I'm a 24 year old SPC in the Army, which for those who don't know is pretty low on the totem pole. Just a couple weeks ago I got real competitive and decided I wanted to try and beat some records.
For reference, the Department of Defense has its own dedicated section of BeTheMatch (NMDP) for DoD and Service Members. It registers around 14,000 people a year from the military, with each branch contributing varying numbers. The Army registered about 1,000 people a year.
I personally met with and involved 53 different individual units across Fort Bliss, and negotiated getting 20 Soldiers tasked to me for this event. I planned this event as a borderline siege of every soldier on base. Every single place someone could be at some point during the event, we would eventually come across them and convince them.
Individual formations or gathering of entire battalions, which are about 200-500 people each where I came out to their workplace and gave a speech then let them register right there.
Two weeks with people in all the entrances of the base's hospital, stopping everyone who walked in and convincing them.
Two weeks of going to the clinics and talking to waiting rooms, two weeks of going to the food court and talking to people, going to the schools on base, going to the visiting unit inprocessing site, going to the base reception company.
"Everywhere where two soldiers are told to stand next to each other, we will be there with em preaching the word of marrow"
In two weeks we registered 3,995 people as bone marrow donors. More than the entire Army the last three years combined.
It was chaotic and exhausting and a lot to manage at once for a literal kid, but we did it. And I am so damn proud.
Teammates flew down from other bases to help, the detailed soldiers absolutely killed it. It was such an amazing collaborative effort and I'm so lucky to have had the support to pull this thing off with them.
I'll do a second comment explaining "what Bone Marrow?" "why Bone Marrow?" And "how Bone Marrow?"
Hey man, all of us over at /r/MilitaryStories are super proud of you. And also rightly pissed off that your leadership hasn't yet pinned a rather prestigious medal on your chest.
BlissBoneMarrowGuy on September 6th, 2024 at 14:25 UTC »
I'm a 24 year old SPC in the Army, which for those who don't know is pretty low on the totem pole. Just a couple weeks ago I got real competitive and decided I wanted to try and beat some records.
For reference, the Department of Defense has its own dedicated section of BeTheMatch (NMDP) for DoD and Service Members. It registers around 14,000 people a year from the military, with each branch contributing varying numbers. The Army registered about 1,000 people a year.
I personally met with and involved 53 different individual units across Fort Bliss, and negotiated getting 20 Soldiers tasked to me for this event. I planned this event as a borderline siege of every soldier on base. Every single place someone could be at some point during the event, we would eventually come across them and convince them.
Individual formations or gathering of entire battalions, which are about 200-500 people each where I came out to their workplace and gave a speech then let them register right there.
Two weeks with people in all the entrances of the base's hospital, stopping everyone who walked in and convincing them.
Two weeks of going to the clinics and talking to waiting rooms, two weeks of going to the food court and talking to people, going to the schools on base, going to the visiting unit inprocessing site, going to the base reception company.
"Everywhere where two soldiers are told to stand next to each other, we will be there with em preaching the word of marrow"
In two weeks we registered 3,995 people as bone marrow donors. More than the entire Army the last three years combined.
It was chaotic and exhausting and a lot to manage at once for a literal kid, but we did it. And I am so damn proud.
Teammates flew down from other bases to help, the detailed soldiers absolutely killed it. It was such an amazing collaborative effort and I'm so lucky to have had the support to pull this thing off with them.
I'll do a second comment explaining "what Bone Marrow?" "why Bone Marrow?" And "how Bone Marrow?"
Blinker__182 on September 6th, 2024 at 15:34 UTC »
Be the change you want to see in the world.
You give us all hope for the future, brother.
Osiris32 on September 6th, 2024 at 15:51 UTC »
Hey man, all of us over at /r/MilitaryStories are super proud of you. And also rightly pissed off that your leadership hasn't yet pinned a rather prestigious medal on your chest.