SGT(P) DeGraf

Today was my Staff Sergeant promotion board.

Today was a terrible day. And today was a great day. The whole part where I was at the board was stressful and made me feel like a worthless idiot. The whole rest of the day after the board was great-- because the board was over. Forever. I'll never have to sit before a panel of 5 First Sergeants and 1 Command Sergeant Major and have them scrutinize and judge me based on every syllable that comes out of my mouth, every move my body makes, and every stitch of my uniform ever again.

Thank you, Jesus. Now I can finally breathe for a second!

The only way my (P) promotable status can be taken away from me now, is if I screw up and somehow end up in trouble with the Army. Never ever have I been more inclined to do the right thing so I'll never have to go to the board again.

Staff Sergeant DeGraf will sound really good once I make points. Let the mad dash to earn more points begin! 

Sweet Outfits, Ladies

Friday was Warrior Leader's Course graduation, and you know what that means! It means the wives were out. In the finest attire for a 10am ceremony on post. Check out some of the hotties I saw:

Stiletto heels, skin tight pants and your belly showing. Nice.

Truly, animal print pants outta control.

What ever possesses these women to dress so inappropriately completely blows my mind. But I'm not complaining-- their cluelessness makes going to these boring WLC graduations worth it.

Worst Jobs of 2012

Well that sounds just about right.

Eagle Rifle Marksmanship

2 weeks ago I went through a course called Eagle Rifle Marksmanship. The course clearly had to have the word 'eagle' in the title because, let's face it, this is 101st land and everything has to do with those screaming eagles in one way or another.

Anyhow, this was a marksmanship course designed to help you coach a shooter to shoot better. I am already a pretty awesome shooter. Duh. But I'm always going to have Soldiers who suck at shooting and, as an NCO, I'm always going to have to be on the range with these folks until they qualify. So learning tricks to get the shooter to shoot better was great.

Along the way, I got to put a whole lot of bullets down range. I had a ton of fun. I got to shoot at metal targets for the first time-- the tink tink tink noise it makes is super cool. I learned how to shoot with my non-dominant eye. Turns out I'm good as lefty too. I learned how to lay on my side and shoot and how to brace myself against walls and windows for more effective shooting.

I even brought back a battle scar.

I was lifting myself up off the ground and pushed a hot spent brass casing into my wrist. It's been a while since I had a brass burn. Better on the wrist than on the neck like usual!

I'm looking forward to the next 86th CSH range so I can teach my Soldiers what I learned and hopefully I'll be able to coach of few of the into shooting expert-- like me. :)    

Things You Do In The Army...

Clearly, it takes a different kind of person to be in the Army. Generally speaking 12 mile road marches, running 4 miles, waking up at 4:30am, working 12 hours daily, land navigation in pitch darkness and wearing long sleeves and pants all year doesn't appeal to the masses. It takes a special, maybe a short bus kind of special, person to do this and love it.

Here are a few things Army folks do that most people wouldn't-- either due to class, standards or morals.

1. Nap in your car. Every Army person is guilty of this. I get to work 30 minutes early just to park in the lot and sleep in my car. I use my PT cap as a pillow.

2. Sleep on the floor. Sometimes this is the only option. When something is the only option, you do it. Once you're used to doing it, you do it frequently and easily.

3. Eat meals in your car. It doesn't matter if you're driving or sitting stationary in your car, at some point during the day, you will eat in it. You will even keep fast food napkins stashed in your car. Also, you will learn to sleep in military vehicles, regardless if they are on or off.

4. Talk about poop. You will talk about poop with your co-workers. This kind of natural conversation will sabotage any kind of civilian job you ever plan to have, so you'd better just stay in the Army and keep talking about poop.

5. Wear white calf socks with shorts. It's part of the Army PT uniform. As a civilian, this is a social and fashion no-no. In the Army, everyone looks like an old man at the beach, so you just roll with it.

6. Hear explosions and ignore them. Not many other jobs prepare you for this acquired skill. Things blow up on post-- get over it.

7. Go alone into the woods at night. We do this stuff called land navigation. And it requires you to do a day and night iteration. Alone. In the woods. Alone. With unidentified animals. Alone.

