Our fourth conference, and the first regional conference for military and Marine families will be held in Kansas City, Missouri on Saturday, August 9, 2008 with the help of Marines and personnel from the USMC Mobilization Command Unit (MobCom) as well as the Marines from Headquarters Company, 24th Marines, both out of Kansas City.
The 24th Marines are a reserve unit that has been deployed to Iraq. MobCom is responsible for preparing musters for recall of Marines in the IRR (Individual Ready Reserves) program.
The focus of the conference will be broad and include topics and speakers on a wide-range of subjects including IRR, Deployment, Warrior Transitioning and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). For those preferring more hands-on experiences, sessions on scrapbooking and sampling an MRE will be included as well.
The opening session on Saturday morning will include speakers from MobCom on the topic of IRR followed by breakout sessions to be held throughout the day. The 24th Marines will be holding a two-part breakout session on deployment. Part two of this breakout will be a question and answer period. Connie McClellan will share her Marine's story and her book My Miracle Marine during lunch. Dr. Bridget Cantrell will hold a two-part session on PTSD and Warrior Transitioning during the afternoon breakout sessions.
The keynote speaker for dinner Saturday evening will be Colonel Stephen D. Waldron, Deputy Commander of Marine Corps Mobilization Command. Dinner tickets are available individually.
MarineParents.com has held three national conferences since 2004. The first one-day conference has been developed as a regional option to be a more cost-effective and travel-friendly event for military and Marine Corps families around the United States.
Though the conference features speakers from the Marine Corps, any military family with a son or daughter deployed or soon-to-deploy will benefit from attendance at the military family conference.
Registration for the full conference is $100. You may also purchase tickets seperately, with day event tickets at $55 and dinner tickets at $45. Meals are included in the price of registration. Registrations and tickets should be purchased by August 2.
MarineParents.com, Inc. provides support, information and services for Marines and their families, and encourages troop support through community awareness programs. The organization, a Missouri nonprofit corporation founded in January 2003, is an IRS approved 501(c)(3) public charity.
MarineParents.com is located at 2810 LeMone Industrial Boulevard in Columbia, Missouri. Additional information is available online at www.MarineParents.com or www.MarineConference.com.
