Army End Of Month Statement: Fill & Download for Free

Our middle son, Aaron, graduated from Army basic training at Fort Benning, Georgia, in the summer 2018. A couple of months later we went back for his graduation from AIT. This was a much larger and more elaborate ceremony.The colonel of Fort Benning gave a speech which involved telling the parents how our sons and daughters will have grown, matured, and been changed by their military experience. He was right.Near the end of his speech, he said something that hit me. He said, “Rest easy, America; rough men stand ready to commit violence on your behalf.”I searched for the source of this statement, but finding an attribution is difficult. Some attribute it to Winston Churchill, some to George Orwell, and others attribute it to an essay written by Orwell about Rudyard Kipling.Regardless of who originally said it, the sentence hit me.In all its brutality and bluntness, the statement is profoundly accurate. The military trains soldiers to be fighters, killers, and defenders of the freedoms we cherish.Our son Aaron is in the Tennessee Army National Guard. We are extremely proud of the man he has become.Aaron after basic training graduation. That's his little boy, Jonah.Aaron and I, taken recently after his weekend guard drill.The military made a good young man even better.

Every US Army Soldier is required to maintain a standard checking account. If you're a 17, 18 year old kid fresh out of High School who doesn't have one, you'll have to open one as part of the enlistment process. I just used my Wells Fargo account that my parents opened for me when I was younger, but any basic Checking account at any Bank, Credit Union, etc of your choice will do.This is a debit account, you'll get a debit card from your bank. A credit card account is not required. (Debit means you have 500 bucks in your account, that's what you can spend, as if you had the cash on you, cant spend anymore than what you have. Credit means you have a certain limit, say $1,000 that you can borrow, even if you only have $500 in your account, you can put up to that $1,000 or whatever your limit is, on the card… you just have to pay it back… with interest, so that $1,000 really is like $1,200 or whatever based on the interest rate, that you're really paying). Debit account is required in the Army, Credit accounts are not.So yes, you need a bank account with a plastic (debit) card at the least. Even if you intend on only ever using cash to buy things, you'll still need the debit card to use the ATM (especially if you get based where your bank has no local branches), since long gone are the days where the Army played you in cash…Anyways, from there, your pay is electronically Direct Deposited from DFAS (Defense Finance and Accounting Service) directly into your bank account every month. Automatically. No action is needed on your part.You can elect to have your full check delivered on the 1st of every month, but I never met a single guy/gal who did that. Virtually everyone elects to have half their check on the 1st, and the other half paid on the 15th.Every month you get an LES (Leave and Earnings Statement). Its basically your pay stub. It breaks down what pays you're getting, taxes and other deductions, and tells you your net End of Month (EOM) pay.Just like any other job, you know about how much you should be getting each paycheck, especially since Soldiers are salaried vs hourly, the pay doesn't change all that drastically. So if there's a problem, and all of a sudden you're not getting the pay you're supposed to, you know about it right away. And the Army takes pay issues seriously, pretty much same day (or at least next day) you'll go see the Finance Office who'll track down whatever the issue is and fix it.

What isn’t in the movie and what many people don’t know is what happened AFTER the incident. It’s a shame that the story wasn’t told or even mentioned as an epilogue at the end of the move. But that’s Hollywood.Here’s what happened: The Army command stepped up to the plate and, instead of finding fault, court martials, etc., quietly and very professionally brought every man involved back to Benning, sequestered them in a remote area of the post and cordoned it off..no one in or out without permission. No family, no friends, no cell phones. Classified at the Secret level.Outgoing calls were permitted but also monitored. Their families thought they were on some hush-hush training exercise and preparing to deploy again. Meals were brought in..no alcohol was allowed. They also brought back all the records, notes, photographs and audio recordings of radio and cell phone calls.There were some old barracks and other buildings that had been rapidly renovated to house the over 250 men. Officers and NCO’s bunked in open bays together and took their meals together. Rank meant nothing, as it does in Ranger school.Once this was all in place they re-created a timeline and started walking through the entire sequence of events of what happened asking who, what, where, when and why and how. This was a total non-attribution exercise. No one would be disciplined. The objective was to prevent it from ever happening again. They simply wanted the truth. Was there gaps in training? (Yes), Did the commanders have accurate and actionable intel (yes, no and maybe), Were the ROE clear and concise (No), Was their equipment and vehicles satisfactory? (Hell No), Was there Comms breakdowns (Yes), etc.Tents were set up to handle the debriefs..each tent was dedicated to a certain timeline of the incident. As you finished in one tent, you were excused and then reported to another in sequence based on days in the timeline. Debriefs were conducted by other Ranger or Delta who were inside asking questions, taking notes and making recordings. Non-judgmental, gathering facts and statements from those involved. Recreating the events minute-by-minute.Imagine having to live through those events in detail again. Imagine having to admit making a mistake or not giving an order in a timely manner or not moving into a position because you didn’t have accurate information. It was a very tough exercise. Many men, tough as nails, broke down crying. Some fights broke out. But it had to be done. Embrace the suck. Lean forward into it. This exercise took place over a 4-week period. Once the debriefings were concluded, the analysis began and the results were finalized in about 4 more months.The result? Again, not public knowledge but many positive changes came about in the Army and SOC for planning, training and logistics. Communication systems were modified and upgraded and protocols changed to be more adaptive. Up armored vehicles were procured, Chain of command and decision making was pushed down more to the tactical level and there were many political and diplomatic issues that were also addressed but again, all classified.* * * *The above was from a long night of discussion over Bourbon and cigars with a former Ranger CSM friend who WAS NOT involved in Mogadishu but was involved as a de-briefer. He said it was one of the hardest things he ever had to do. I am very proud of the Army and the Rangers for doing what they did, and the changes they’ve made have saved the lives of many soldiers since then so that the deaths of those men in Mogadishu were not in vain.RANGERS LEAD THE WAY!