HEY hi.

I am the Fort Bliss Bone marrow guy, in my spare time I organize Bone Marrow registry events at fort Bliss. I'm a 23y/o specialist who has zero understanding of a work life balance and far too much caffeine intake to have a normal heartbeat rhythm. Since Monday of last week I started and completed organizing the largest donor registry drive in DoD history. A drive I am now in the beginning of executing. Every single available battalion on Fort Bliss in 5 days.

As all professional event coverage goes, let's start with my personal medical history. Following my last huge event that put me in the hospital, I decided to remove my tonsils to ensure that the offending organs couldn't fail again. Two weeks ago. Btw adult tonsil removal recovery was the worst experience of my life. So on the 28th I got these things ripped out. So two days before I was driving back from an appointment, looked at the clock and saw "oh wow I got an extra 2 hours in the working day" so I popped into 3rd brigades office and scheduled a couple events for this week. Next day popped into 1st and scheduled a couple more. Then got the surgery, expecting an easy recovery because I did no research of any kind. I was planning on using the conleave to go visit some other bases. Woke up and regretted every decision that lead me to this point in my awful life. The ENTIRE NEXT TEN DAYS I could not speak, eat, drink. I studied every single medical article on when this suffering would end. Day 10 things would get better. Day ten day ten day ten. I was at DAY NINE last Sunday and still couldn't talk and did nothing but sleep and forcefeed water and lil bits of pudding. I wanted to find those filthy highly educated medical LIARS and give them a piece of my mind on a whiteboard. I would have learned sign language to create new ways to put shame on their family's cow's entire ancentorial tree.

I do not know how, Monday morning I am a new man. Literally. Totally fine. Ate like a cow. Picked up the vape from the bad decisions drawer, drank a monster. Lived life. 9:30 rolls around and I decide, you know what? I'm gonna go to a couple more brigades. I then spend the next remaining 4 days of my conleave in a transient existence. Neither man nor animal. Just a traveling broom salesman pitch. Every single goshdang office of this installation one by one. "hey SGM mind if I steal a minute of your time" "Hey SGM mind if I take a moment" "Hey SGM mind if I confiscate a few minutes of your life" And created in four days, the largest Bone Marrow Donor Registry event in DoD history from scratch. Fixing my mistakes from last year. Clearly explaining what I need and how I need the steps of this whole thing to go. I printed one copy of it, and when nobody was looking, commandeered totally unguarded copy machines in random battalion offices and made tons of copies as I needed throughout my travels. Then I'd find a unsecured stapler and stick em all together very prettily. Following the age old adage of, if you walk with purpose and carry a clipboard nobody will bother you. I carried around a binder with page protectors like it was a loaded machine gun. I'd sling them out to leaders like Oprah and get them to understand how quick and easy these events are. Then let them keep one to scan and distribute as needed to ensure I don't rip my hair during the event. I only need three things from each battalion; -A battalion formation, probably at a really weird time. -one volentold per company present 30 mins before -one table per company

Then I'd encourage them to offer an incentive and 9 times out of 10 theyd jump at the chance, and now their soldiers would get a late work call or day off work if they just registered during my drive.

1st and 3rd brigade:

The three brigade-brigades (1st 2nd 3rd) are my element, no crazy schedule, generally only unavailable if they are in the field or another country, MUAH love them. I walk in to the building, walk straight into 2-13 Cav and to the OPs CSM, when I was introducing myself some sgt behind me said "Oh snap you're the BoneMarrowGuy??" And I recoiled internally so hard I got whiplash. He got me on the schedule in 3 minutes, then let me use his computer to print out my master copies of my papers. Amazing man, and didn't judge me at all for being so unprepared. Printers while living in the barracks are quite a rare commodity. Then I went up to the S3 and used the fact I already had a battalion on the schedule to say "I'm working through to schedule the rest of the battalions" as if I didnt only have one. Then he put out a tasker and to contact me and schedule their event. Then I went through to each battalion and said "hey BDE just put out this tasker with all the information but I prefer to give you the respect and explain in person, shake your hand and give you a physical copy." Doing that at both brigades I was able to get the rest of their units get on my dang schedule. I wanted every unit. If a battalion was at NTC or in the field, and the only remaining soldier they left behind was on a ventilator I was going to request they roll him out to another battalions event and give me their spit.

Sustainment Brigade:

Then I popped over to the Sustainment brigade, I had worked with them last year so that was an easy slam dunk. ⅔ of units the board in 30 minutes. Like they hadn't even done a change of command yet. Same guys as last time. Got the last battalion the next day by ambushing the CSM the minute he got out of a meeting and letting him scrape me off onto a confused LT.

11th ADA:

Over lunch I ran over to the chaos that is the office layout of 11th ADA. I abide by a very good understanding that Officers work through lunch. so lunch is the best time to find them. You know, when they are trying to avoid everyone bothering them and get some actual work done in peace. I have never once claimed to be a good person. Found a amazing officer from BDE OPS and smoozed em uppp and got them to put out an email to each battalion to call me and set up a time for an event, emailing digital copies of the needed documents. Still waiting on the remaining two BNs as of now, the others are deployed. That's four brigades involved. I legitimately had no clue how I was getting this done. At all. It should not be this easy, but I promise you, young SPCs debating reaching out to me, it is.

93d MP BN:

I was on conleave, so this entire time I'm wearing business casual civilians. It's also 100⁰ the entire week, so I'm running home to change into fresh clothes ones a day. All my clothes were STANK. By the time I got to the MPs I was down to a Hawaiian shirt and Khakis. The CSM was not amused. My fault. Scheduled them in about 9 minutes from walking in the door, then they called and rescheduled and I had to make the most complicated plan on the planet to get THREE BNs basically at one time.

