Officers of the AotM,
Good Afternoon! <salute>
I hope you all had a wonderful weekend! It's been cold and blustery in Nebraska for about a week and a half... and today the weather finally broke! The weather was in the mid 60's and the sun came out... so I took my darling wife out for a long walk. We walked down to the University of Nebraska to the Dairy Store there for a couple gigantic ice cream cones! The University has a Dairy Store on campus where the students learn all about food processing and they make some of the finest ice cream around. A very nice treat! Especially after my Cornhuskers got beat by Texas Tech on Saturday! <sniff>
Major Herb Nagel in IV Corps happened to be in Omaha this weekend for a wedding. I had a wonderful opportunity to talk to him on the phone on Friday night until my cell phone died on me! I was chuckling that the wedding was at the same time as the wedding... but while Herb was at a wedding... I was at a funeral the way my Cornhusker's were playing! Great talking to you, Herb! Hope you have a great trip out to Valentine!
Ah now... I didn't plan on sending this dispatch out to bore you with all the details from my weekend! Actually I wanted to let you know about some awards for the Army of the Mississippi that I'm going to begin issuing. The CSA Library has a page that list all the various AotM Awards. You can see it here:
http://www.rumple13.us/AoA/Library/library02fAotM.htm
General Nick Kunz and General Bob Weir have designed us some additional ribbons for us (THANK YOU, GENTLEMEN!) and they will be appearing on the AotM Award page shortly. I've attached a Word document that shows the additions. Let me give you a brief rundown of these Awards.
1) The AotM Battle Citation. This Ribbon will be awarded to AotM Officer's for each victory (Major or Minor) against our Union opponents. The only restriction is that the battle lasts at least 12 turns.
2) The AotM Maneuver Citation. This Ribbon will be awarded to AotM Officer's for each maneuver game they play against another AotM Officer. This citation is designed to recongize those Officer's who are training other Officer's within the Army and for gaining familarity with various battles played within the Club.
3) The AotM Gallantry Citation. This Ribbon will be awarded monthly to the AotM Officer with the most Victory turns in battle against our Union opponents. So if you had two victorious battles that concluded in the same month... you would add the total number of turns completed in each battle that you won. Let's say that I won a Major Victory in 12 turns in one battle and a Minor Victory in 40 turns in another battle. Both battles were completed in the same month. Then I would have 52 turns of victories for that month... and if no does better than me that month... then I would receive the AotM Gallantry Citation for that particular month. You will also receive an 5 OBD Point award in recognition of your efforts.
Also you'll notice the Outstanding Brigade and Outstanding Division and Outstanding Corps Awards. The Outstanding Brigade Award is awarded monthly. The Outstanding Division Award is awarded quarterly and the Outstanding Corps Award is awarded every six months. These Awards will take into consideration a number of things some of which include: Mustering, Battles & Maneuvers Won/Lost, Activity in the Forums and various contributions to the Club, etc. I will award the first Outstanding Brigade Award at the end of the month for October. I will award the first Outstanding Division Award at the end of December and the first Outstanding Corps Award in March 2010.
You'll also notice I've made significant changes to the AotM web page. Which you can see it here:
http://www.rogerhulinsky.com/AoM.html
If you have any suggestions for improvement... please let me know. I am looking for folks that are interested in designing web pages for the AotM and also for those interested in taking on more responsibilities... command or otherwise.
Warmest Regards,
General Roger Hulinsky
Cmdg, AotM
Confederate States of America