TRIAD
COMMANDING OFFICER: Capt. Trace Head
EXECUTIVE OFFICER: Capt. Rodolfo Jacobo
SENIOR ENLISTED LEADER: MACS Brooks Gregory
BATAAN PUBLIC AFFAIRS
PUBLIC AFFAIRS OFFICER: MCC(SW/AW/IW) Barry Riley
MC1(SW/AW) Christopher Marshall
MC2(SW/AW) Matthew Brown
MC2 Alisha Gleason
MC2(SW/AW) Christopher Jones
CW03 Courtney Davis practices with the Battling Bastards flag football team in preparation for the upcoming season starting in August. (Photo by MC2 Bradley Rickard)
MC2(SW) Danilo Reynoso
MC2(SW/AW) Bradley Rickard
MCSN Jeremiah Lesher
Healthy Tips For Married Parents
ByLindsayFew
ContentEditoratawesomemarriage
1. Never forget that a healthy marriage is a GIFT to your children.
2. Don’t miss out on JOY! Find time to play with and enjoy your kids together.
3. Leave competition and comparison out of your marriage. Don’t compete with your spouse or compare them to your own parents or your friends’ spouses.
4. Respect one another’s differences.
5. Rather than comparing your spouse’s parenting style with yours, work together to balance one another. We are different as moms and dads, and that is a good thing!
6. Remember that getting on the same page about parenting doesn’t mean you will do things exactly the same way.
7. On tough days, have extra grace. Don’t take their frustrations personally.
8. When you’re not sure what they meant, assume positive intent.
9. When you think something good about your spouse’s parenting, say it - call, text, leave a note, or tell them!
10. Encouragement or appreciation can help buoy us on a tough day. How can you encourage and appreciate your spouse today?
11. Don’t expect your spouse to handle kid issues exactly the same way you would.
12. Don’t correct your spouse in front of your kids.
13. Love covers a multitude of sins - remember your love for your spouse.
14. Envision the kind of spouse you wish to be. What characteristics would you like your spouse to see in you? Do what you can to cultivate those.
15. Remember that your kids aren’t your everything. You aren’t in control of them and you cannot parent them perfectly. When we elevate our kids’ importance in our lives, our marriage suffers.
16. Don’t compare your stress or your workload to your spouse’s. You are operating in different callings. Comparison or competition will break your relationship down.
17. Understand that you’re each “running your own race” and seek to be faithful in what God has called you to.
18. It’s okay to be direct with your spouse and your kids. You can be polite, kind and direct at the same time.
19. Don’t harbor any bitterness or let old hurts fester. Keep short accounts: Apologize and forgive freely.
20. Praise and celebrate your spouse in front of the kids.
Command Resiliency
Ship Yard Life adjuStment
Establish a work/life balance
Exercise regularly, get sufficient sleep, and proper nutrition. All of these are not just a matter of personal health, but contributes to peak performance on the job.
Make the most of your time off by spending quality time with loved ones. Engage in hobbies and pursue personal interest. This can help with decompressing from the demands of work.
Establishing a healthy routine and a solid support system can assist in navigating the challenges of balancing work and life in a healthy manner.
Ship Yard Life expeCtationS
Maintain Work Expectations
Work expectations require a commitment to professional development by ensuring you're equipped with the knowledge to perform your duties
Establish a clear line of communication and a culture of teamwork to ensure work related matters are completed in a efficient and timely manner. Ship yard life demands that everyone is on top of their game.
Safety a major concern in the ship yards. To maintain safety, accountability is paramount. Communicate any unsafe conditions.
LET'S TALK ABOUT WHAT IT TAKES TO REMAIN RESILIENT.
take advantage of opportunitieS
Self Improvement
College is a great opportunity to take advantage of during the ship yard period. Education is a valuable tool to help advance your career and after you transition to civilian life. The Navy offers everything from traditional college to work related certifications. Programs like Navy Cool, NCPACE, CLEP, USMAPS, and tuition assistance can help with advancement.
Volunteering is another option to consider. Is a valuable way to gain new experiences, develop leadership skills and give back to the local community
Q.
Question Answer
Whatinspiredyoutoleadandcoachaflag footballteamforthecommand?
Surface Line Week inspired me to lead and coach the team. We were the runner up at Surface Line Week and we weren’t organized and had no chemistry. After I experienced the magic and witnessed the talents of our Sailors onboard BATAAN I knew we could be great with proper practice and guidance.
Q.Canyoutalkaboutthegoalsfortheteams upcomingseason?
The primary goal for the upcoming season is for the team to have fun and give the command a morale boost. Secondary goal is to go undefeated and win the Flag Football Championship.
&
Q.
Howhastheteamdevelopedsofar,hasthere beenanystandoutperformances?
