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New Commandant Considering 1 Year Leave Of Absence for Moms and Changes to Evaluating and Promoting Marines

The top Marine is on the hunt to keep and retain the best talent the Corps has, and is considering a slew of changes from a new maternity leave policy to changing how Marines are evaluated and promoted.

Commandant Gen. David Berger laid out guidance for reshaping the Marine Corps in a planning document posted late Tuesday evening.

Among consideration is a new policy that would afford moms up to a year leave of absence to stay with their kids before they return back to duty and complete their service obligation.

Berger described the current parental and maternal leave policy as “inadequate” and noted that the policy has “failed to keep pace with societal norms.”

“We should never ask our Marines to choose between being the best parent possible and the best Marine possible,” Berger wrote in his guidance message. “These outcomes should never be in competition to the extent that success with one will come at the expense of the other.”

The Corps recently updated its parental and maternal leave policy in 2018. Currently moms can take primary caregiver leave in conjunction with maternity convalescent leave for a total of 12 weeks — which matches the current Defense Department policy.

However, the Corps does afford some flexibility that allows mothers to take the first six weeks of maternity convalescent leave and delay the rest for up to a year or transfer the other six weeks to a spouse if they are a dual military household.

The DoD previously had an 18-week parental leave policy.

The top Marine is also interested in overhauling the work evaluation process known as the fitness report, which looks at the performance of sergeants through the officer ranks.

Berger said in his guidance that “there is a growing lack of faith within our ranks in the system’s ability to accurately identify their skills, performance, and future potential.”

Here how Berger wants to re-evaluate the fitness report:

  • Give Marines an opportunity to assess themselves.
  • Allow for supervisors writing the report to identify future areas of potential.
  • Weight reports based on time, command or noncommand reports, and combat or non-combat reports.
  • Academic fitness reports should no longer be unobserved.
  • Weight academic reports that reward Marines for resident professional military education.
  • Look at the performance of supervisors who are evaluating and writing reports on Marines to ensure they are not hurting the careers of other talented Marines.

“Upward growth and mobility must favor the most talented within our ranks while facilitating the identification of those with a special aptitude as instructors, educators, commanders, staff officers, mentors, or with special technical skills,” Berger’s guidance reads.

These issues among a host of others are under consideration by the new top Marine as he seeks to build and retain a more talented and skilled Marine Corps that can compete in an age returned to a great power competition.

Berger called out current Marine manpower tools and models as being antiquated and “based primarily on time and experience, not talent or performance or potential future performance,”

That’s a common complaint echoed by Marines for generations that too many senior officials across the military are promoted and retained based on time and rank alone.

It’s a model many Marines have argued favors and retains bad leaders.

“As the complexity of the world has increased, the spread between physical jobs and thinking jobs has increased dramatically,” Berger wrote.

“The only way to attract and retain Marines capable of winning on the new battlefield is to compete with the tools and incentives available to them in the marketplace,” Berger said in his guidance message.

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED HERE>> 

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Comments

Bulldogman - April 13, 2020

Exactly. Was L/CPL and every time I was up for Squad Leader, someone would transfer in at a higher rank. Got out after 6 years total as L/CPL.

Paul 0311 - April 13, 2020

Funny thing about promotions , March 1970 I had the time in grade for promotion to E-5 but, was passed up. One month later was notified of being eligible for early release and they tried to get me to stay in and re up with the automatic promotion to E-5. No Dice!! Paul

Jim Doss - April 13, 2020

I was in from fall of 1958 until fall of 1961. Was stationed in Guard Detachment Naval Base Key West, Fla. Made PFC as soon as I arrived Feb. 1959. Never made more rank because Marines with rank from Fleet Marines were being transfered in. Not complaining just a fact. Still wouldn’t have been anything else but a Marine. Semper Fi

Ano Nymous - April 13, 2020

Including boot, I had been in the Corps for 17 months before checking into my first real fleet unit. The first thing the Gunny says to me is, “You can leave the bootcamp sh*t at the door.” I was blindsided. Why did he say that? To this day I have no idea. Nice way to welcome a fng.
It pretty much went downhill from there.
I hope he got kicked out at 19 years, 11 months and 29 days. Jerk.

