thedrifter
02-07-06, 12:10 PM
February 13, 2006
Marine News Briefs
How your pay stacks up
Think the size of your military paycheck doesn’t match your expertise or responsibilities? Ever wonder what you could make in civilian life for what you’ve learned in uniform?
Each year, Marine Corps Times publishes a special report called “How Your Pay Stacks Up” that aims to answer those questions by comparing the earnings of active-duty service members in various military skills and their private-sector counterparts with similar levels of experience.
The 2006 edition of this special section is slated to run in our May 9 issue, and we’re looking for volunteers.
Note: You must be on full-time active duty, either regular military or a mobilized reservist, to be considered.
If you’d like to take part, visit www.marinecorpstimes.com and fill out a brief questionnaire. If you are selected, a member of our staff will contact you for a more thorough interview that will cover the details of what you do, how much you earn and how you feel about your job and military pay. You also will be asked to provide a high-quality, head-and-shoulders photograph of yourself. Digital images are preferred, but prints are acceptable.
Is the grass really greener on the outside? This is your chance to find out.
Opera for leathernecks
How many Marines go to the opera? Not enough, according to the National Endowment for the Arts, which is reaching out to a community it has overlooked: The 1.4 million men and women on active duty in the military.
“I guess it doesn’t go with the stereotype of a Marine,” Col. Pat O’Donogue, an opera fan and commander of Camp Pendleton’s Headquarters and Support Battalion, said after attending an opera performance at the California base’s theater.
Opera is the latest joint venture between the NEA and the Defense Department. This year, the NEA decided to bring opera performances to 39 military bases around the country.
According to Leslie Liberato, program manager for the NEA’s national initiatives, potential audience members had to be turned away from performances at Fort Carson, Colo., and Picatinny Arsenal in Wharton, N.J.
Pendleton’s 1,400-seat theater wasn’t as packed as it was when Arnold Schwarzenegger screened the movie “Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines” in 2003, but a few hundred Marines and families took advantage of the free show.
Mailbox medals
Veterans’ officials and postal employees are searching for the owner of a Bronze Star and two Purple Heart medals discovered in a mailbox outside a Greenwich, Conn., post office in January.
The medals are not inscribed and do not appear to have fallen out of a package, postal officials said.
The medals are being kept at the post office until their owner can be identified.
Charley Williams, chief of staff at the Department of Veterans Affairs, said he would look into the medals’ origin after their discovery was reported by the Greenwich Time.
Burke Ross, adjutant of the state’s Military Order of the Purple Heart, estimated that more than 1,800 Purple Heart recipients live in Connecticut. He wrote a letter to the postmaster requesting the medals so he can track down the owner.
It’s only the second time Ross has heard of unclaimed medals turning up. A few years ago, he said, someone discovered a box of medals in the garbage and brought it to him. The group determined that the recipient had died, and no family could be located.
If the same thing happens with the medals discovered in Greenwich, Ross said, they will be cleaned and displayed at the state’s home for veterans.
Recruiters move to Texas
Five months after being displaced from Louisiana by a hurricane, leathernecks and civilians of the 8th Marine Corps District formally re-established the district’s headquarters in Fort Worth, Texas, on Jan. 27, a Marine Corps news release said.
According to the release, the district personnel evacuated New Orleans on Aug. 27, just before Hurricane Katrina made landfall. Since the evacuation, district personnel have worked out of a Dallas hotel and local recruiting stations. Plans to move the unit to the Lone Star State were slated for 2007, but they were hastened with the one-two punch of hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
Correction
A caption with a photo accompanying the Feb. 6 Lore of the Corps article “Springfield bolt-action rifle used until WWII” incorrectly identified the weapon in the photo. The rifle pictured was a .58-caliber, muzzle-loading 1861 Springfield rifle. The correct weapon, a Springfield 1903 bolt action, is pictured above.
Marine News Briefs
How your pay stacks up
Think the size of your military paycheck doesn’t match your expertise or responsibilities? Ever wonder what you could make in civilian life for what you’ve learned in uniform?
Each year, Marine Corps Times publishes a special report called “How Your Pay Stacks Up” that aims to answer those questions by comparing the earnings of active-duty service members in various military skills and their private-sector counterparts with similar levels of experience.
The 2006 edition of this special section is slated to run in our May 9 issue, and we’re looking for volunteers.
Note: You must be on full-time active duty, either regular military or a mobilized reservist, to be considered.
If you’d like to take part, visit www.marinecorpstimes.com and fill out a brief questionnaire. If you are selected, a member of our staff will contact you for a more thorough interview that will cover the details of what you do, how much you earn and how you feel about your job and military pay. You also will be asked to provide a high-quality, head-and-shoulders photograph of yourself. Digital images are preferred, but prints are acceptable.
Is the grass really greener on the outside? This is your chance to find out.
Opera for leathernecks
How many Marines go to the opera? Not enough, according to the National Endowment for the Arts, which is reaching out to a community it has overlooked: The 1.4 million men and women on active duty in the military.
“I guess it doesn’t go with the stereotype of a Marine,” Col. Pat O’Donogue, an opera fan and commander of Camp Pendleton’s Headquarters and Support Battalion, said after attending an opera performance at the California base’s theater.
Opera is the latest joint venture between the NEA and the Defense Department. This year, the NEA decided to bring opera performances to 39 military bases around the country.
According to Leslie Liberato, program manager for the NEA’s national initiatives, potential audience members had to be turned away from performances at Fort Carson, Colo., and Picatinny Arsenal in Wharton, N.J.
Pendleton’s 1,400-seat theater wasn’t as packed as it was when Arnold Schwarzenegger screened the movie “Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines” in 2003, but a few hundred Marines and families took advantage of the free show.
Mailbox medals
Veterans’ officials and postal employees are searching for the owner of a Bronze Star and two Purple Heart medals discovered in a mailbox outside a Greenwich, Conn., post office in January.
The medals are not inscribed and do not appear to have fallen out of a package, postal officials said.
The medals are being kept at the post office until their owner can be identified.
Charley Williams, chief of staff at the Department of Veterans Affairs, said he would look into the medals’ origin after their discovery was reported by the Greenwich Time.
Burke Ross, adjutant of the state’s Military Order of the Purple Heart, estimated that more than 1,800 Purple Heart recipients live in Connecticut. He wrote a letter to the postmaster requesting the medals so he can track down the owner.
It’s only the second time Ross has heard of unclaimed medals turning up. A few years ago, he said, someone discovered a box of medals in the garbage and brought it to him. The group determined that the recipient had died, and no family could be located.
If the same thing happens with the medals discovered in Greenwich, Ross said, they will be cleaned and displayed at the state’s home for veterans.
Recruiters move to Texas
Five months after being displaced from Louisiana by a hurricane, leathernecks and civilians of the 8th Marine Corps District formally re-established the district’s headquarters in Fort Worth, Texas, on Jan. 27, a Marine Corps news release said.
According to the release, the district personnel evacuated New Orleans on Aug. 27, just before Hurricane Katrina made landfall. Since the evacuation, district personnel have worked out of a Dallas hotel and local recruiting stations. Plans to move the unit to the Lone Star State were slated for 2007, but they were hastened with the one-two punch of hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
Correction
A caption with a photo accompanying the Feb. 6 Lore of the Corps article “Springfield bolt-action rifle used until WWII” incorrectly identified the weapon in the photo. The rifle pictured was a .58-caliber, muzzle-loading 1861 Springfield rifle. The correct weapon, a Springfield 1903 bolt action, is pictured above.