The team has developed very well, we filled some critical positions and have depth on offense and defense. Every player on the team has shown excellent play making abilities on offense and defense. I will single out two position groups which are the wide receivers and cornerbacks they battled it out every practice and it’s a good show to watch.
Q.
Whatdoyouthinktheteam'sidentitywillbe?
We will be identified by our high powered offense, every play has the potential to be a touchdown.
Q.anyclosingstatements?
With AirBos'n
The success of the team is based off the support we receive from the command, families, and our fans. Please come out and support the team and if you have BATAAN gear wear it to the game. Together Everyone Achieves More.
The Retirement Process: The Retiree's Perspective
Storyby:NCCS(SW/AW)WesleyD.Fox,USN(Ret)
Congratulations! If you are reading this article, it means you are part of the less than one percent of the U.S. population that joined the military. Of that one percent, only 17% make it retirement. Why is that relevant? For one, it means there are a lot of things you need to know, but there are few active duty members who know what questions to ask. Yes, there are resources out there such as your career counselor or TAP, but most career counselors have never left active duty and TAP only has three days to try to force feed you their generic curriculum that you will have to pick through the most relevant information to your situation. There is no tailored information for your specific circumstance such as where you will be separating, what benefits are offered for veterans in that state, your current level of education, what your job prospects look like for your skill set, the size of your family, whether you must relocate, your budget for after retirement, and more. These things fall squarely on your shoulders to research, ask questions about, plan, and prepare for.
I am going to use my specific situation as an example to help set you up for success when you decide to hang up your uniform for the last time.
Here are some facts concerning my situation. I wanted to completely change career fields and the career I wanted to pursue would require I go to college. I also had a child that was enrolled in the Exceptional Family Member Program (EFMP), who sees a lot of specialists and had established doctors in the Hampton Roads area, as well as world class insurance coverage being on active duty. I had a moderate amount of money in accessible savings accounts that would
support necessities such as food and paying the bills for about six months. We owned a home in Virginia, where I did not want to retire because they tax you to death. I planned to relocate to North Carolina where they do not tax military pensions. My wife and I started really making decisions and setting a plan in motion about 18 months before my retirement date. Now let’s talk about all of those (plus some additional) things in detail.
College. Another reason we wanted to relocate was to move closer to a desired college. I knew I wanted to pursue a career in horticulture and there were two schools nearby that were known for their agriculture/ horticulture programs. Virginia Tech which is 10th in the nation and would require us to relocate four hours away or NC State which is 3rd in the nation and would also require us to relocate four hours away. Is using your Post 9/11 GI Bill for distance education an option? Yes, but unless you are going to school fulltime and are taking at least one course in person, you only receive half of the Monthly Housing Allowance (MHA). This was key for me as I needed all the extra help to make up for the loss in income.
Insurance. In the military, we are blessed with great insurance. If you make it to retirement, you will continue to have TRICARE, but it will cost now and there will be copays, regardless of whether you elect TRICARE Prime or Select. It will still be at a fraction of the cost what the average family of four pays ($1,437 /month) but you will need to research what is best for you and your family. Luckily, we were able to move my family to NC, get my child established with her specialists prior to coming off active duty and without having to deal with the copays for all her initial consults. Keep insurance in mind as you are separating and understand that it is not automatic. You re-enroll in TRICARE for health insurance within 90 days of separating. Dental and vision insurance is not covered by Tricare and will need to be applied for separately through “Benefeds.”
Savings. You made it to retirement, YAY! If you are like me, most of your savings is tied up in TSP and IRAs where it earns interest and not in a savings account that can be accessed without penalties. I was never disillusioned about how much my pension would be.
I always knew that if I retire at 20, I would only be getting 50% of my Base Pay which would not cover much more than my mortgage and some bills. So, I knew I would not be homeless but not much thought went into how much it costs a month to feed my kids that always seem to be hungry, or how much those streaming services really cost. I would recommend that when you make the decision to retire, you take a holistic look at your expenses and identify those things that are a nice to have versus a need to have.
Employment. When I set out on this retirement adventure, seeking immediate employment was a worst-case scenario, if everything else fell through. I haven’t had a resume in over 20 years and what I learned in this process is that everything you wrote on your evaluations/FITREPS in the Navy is just a bunch of hyperbole and military jargon which does not mean anything in the civilian world. That is not to say your experience is useless. Far from it. In fact, you are most likely overqualified for any position you apply for in your field of expertise after leaving the military (degrees/certifications excluded). However, the language we use does not correlate with the civilian sector. I personally used Hire Heroes USA which was completely free. Using the last ten years’ worth of evaluations and awards, they wrote me an amazing resume. When I read it, I was astonished. Make sure you utilize a service like that and take advantage of Navy COOL while you can now if you are in a career field you want to pursue outside of the Navy. You do not separate with your rank and get hired because of it. They are looking at qualifications and I am not talking about PQSs. When I did the math, I concluded that I would need a job that started off at $30 dollars an hour, full-time, to break even with my active duty pay and entitlements. There are not many employers that start you out at $30 an hour.
