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It’s fairly common for my guild leader and I to have conversations with each other via “text”. Often times we find it to be the easiest way to pass information back and forth and to get answers for the smaller questions that come up. Last week I received a text asking what I thought about allowing “alts”into the raid. Editors Note:For obvious reasons I am posting this on both of my blogs As my platoon were laying in our racks the night before we were to start the “crucible“,I recall Drill Instructor Sergeant Dombeck lecturing us. As he wrapped up about explaining how the next few days would be the hardest he ended with this: When people ask me what I enjoyed most about my time as an active duty Marine,the one answer I always give is the friendships I made over the years. There are friends that I made while on active duty that I still talk to every few days,sending text messages and funny emails back and forth. There are friends that I speak to every few months,however every time I do it is as if no time at all has passed. The Marine Corps truly is a brotherhood to those that embrace it and each Marine feels like a family member. One of the many responsibilities I have as a as a technician at work is what is simply known as a “move”. Its fairly self-explanatory:People need to move from one desk to another due to renovations,new positions,etc and we schedule a time to pick up their computer and then move it to the new desk. Its a fairly routine task that my team handles. Earlier this week my Guild Leader and I started a new research project. Our goal was simple,we were having positioning issues during a few boss encounters,specifically Cho’gall,and we wanted to see from each players perspective. To that end we asked our raiders to take a screenshot of their user interface (UI) during that night’s raid and then post the results on our guild forums. Our plan was to figure out where the guild as a whole could improve during raids and to see who needed to clean up a few things on screen. In the opening scenes of the outstanding (and quite realistic) HBO miniseries “Generation Kill”we are shown a convoy of Marines as they practice assaulting through ambushes while in Kuwait. While driving through what is known as the “kill zone”or focal point of the ambush,one of the vehicles veers off. Eventually the vehicle rejoins the convoy and they stop to figure out what is going on. As the Navy Corpsman runs up,one of the passengers relays to the medic that any effort would be a waste of time,that the Marine had been killed. For a while now I have wanted to sit down and talk about leadership. Specifically I want to elaborate on what those in leadership positions should be looking for when they need to choose subordinate leaders as well as what leaders need to do to be successful. Fortunately the Marine Corps covers this topic quite well with its “leadership traits”and leadership principles”. During the days of “The Burning Crusade”I began leveling a priest with the intention of raiding. Once I hit level 70 I was offered admission into several different raiding guilds,however none of them seemed like a good fit for me at the time. After talking to some of my fellow Marines I was told of an up and coming guild on our server,that their guild leader was a military man himself and several of the Officers were former military. Best yet was the fact that they were recruiting healers for raid spots. One of my Marines arranged a quick interview with the Guild Leader and I was eventually sent an invitation to join the guild. Last week there was an application to join the guild posted on my guild’s forums. As an Officer of the guild and the one that usually either accepts or denies an applicant,I began reviewing the post. At first I thought that the application was some kind of joke,that someone was messing with us. The more I looked at the application though,the more I was convinced that the app was legit. A Marine Expeditionary Unit is sort of odd in how it obtains its members. The majority of Marines in the Command Element section of a MEU are pulled together from other units. These parent units constantly rotate Marines through the MEU,a process that is advantageous to both sides;the MEU is always able to maintain young,deployable Marines and the parent unit is supplied with the returning MEU Marines who have gained significant knowledge in their MOS and picked up a few new skills along the way. | |||||
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