American soldiers across the globe are familiar with Jeff and Tina, the hapless virtual office workers who guide troops through their annual mandatory online Cyber Awareness Challenge training. And in a moral-boosting spirit, one Signals officer turned Jeff into a challenge coin that looks like an Army ID card, pictures of which recently went viral in the defense community.
2nd Lt. Michael Moser previously served as a 1st Sgt. before attending the Signal Basic Officer Leader Course (SBOLC) where he drew up a couple of challenge coin designs and had his class vote on which they liked best, then had them made for his classmates.
Moser then posted a picture of the challenge coin he had made and posted it to his social media account before heading out on a training exercise. Little did he know, the photo went viral.
"My phone, throughout the [training exercise] I was in, continued to go off,” Moser said in an Army release. “Everybody loves it...it’s one for the ages."
In order to meet the newfound demand for the Jeff CAC card challenge coin, Mosner ordered an additional 300 coins. Since attaining viral game, Moser has now sent out around 1,400 challenge coins to people around the country.
"In no way did I ever think that a challenge coin would’ve reached this magnitude. I’ve had people who have been retired out of the Army 15, 20 years hit me up saying, ‘Hey, I want that coin'," Moser explained.
Moser says that he has over 100 challenge coins on his display stand, each of which carries a different story and significance. But his ID card challenge coin, "due to the viral response, it stands up there" as an all-time favorite he said.