The 53rd Retirement Appreciation Day concluded Friday with more than 200 retirees attending the annual benefits briefing and expo.
“More people attended the brief than last year,” Betty Anderson, retirement services officer at Redstone, said.
Each year the RAD goes through an evaluation process as the Retirement Services Office, along with the Military Retiree Council, work to evolve the event.
Anderson said based on the early feedback, she would expect more retirees at next year’s appreciation day.
This year kicked off with expedited service at the One Stop and legal services provided by the Staff Judge Advocate’s office on Thursday.
Friday began with a prayer breakfast at Bicentennial Chapel, with a keynote from Harry Hobbs, followed by the main briefing at Heiser Hall and an expo, including flu shots, at the Community Activity Center.
Guests who spoke during the briefing included: Fox Army Health Center’s commander; Huntsville Hospice Caring of Life; Military Officers Association of America; Alabama Department of Veterans Affairs; Alabama National Cemetery; and Redstone’s retirement services officer; along with Garrison Command Sgt. Maj. Dylan Lemasters and Redstone’s Senior Commander, Lt. Gen. Chris Mohan, acting commander of Army Materiel Command.
“You guys literally laid the foundation for the capabilities we have today,” Lemasters said during the opening of the brief. “So, it is a really big deal to do this and it’s a phenomenal opportunity for me to show our appreciation.”
Lemasters gave an overview of what is going on at Redstone Arsenal and answered some questions about the current state of military housing on post.
In addition to showing gratitude for the service of the retirees in the room, Mohan took the opportunity to challenge them to help the Army in its recruiting efforts by telling their stories to the next generation.
“The second thing is – to be blunt – we need your help,” Mohan said.
“As I look back at what the Army has done for me, I never flew on an airplane until I joined the Army, right? The first airplane I flew on was going to basic training in 1986. The second one was coming home from basic training and the third one I jumped out of.”
Mohan said he’s expected to talk about how great the Army was to him, but “the more powerful message is when you do it at the dinner table. When you do it at church. When you see a young man who could have been like me, who was kind of adrift.”
He also addressed claims that the Army had lowered its standards in order to meet recruitment goals.
“There are some myths out there that we’ve lowered our standards,” he said. “But what we’re doing right now is giving young men and women who really suffered during the COVID time frame – they really suffered with education, with isolation – and so we’ve got a program that we’re expanding across the Army where we bring them in and we basically put them through school.
“We give them three weeks of training, three weeks of physical fitness … we give them healthy balanced meals and we make them sleep and we’re seeing a significant increase in their standardized test scores.”
Mohan said we’ve learned that we – referring to the country as a whole – hurt the nation’s young people during the COVID-19 pandemic, but there was precedent for what the Army is doing.
“If you look back at World War II, coming out of the Great Depression, we had young men in particular that couldn’t meet the basic height/weight standards because they had not had three meals.
“And so, we brought them in and gave them three meals a day and watched them explode and turn into the Army that ripped the backside of the German and Japanese armies.”
Retirees also heard from Lt. Col. Deepak Mathews, commander of Fox Army Health Center who explained the center’s efforts in boosting enrollment numbers.
“I want the retirees to be noticed,” Anderson said. “I want them to feel appreciated.”
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