Director’s Cut: January 2011
Col. Bryan Salas
The Director’s Cut: DivPA’s Monthly Newsletter to the Marine Corps’ PA Community is now online you can download it here
Marines –The New Year brings with it many changes for our Corps. Just last week, the Secretary of Defense rolled out his proposed efficiencies of which many affect our Corps. Additionally, a new Congress has rolled into town with a focus on tightening the budget belt.
What this means to you as a PA professional is the requirement to demonstrate the value of the Corps to our nation. The value to our nation begins with turning young men and women into Marines – disciplined warriors who bring the honor, courage, and commitment they get from the Corps back to their hometowns as future leaders in their communities. The other value is the role the Marine Corps has in the National Security Strategy:
• The Marine Corps is America’s Expeditionary Force in Readiness — a balanced air-ground-logistics team.
• We are forward-deployed and forward-engaged: shaping, training, deterring, and responding to all manner of crises and contingencies.
• We create options and decision space for our nation’s leaders. Alert and ready, we respond to today’s crisis, with today’s force … TODAY.
• Responsive and scalable, we team with other services, allies and interagency partners. We enable and participate in joint and combined operations of any magnitude. A middleweight force, we are light enough to get there quickly, but heavy enough to carry the day upon arrival, and capable of operating independent of local infrastructure.
• We operate throughout the spectrum of threats — irregular, hybrid, conventional — or the shady areas where they overlap. We’re ready to respond whenever the nation calls…. or the President may direct.
We’re counting on you to have the situational awareness to demonstrate these values when possible. Continue your good work and your initiative in establishing and maintaining America’s relationship with our Corps.
Semper Fidelis! Colonel Bryan Salas