The MCRA continues to present the "1stLt Keith Wells" award at each TBS graduation class. This award is named after Keith Wells who was awarded the Navy Cross for his actions during the assault on Mt. Suribachi. Part of his citation reads: "by his leadership and indomitable fighting spirit, 1st Lt Wells contributed materially to the destruction of at least twenty-five Japanese emplacements."

On 29 Jan, National President Ken Hopper presented the first award of 2014 to "E Company 5-13” to 2Lt. Robert Simpson,Jr. Bob was raised in Concord, NC, graduated from the US Naval Academy and majored in Physics. He will begin Infantry Officer School in March. During their six months of training, which began on 9 July 2013, they received 1700 hours of instruction on “the basics”: which included classroom instruction, physical fitness events, land navigation, field exercises, MOUT, and MCMAP training.

The five horizontal themes stressed throughout TBS are:
Marine officers must be of exemplary character and integrity
An officer is devoted to leading Marines 24/7
Able to decide, communicate, and act in the fog of war
A warfighter who embraces our Corps warrior ethos
You are mentally strong and physically tough
Congratulations Bob!

A BCD panel was convened on Maj Brezler last week in New Orleans and they have recommended to discharge the Major from the Marine Corps with an "honorable discharge." Yet this still may not be the end of the story. There are now politicians involved and they are saying this outcome is not good enough. The Major was deployed to Afghanistan, and got into trouble for using unsecured email to send his former commanding officer classified information alerting him to a corrupt Afghan cop, Sarwar Jan, who had gained access to a Marine base. Less than a month later, a teenage boy kept on the base by Jan grabbed a gun and killed three Marines and seriously wounded a fourth.Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Rep. Pete King (R-NY) and FDNY Commissioner Sal Cassano have urged the Marine Corps to clear the record of the Major. Brezler was deployed to Now Zad, Afghanistan, in 2009 as a reservist with the 3rd Battalion, 4th Marines. He was in the U.S. in 2012 when he got an email from his former commanding officer, Capt. Andy Terrell, telling him Sarwar Jan, a corrupt Afghan cop with Taliban ties, had gained access to a Marine base in Afghanistan. Fromhis personal Yahoo email account, Maj Brezler sent Capt Terrell a classified briefing document about Sarwar Jan, hoping it would help run him off the premises. Nearly three weeks after Brezler sent the warning, a 15-year-old boy kept on the base by Jan grabbed an AK-47 and murdered three Marines and seriously wounded a fourth. Brezler soon reported his indiscretion to his superiors, and military investigators opened a probe with his cooperation.