Politics:

Then I ran to Division to get a meeting with the Division CSM. He should probably know that I'm doing this right? Also I needed to give him a brief and update anyways. Ran into the DIV surg cell, let them know what I was doing, then to PAO. Both groups highly confused and annoyed that they were told with such short notice. Then even more confused when I told them the reason why. The division CSM was on leave, and wouldn't get back til next Monday. Another note, to get these BNs to fit into my schedule, and have formations at any time besides 9:30 Monday, I had to be veryyyy creative with explaining the exact order of events as they happened. As in, if I said this is a base wide effort, at the beginning it certainly was not. So then I had to go and make it a basewide effort. I knew there would be PAO coverage, but at the very beginning hadn't exactly cemented it. I was aiming to beat the previous record for the largest donor registry event, but it wasn't yet. I absolutely marketed that it was until enough leaders collaborated and had enough BNs to actually do it. This was absolutely a Fort Bliss achievement because every leader had to indirectly negotiate and work together to fit onto this schedule with such short notice. Every single leader was happy to help me make this happen if it was possible. Literally jarred. I've met every battalion CSM on post last week and made a ridiculous ask, and they're actually all pretty nice. So I then started doing outreach to get media coverage for the event. Met with the PAO battalion here and they were excited. Division PAO was excited. Emailed a GoArmy person I happened to have the email of for some reason. They were excited. Bam! Three avenues for the army to document their new record over every branch of the military.

My stupid self:

Keep in mind, this entire time I'm recovering from barely eating the week before. I have ADHD (obviously) and take Adderall (obviously) so I don't ever feel hunger. I have to maintain a routine and count calories to make sure I eat my maintenance amount, which I learned is 4,000. I'm also a workaholic. So I was not realizing the fact I was not eating. Like the most I ate in a day was two tornados and a Costco Churro. I HAD to make this schedule happen, and there was not enough day in the day to think about things like sleep or sustenance. I found myself running through something like 30 meetings a day minimum. I would literally only eat when I started to pass out on my feet. Like the feeling of standing up too fast, but sitting in a meeting or walking. When that happened I'd stop by a vending machine, shove a honeybun in my face and keep it movin til the next time. That was realllly fucking stupid. I'm fine, but passing out on a CSMs office floor would probably slow down scheduling negotiations a bit. But we did it. Fort Bliss WILL have the largest registry event in DoD history. How am I gonna do it? At 6:30, 9:30, 1300, and closeout I will be traveling with Salute to life's Chad Ballance to the motor pool of each Battalion on the schedule, one by one. Setting up the event, giving speeches, and registering soldiers right there. Each event will only be 30 minutes. Pack up and go to the next one. Last year I did 5 battalion events in two days, and it was the worst thing I've ever done. I'm making sure it goes muchhhhh better this time. My brigade has deployed, so the rear-D NCOIC, put together a detail of 5 soldiers to follow me the entire week and help ensure things run smoothly. So each event will have 12 people, me, my team, the volentolds, setting up, registering soldiers, and breaking down. Events can't help but go smoothly. They also gave me a TMP yesterday because my Nissan Sentra isn't exactly able to fit 4500 registry kits as well as supplies. I know things go smoother when the media is in attendance, but they won't be there for all of them. So I'm giving one of my dedicated team members a camera, and they will be a fake PAO at every event to ensure everyone ACKT RIGHT.

I did this to show and prove that literally any soldier, of any rank, can organize and execute these drives at just one unit, or 20 of them. It's a pain to organize so many in such short notice, but an absolute breeze to do it with one. I want soldiers, officers, senior leaders to reach out and learn how they can bring this life saving cause to their installation. To make a real difference in the army. All our efforts combine together to show the Army high shiny brass leadership that this works, that its something the army can do, and that people care. There are 15 soldiers right now working with me daily to get these events done at their unit, becoming their installation's (Base)BoneMarrow(Gender) and making change happen. This team, this program is called Operation Ring the Bell and we are working DAILY to grow it and get it visible in front of leadership. Our mission is to take the yearly program First Armored Division and I established for Fort Bliss, which will independently register thousands of soldiers as bone marrow donors each year from now on, and bring it to each of our installations. We are searching for every single window of opportunity to get this program design in front of each of our division commanders and convince them of it's importance. I could NOT have pulled this event off this week without their support, advice, and hard work. This was NOT my accomplishment. This was the first of many future successes that will come as a result of the Operation Ring The Bell team. And I want more soldiers to reach out to join.

Please DM me, I did this to prove to YOU that can you can do this. I am excited. Updates for each day will be documented under this line for the entire week.

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Day 1: not the easiest of days but of course not, just look at the mishmash of Tuesday. All the smaller units were packed into Monday, we got a large percentage of each formation to register but they just were small. I met with the division CSM and let him know what I was doing this week. He had no clue and was just like "️️ you did what now"

DAY 1: 261

Day 2: Hoowee, four events in a day is not the most fun I've had on a Tuesday, but also really damn exhilarating. So many soldiers, familiar and new faces. So many new places to learn Battalions find the once singular spot at their COF that gets zero of that lifesaving El Paso breeze and makes that the formation location. Really really great events today, absolutely riled me up.

Also to the guy in the blue charger that sideswipped our TMP on SGM BLVD then sped off for the nearest gate; thanks for the free racing stripe, you left some paint with us if you wanna come get it back.

DAY 2: 148

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