Less than a month after taking command of the Marine Corps, Gen. Joe Dunford has become the first acting commandant to send a Tweet.
"Great day for a motivating birthday run," Dunford sent from the account @GenDunford Friday, three days before the Nov. 10 anniversary of the founding of the Marine Corps. "Happy birthday, Marines."
Dunford joins Sergeant Major of the Marine Corps Mike Barrett on the social media network. Barrett joined Twitter in April 2013 and has since made good use of it, with 118 published tweets and nearly 6,000 followers.
"Marines, please welcome aboard our 36th Commandant @GenDunford to Twitter!" Barrett wrote on his account minutes after Dunford's Tweet.
As of this morning, Dunford followed just 18 official accounts, including the Twitter presences for all the military services and the joint staff, and personal accounts of service leaders and senior enlisted advisers.
Twitter may need to verify Dunford's account soon; as Marine Corps Times previously reported, he is among a group of senior military officials whose identities have been frequently appropriated for online "romance hoaxes" and "phishing scams." Army chief of staff Gen. Ray Odierno is another frequent victim of these online identity thefts. As of this writing, there are nine fake Twitter accounts using Dunford's photo or biographical information.
We've reached out to Dunford's spokesman with questions about how the commandant plans to use his account and if he will send his own Tweets.
