Friday, January 11, 2013

Days of Excellence - (Germany) Day 380

This morning I headed to the PHV theatre after dropping my wife off at work. The battalion "Days of Excellence" was being held there and started at 0900. Our formation was at 0830, which meant that we were supposed to be there at 0815…hurry up and wait. As 0815 approached I was still in my car and I noticed everyone just heading into the theatre, so I went in as well. It turns out that because it was cold outside, everyone just went in and I was keeping an eye out in the parking lot to see when the formation was actually going to start. Our platoon sergeant had some common sense and just told all the section leaders to make sure all their people were there and had us sit down instead of going out and having an actual formation.

Because we were some of the first to arrive, I ended up sitting right in the front. After a few minutes our first sergeant came to the front and started talking with everyone. He ended up sitting on the stage right in front of me, I kept waiting for him to give me a dirty look or say something about how nobody should be blogging about their lives…but it never happened. I was surprised, but it didn't keep me from being nervous the entire time he was up there.

Days of Excellence started on time at 0900 with some training on "Consideration of Others". This was basically a PowerPoint on treating others how you would like to be treated. We were then given a scenario and had to break up into smaller groups to discuss it. The next training block was on finance. This was basically training for the younger people who joined showing them the pros and cons of credit. The event wrapped up with some awards for a couple soldiers, then we were given our safety brief from both the first sergeant and the sergeant major. I haven't had a safety brief for a few weeks, I'm surprised I haven't been out there getting into some major trouble each weekend <sarcasm> . In fact I haven't had access to a computer at work, so I haven't turned in a weekend checklist, been given a weekend counseling, or had my POV inspection.

During one of our breaks our platoon sergeant came up to me and started talking. At first I assumed that I was going to be told some bad news or get yelled at, but he was actually pretty cool. He said my local clearance should be granted again soon. This means I'll actually be able to get on work computers once again. He said that this whole issue with me and my blog has been blown out of proportion. He said I should have been given a negative counseling statement the day after it was discovered and had that be the end of it. My boss was there and asked if I would come back to the ComSec office now, but our platoon sergeant said that was the next discussion. So I'm glad to hear that I'll be getting my local clearance back, but "soon" is a relative term, who knows how long that will take? I am also glad to hear that at least everything is being talked about, I feel like I'm in limbo just waiting and waiting which is driving me crazy. If I'm going to get into trouble, I'd like it to just happen and I'll deal with it and get it over with. Instead I'm left to wonder and stress about it every day.

After Days of Excellence, I met up with my wife and we had a quick lunch at home. I headed into my office and made some more calls for the chaplain. I then did a little reading for school before I headed to the gym to workout. We were told in the Days of Excellence today that the reverse cycle PT is going to end and we'll go back to normal PT starting February 1st. This is a bit of a bummer, but I didn't see it lasting too long. Too many people either missed PT, or just weren't working out. I really liked it because it gave me a lot more time with my wife each morning, and I like working out after work much better. I also liked just wearing civilian PT clothes to the gym each day. Now we'll be getting up early, we'll be standing in the cold doing our PT formation, then we'll be doing whatever is on the PT schedule for that day. I'll still be on profile, so I'm hoping they just send me to the gym after the formation like they used to. I guess we'll see.

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