Edd Prothro, MSgt USMC Ret. - April 13, 2020

I’m really surprised to see only comments regarding evaluations and none regarding the parental and maternal leave policy, which I will address first.
During my career from ’64-84 I had three opportunities to serve with WMs which were both positive and negative. The first was at Station Comm Center at MCAS Cherry Point in ’67-’68 where I was a watch supervisor. I had one exceptional LCpl/Cpl who could hold her own with any and all male Marines. She was married to another Marine who was serving with 9th Marines in RVN, and she was a jewel. I was honored to be godfather to their first son in ’72 in Hawaii. On the other side of the coin was a Hispanic Pfc just out of comm school. I would assign all new people to work the primary AUTODIN incoming network in order to acclimate them to the noise and activity level because all they had to do was log the message, tear it off the teletype and pass it to the routing clerk. During the next eve watch I noticed that she had a big red bow tied around the machine and was rocking and quietly singing lullabies. I noticed that the machine had been taken off line and asked her what was going on. She said, “If you’re real nice to the machine and sing, it won’t run so much!” There is a bell key on a teletype which is used to alert operators on the other end of direct non-monitored circuits. So, I was showing her how to contact MCAS New River and MCAS Beaufort on the dedicated net and she started typing. I told her to send some “bells” first and looked down at the paper on which she had typed: “bell bell bell bell.” At that time in the Corps pregnant WMs were discharged. The second was in ’78 while assigned to the Officer Selection Office in RS Hartford CT. I was teamed with a WM Lieutenant who had graduated from Springfield College MA (a jock school) with a Phys Ed degree. She was a very nice looking woman, and what a body. She was one of the hardest working people I have ever seen, but she would get flustered, nervous and stammer when first meeting prospective candidates. She really got the shitty end of the stick when she was relieved after only one year because HqMC said it was a test program to see if WM officers could recruit. At least she was selected for Captain before being reassigned, I really liked working with her. I don’t know what the pregnancy policy was then. From ’81-’84 I was at RDJTF/USCENTCOM at MacDill AFB Tampa FL, where there were both officers and enlisted women of all the services. Most of the Marine and Navy women we competent and motivated, but the Army and Air Farce (not misspelled) women were royal pains from what other NCOICs told me. They would use any excuse, including time-of-the-month, to get out of assignments and deployments. While in D.C. for a planning conference I went over to the uniform shop at Henderson Hall. I was looking at a rack of camo trousers when I noticed this one pair with an elastic front and waistband and realized they were for pg WMs. What a shock, maybe that help me decide it was time to hang up my boonies. At that time I think the pregnancy policy was 6 weeks after delivery. As you can see, I served with some of the best and some of the worst, but I really think a woman should make up her mind that she either wants to be a Marine or a mother. I really think it would be absurd to send all the money to train a Marine, only to give her a year leave of absence, only to probably have to be retrained her when she returned, if she did returned to active duty.
Regarding the evaluation/fitness reporting system: No system will every be perfect. It needed changes years ago, and I suppose it probably still and always will need revisions. It’s a different Corps from my days and probably just as challenging.

John Hudson - April 13, 2020

Evals in the form of fitness reports often leave the Marine being evaluated open to revenge or jealousy on the part of the poor leadership of the senior personnel making the report. This causes the Marine being reported on to feel that the “good ole boy/girl network” will destroy hard charging and solid Marines to protect themselves. I witnessed such actions against others and was the recipient of such reporting actions from those who protected their friends and drinking pals. Lots of talented Marines were forced from the Corps, who were extremely efficient at what they were trained to do, because they were not drinking buddies with the senior leadership. I also saw people taking credit for something they did not do or have anything to do with, which got the senior promoted, but left the Marine who actually performed the mission looking like he/she did nothing. No matter how hard you worked, you were left looking like you did nothing. The Corps gets what it promotes, through protectionist evals and fitness reports. Look at who hides from combat and who runs toward it!

Johnny Reyes Jr - April 13, 2020

In ‘59-‘60, I recall Korean War vets in our company that were still Corporal E4.

DSL - April 13, 2020

So I feel better now. I wasn’t the only one who was screwed blued and tattooed. Saw worthless under achievers make rank with no problem. The so called hard charger couldn’t go aboard ship to the combat zone because he would get deathly sea sick.

William D Walter - April 13, 2020

I was awarded the rank of PFC. out of ITR at Camp Pendleton.
A year later I received my Lance Corporal crossed rifles. It took about 18 months to be able to add the Corporal strip.
The day before my last day in the Corp a Warrant Officer tracked me down to “offer” me the rank of Sargent the next day and then in “ a few months” I would get my Staff Sgt. rocker. “This was an oversight of my previous 2nd LT.” I quickly snapped to attention, and said. “With all due respect sir, it’s Too damn little too damn late!” He said he understood but hated to lose a well trained Marine. I thanked him and said maybe we needed to better train our 2nd LT’s. He just smiled.

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