This is just a short list. But hear me now, we're different from the average bear. We may not know when or where it happens, but somehow we do these things civilians just won't do in good conscious. And we end up loving it... or ETSing....

Happy Easter with Skittles

Well, it's Easter. And if you don't have children or you're not religious, it's just another Sunday. It's just another Sunday for me, James and Picasso. Except, Picasso had a special visitor.

Skittles showed up while I was doing dishes. All I heard was Picasso whining and barking and carrying on like he'd lost his mind. I yelled at him a few times to shut the heck up without success. So I walked around to the door and saw Skittles, patiently staring back at Picasso, unhearing and unafraid.

Easter candy showed up in an unusual form this year.

Grimey Augusta

So here I am in lovely Augusta, Georgia once again. Last time I was here I drove past a lot with thousands of cement lawn ornaments for sale and it intrigued me, but it was a little too close to the van with the pit bull for me to stop at the evening hour I passed it. So I set out in the bright day light to check it out today.

Imagine a lot half an acre long and at least 50 feet deep jammed packed of cement lawn ornaments. There were thousands. Easily. I started browsing along the front and I came upon the owner of this lot. Based on the warning sign posted out front, I'm assuming this was Mr. Grimes. Mr. Grimes was black guy who was approximately 190 years old.

Immediately he starts in on my tattoos. He was really hard to understand. I think his ignorance was catching his tongue. What I gathered was he wasn't a fan of the tattoos. So I kindly excused myself and kept browsing. I had gotten to the end of the piles of lawn ornaments and started to walk into an inner chamber of lawn ornaments when I hear Mr. Grimes yelling, "HEY GIRL HEY GIRL!" So I popped my head out.

He was all worked up into a tizzy, shaking his cane at me, shouting at me to come out of there at once; he didn't want me taking any pictures in there. Because, "if you're taking damn pictures in there you ain't gonna buy nothing."  

This didn't really seem very hospitable, or a sound way to treat a potential customer. I made my decision to leave then (even though I had seen a stone gargoyle that I really wanted). Good ol' Grimey decided to make my decision to leave concrete (ha ha, pun intended). As I'm walking past him he says, "If you're back there you're gonna steal."

Steal? Steal a 50lb lawn ornament?

He says to the back of my head, "Look at all those damn tattoos. It's a shame you did that to yourself. What the Hell kind of job can you have looking like that?"

Well, Grimey, I proudly work in the United States Army. Of course he didn't deserve that answer. I said nothing to him. As I left I took a picture of his lot out of the window of my car. Just to spite him. What an ignorant jerk.

My Boy

Look into his lovely little face and tell me you don't want him.

Army Medicine At Its Best

The skinny of the situation is that I'm having a surgery that the Army is going to preform. It seems my back has just had enough of my large breasts and it's time to downsize for the sake of my 2 mile run. Now that we have the facts out of the way...

My plastic surgeon is at Fort Gordon. I drove 7 hours to Augusta, Georgia yesterday in anticipation of my first appointment with my doctor.

Let me tell you about Augusta. Augusta is sketchy. Or, at least, the parts I saw were sketchy. I went on a search for food and ended up in the wrong neighborhood. I turned around at a gas station to right my wrong turns. There was a van parked with items for sale scattered around it. These items were spandex pants in a multitude of colors, all displayed on half manikins. A nursing mother pit bull wandered over to my car and stared at me like she was willing me to buy these pants. I got out of there asap.

I hid at the hotel until it was time for my appointment this morning. I showed up 20 minutes early-- like a good Soldier. And what good did it do me? The receptionist told me the doctor was on leave and my appointment had been rescheduled for next Wednesday, and hadn't anyone told me?

WTF.

No, no one had told me. Why the Hell else would I have driven 7 hours to hear it from your mouth if someone had told me!? It certainly wasn't for the ambiance of Augusta!!

So I drove home. Another 7 hours. And I get to do this again next week. Ugh. Yay Army medicine!

Fortune?

I'm not sure how I'm supposed to take this as a fortune....

This is a if a tree falls in the forest kind of situation.