’t stop Marines from deploying to the fight before they get out of the Corps.

“By putting it at 18 months, it can reduce some ... some hardships on families, too,” Kent said.

Conway has already acknowledged the hardships in Japan. In March 2007, he said the Corps was reviewing its policies for unaccompanied assignments, acknowledging it created problems for families.

“I think we’ve got to look at the whole of this and see what is effective, what is compassionate and gets the job done best,” he said.

Fair pay for corpsmen

When sailors deploy with Marine units, they live in the same conditions, eat the same food and face the same dangers. But when Marine units are extended in Iraq or Afghanistan, the sailors don’t get the same bonus pay.

That needs to change, the sergeants major say.

Navy command master chiefs — attending the symposium this year for the first time — successfully lobbied the sergeants major to ask Conway to research the possibility of giving sailors deployed with Marine units equal assignment incentive pay.

“Even though it’s a [Defense Department] policy, the Navy implements it one way and the Marine Corps implements it another,” said Command Master Chief Raphael Sanchez, who attended the symposium as the top enlisted sailor for I Marine Expeditionary Force and Marine Corps Central Command.

“When you have sailors and Marines serving together … discrepancies kind of show up, and it’s like, ‘Well, if they’re getting this, how come we’re not?’”

The Corps and Navy both have approved plans that authorize $800 per month in AIP and $200 per month in additional hardship pay to service members extended beyond 365 days of “boots on the ground.” But the Corps also authorized $250 per month in AIP for Marines extended more than 210 days but less than 365 — a policy the Navy has not adopted, said Navy Capt. Jerry Logan, acting director of the Navy’s Military Personnel Plans and Policy Division.

“The Navy’s retention, recruiting and mission requirements differ from the Marine Corps, thus we use Assignment Incentive Pay program differently to meet our service-specific needs,” Logan said.

Sanchez said the change would apply primarily to corpsmen but also to religious program specialists and other sailors serving with Marines. All told, there are about 8,000 sailors who serve with the Corps, he said.

Kent said it is still uncertain whether the Navy or the Corps would pay the sailors’ AIP, but the sergeants major want to spark the discussion.

“You’re talking about being fair,” Kent said. “We always have to be fair in the Marine Corps.”

New amphibious doctrine

After nearly 70 years without much change, the Corps’ amphibious doctrine needs updating, the sergeants majors say.

Their recommendation is to have the Corps launch a doctrine overhaul, focusing on things such as modern Marine air-ground task force operations, new intelligence capabilities and requirements and emerging threats to amphibious operations.

“We’re bringing a lot of ships online at the same time in the next few years, and [the doctrine] just doesn’t match the future plan that we have for war fighting,” Kent said. “The key to this is coordination between us and the Navy.”

Kent said many of the doctrine changes would focus on technology upgrades and fall outside the realm of items the Corps can change on its own. Still, “We want to bring them up from the Marine Corps side of the house,” he said.

The sergeants major recommended forming a working group at Marine Corps headquarters made up of subject matter experts from Fleet Marine Force units, Training and Education Command, Plans, Policy & Operations, the Center for Naval Analyses and Naval Amphibious Groups.

Dog tag changes

The sergeants major also suggested throwing the Corps’ support behind removing Social Security numbers from dog tags to guard against identity theft.

Kent said at least part of the number would be removed from dog tags and the entire Social Security number of a Marine would be removed from his or her dependents’ ID cards.

“That’s the key right there, to not take the whole number,” Kent said of the dog tag proposal. “We need to modify.”

Kent acknowledged changes may be needed at the Defense Department level but said the sergeants major wanted to rally behind the effort. They recommended establishing a group at Marine Corps headquarters to brainstorm a way to safeguard personal information while maintaining the ability to identify a service member.

As for the more than five dozen additional concerns the sergeants major brought to the table, many could become new policies down the road. Some subjects — the Corps’ rash of motorcycle fatalities this year among them — were under heavy discussion at the symposium but didn’t make the list, said Marines attending the meeting. That doesn’t mean they won’t be addressed; it just means taking them to the commandant isn’t a priority right now.

“We took the most important ones,” Kent said. “The other agenda items were being worked on already, or they can be worked on at other levels.”