The VA Process. There are no guarantees here folks. You do not know whether you will be at 10% or 100% once they are done, so I would caution against speculating or even considering this a possible stream of revenue when you are making plans. I would recommend you take advantage of the Benefits Delivery at Discharge (BDD) process though and start collecting all your medical records about 8 months prior to separating. You can submit your BDD claim to the VA 180-90 days prior to your approved retirement date. I did this and had a Veteran’s Service Officer from the DAV assist me with the paperwork and received my VA rating within 2 days of being officially separated. YOUR Separation Package. I must put extra emphasis
on the “YOUR” part because I was in admin for over a decade, and I cannot stress to you how important it is for you to own this process. The Personnel Specialists have nearly a thousand other Sailors to worry about. You only have yourself to worry about. You can complete your separation physical once you hit the 180-day mark. Make sure when you are already at medical trying to get your records at 8 months out that you are verifying your PHA is up to date and scheduling your separation physical as well. I had everything complete and submitted six months out, had my DD 214 in hand four months prior to separation and my final pay completed within a week of separating. All the horror stories you hear about pay delays and people never getting their DD 214s are SELFINFLICTED. They were the delay. They failed to submit things. They failed to ask questions when they did not understand the process.
Your Final PCS. Be proactive, you can submit your Fleet Reserve or Retirement request up to 24 months prior to your requested date. Retirement orders are not usually released until 3-9 months prior to separation. If you submit early and are approved, you can then request for your retirement orders to be released early (this will allow you to PCS your family to your Planned Separation Address well in advance of your actual retirement date like I had to). See MILPERSMAN 1800020 for an example.
If you do not have a job lined up prior to getting out, do not plan to work, and/or your spouse does not have employment, this next bit of information will be particularly useful. We had always been of the mindset that we would do our final PCS once I was on terminal leave, but luckily, we started asking questions about 16 months out from my retirement date. During that process we learned that if we wanted to use a VA home loan to purchase a new home where we planned to retire, the VA requires that you have at least 12 months “hard” contract time remaining. Notice I said hard contract time and not “soft” EAOS. The VA goes off your “ETS” date listed on your LES or requires proof that you are reenlisting before guaranteeing a home loan.
I know it was a lengthy read but I have experienced firsthand that there is not a lot of information out there (or at least not a lot of consolidated information) and the people that have learned this information have already moved on and are nowhere to be found. If I could summarize this whole letter in one sentence it would be this: start planning 24 months out, go to TAP if you are even thinking about getting out, have a plan A, B, and C, and own the process so you can be the most successful once you are out of the Navy.
PHOTOS OF THE MONTH PHOTOS OF THE MONTH
NAVY LIFE HAMPTON ROADS
Fleet & Family Readiness Quality of Life Programs
August 6
12:00 - 4 p.m. Operation Freedom Sail @ Naval Station Norfolk NavalSailingCenter&MarinaMasseyHughesDrive Bldg.LAG-88Norfolk,VA
August 11
5:00 - 7:30 p.m. Salute To Summer Barracks Bash @ Naval Station Norfolk FRP-2OutdoorPool73390thStreetNorfolk,VA23505
August 13
12:00 - 3 p.m. Celebrate Summer @ Cheatham Annex MWR King'spointPoolPointRd.Bldg. 104Williamsburg,VA 23185
3:00 p.m. Free Advanced Screening - "Twisters" @ Naval Air Station Oceana 875DAvenueBldg.531VirginiaBeach,VA23454
August 18
5;00 - 8:00 p.m. Paint & Sip @ Naval Station Norfolk VistaPointB1754MaseyHughesDriveBldg.Q-88 Norfolk,VA23511
August 20
9:00 a.m. Heat of Summer Golf Tournament @ Cheatham Annex MWR DeerCoveGolfClub108SandaAvenueBldg.108 Williamsburg,VA23185
August 23
4:00 - 6:00 p.m. Summer Reading Ice Cream Social @ Naval Station Norfolk 731GilbertStreetBldg.C-9Norfolk,VA23511
August 26
12;00 - 4:00 p.m. Navy World Series Throwback Softball Game @ Naval Station Norfolk McClureFieldFarragutAvenueNorfolk,VA23511
August 27
10:00 - 2:00 p.m. Car Show @ Naval Station Norfolk 1560 Mall Drive Bldg. CD-13 Norfolk, VA 23511
August 31
11:00 - 2:00 p.m. Education Fair @ Huntington Hall Fitness Center 3100HuntingtonAvenueBldg.633NewportNews,VA 23607
