BNCOC Graduation at Walter Reed

Thus Spake Ortner at the Sniper ^ | 3/22/2008 | Cao

[Caoilfhionn]

bncoc training graduation at Walter Reed

We need to get as many people as possible to this graduation next Friday (March 28) to honor these first wounded troops who have gone through the course. (Hat tip Denis Keohane for the pic and summation.) This is incredible!

Through email, and the blog, here. Background:

I'm doing this in OPORD format, since most of us know that format the best.

SITUATION: I was contacted today through work by SFC Barry Nelson, US Army, at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. He is the Senior Group Leader of the Basic Non-Commission Officers Course (BNCOC) on the grounds at Walter Reed. Any of you who have been to PLDC, BNCOC, ANCOC or Sergeant Majors Academy no doubt remember these courses. They're not exactly R&R. Now imagine doing it as a wounded troop. Here was his first missive to me:

I am currently an active duty Army NCO conducting first of it's kind training at Walter Reed. Six NCOs have stepped up to complete BNCOC (ongoing now, with graduation set for March 28th) and I'd like to get some publicitiy to recognize their efforts and inspire others.

I'd never heard of a BNCOC at a location like Walter Reed, so I contacted him. I informed him I was a blogger of a very small milblog, but that I wanted to help. I asked permission to publicize. This was his response.

Re: the blog part... "yes; please fire for effect" and you can use my email as POC for it, but please no phone number. I'll pass along an better update next week, but I'll tell you it was simply awesome to see a wheel chair bound NCO marching troops in the rain. Yes I said she was in an a wheel chair and the element was marching. Of course keeping them in step was a challenge, but it brought new emphasis on the old adage "if it ain't raining we ain't training".

Again, please do spread this story as much as you can and we'll keep you posted

We need to go big. Real big if we can. This isn't a simple thing of honoring troops who were injured (though they were) this is about soldiers wanting to further themselves, despite any injuries they sustained. These are troops who want to take the next step in their development.

Now, clearly I don't have all the info in yet, so consider this simply a warning order.

MISSION: We need bodies. As many as we can get. Consider this a testing of the waters. But if you think you can get some folks there, do me a favor and send me an email to my private email (using my work because I have all the addresses here.) My email is below, at the bottom of this email.

EXECUTION: You tell me. How big do you think we can go?

ADMIN & LOGISTICS: Like I said, I have a small blog, and lots of time on my hands. SFC Nelson is busy training these troops so they can better serve us. So, if you want to go through him, I'll understand, but I'd prefer y'all get back to me so I can look at what we need, and try to match those needs with the people who have the resources.

COMMAND & SIGNAL: Send it to me if you would. thusspakeortner@yahoo.com

I'm pretty optimistic having seen what we've managed in the past. Let's go big. I have some volunteers who are going to handle contacting the MSM, but (frankly) who needs them. We can do it through the blogs, and get everything we need. So, let's just CHARLIE MIKE and make this happen. Hooah?

If anyone needs to reach me, my cell is [you putzs don't need my #]. Call me anytime over the weekend.

I'm going to put something up at my blog tomorrow, and you can leave messages in the post there if you would like.

http://3-116thsniper.blogspot.com/

If y'all have any other emailing lists, that would be great too, but for now, we need more rough numbers/ideas than anything else.

[Caoilfhionn]

This is an incredible accomplishment for these troops...please pass the word

[TheBattman]

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1990254/posts