Monday, March 23, 2009

Please Allow Me to Introduce Myself

Saturday was my first battle assembly with the reserve unit I've signed into. I stay busy, and allowed myself to be distracted with trivialities (you know, school, school, friends, and evil students) until the last minute- when I realized that, with my stuff spread over three locations, I didn't have a cover (headgear, for you non-mil types), unit patch or rank! Not exactly the way I want a new unit to meet me.

Saturday morning was colder than I'd expected, which meant an extra few minutes cleaning ice off the Furious Bumblebee's windshield. I buzzed to the unit, hoping I wouldn't add tardiness to my list of the morning's transgressions. I hit the parking lot going considerably faster than prudent, and whipped around a couple of soldiers. As I passed them, I realized one was...the command sergeant major. Oh, no.

I piled out of my car and introduced myself and my "challenges" to another Spec-4 I saw, and then the Sergeant Major arrived. Gulp. He calmly told me safety was a priority in his unit, and advised that running over the sergeant major would not be a good introduction.

My new Spec-4 buddy loaned me a beret, so I only looked partially jacked up when I got in formation. The first sergeant asked new soldiers to raise their hands, and then posted me in front of the formation after I sheepishly raised my hand. Ah, man.

Anyway, it got better from there. It pretty much had to.

5 comments:

HollyB said...

Well, gee, John. At least you WERE on time.

J.R.Shirley said...

There is that. I was hurrying to be sure I had time to try to square myself away.

Matt G said...

A friend of mine was surprised, in his outfit, to get promoted. He had so many write-ups, closed-door chats, counsellings, etc, that he'd thought that it would be impossible. When he asked his superior how it came to pass that he got the promotion over several other candidates, he was told with a chuckle that his name could not be forgotten, because it certainly had come up before. If a name kept coming up, it must be due to promote the man.

I question the logic, but don't doubt the veracity, of this story.

J.R.Shirley said...

Yeah, we had a meeting the second day to discuss promotion to E-5. (I already have the time in grade, and should easily make the points.)

If this means marching anyone, I don't know that I want it, though...;-)

Assrot said...

Things have sure changed a lot since my day in the service.

Almost running over the CO because you were late and being in formation out of uniform would have gotten me at least 100 push-ups and a weeks worth of KP in my day.

Good luck there John and thank you for continuing to serve. Please get yourself "squared away" before your next formation.

:-)

Joe


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