Not the holiday kind.
In this morning's staff meeting, we were informed that one achievement medal citation and one commendation medal citation will be submitted for the squadron. After the citations are approved (at the group or wing level), they'll send them back and we'll append the list of names from the squadron we think are deserving of each. They'll look over each person's LOE and decide if that person is, indeed, deserving after all.
While the superintendent was talking about this, I just sat there and practiced my handwriting, as I try to do every staff meeting. I hate being bored, so when I find myself unavoidably bored as a regular thing, I try to find some way to expand my horizons, some skill to practice. When I was in tech school long ago listening to lectures and trying to stay awake, I taught myself the completely useless skill of twirling a pen in my fingers. Later, in OTS, I spent inordinate amounts of time standing at parade rest with my nose in the Talon.* So I memorized the Code of Conduct for fun.
* The Talon is a useless little 3" X 5" pamphlet of hooah stuff and "facts" that contradicted the information we were given in testable books, thereby ensuring ongoing arguments about what the right answers to certain questions were. We were required to carry it with us everywhere and any time we were put at parade rest, we were to have the Talon out of our pockets and in front of our faces.
To more wisely invest my time in staff meetings while not risking distraction lest any useful information accidentally crop up, I have decided to teach myself to write with my left hand. The first day I tried it, I only had a pen and I stupidly attempted cursive. It looked like the penmanship of a spastic riding a crowded bus. I quickly figured out why, precisely, children first learn to write with pencils, why the pencils are so large, why they make the letters so large in the beginning, and why it's important they first master printing before moving to cursive.
The second day I attempted this, I took a pencil with me. I worked on my letters, but found myself wishing I had one of those first grade writing tablets with the huge separated lines and sample letters with hyphenated lines to trace. I used my notepad as though it were such a tablet and practiced oversized letters. A couple of people looked at me like I'd lost my mind, but other than that, it went well.
I've been at it a couple of weeks or more and am already at the point that I can control the pencil with my fingers much better. My whole body no longer tenses as it did in the beginning. My right hand doesn't try to ghost write anymore. I can relax my left arm, even. The writing is painfully slow, of course, but quite legible and becoming even and balanced. In a few more weeks, it might almost feel natural.
While I was scribbling away (I hope I wasn't sticking my tongue out or anything regressive like that), I heard Lt Col Capalungan say, "And who will we get to write the squadron decorations?" I glanced up and he was looking at me like a squirrel that had just found a juicy nut. "How about our resident writer*?"
* Not a reference to my ongoing handwriting practice. I've helped him write awards, I wrote an article for the base newspaper for him which was published unedited, and he knows I was an English major because, in a fit of honesty, I blurted it out. This happens everywhere I go. The irony has not been lost on me that my non-technical major was the only thing that could have possibly prevented my selection for OTS. Writing is an indispensible skill in the military and is regularly used and abused at all levels. At my next base, I think I'll tell them I majored in Information Technology. That way, they won't expect me to be able to write, nor will they expect me to know anything about computers or communications equipment, either.
I let my head fall face down onto my arm and said in what I'm sure was a flat voice: "I'd be honored, sir." Everyone else cheered because it wasn't them.
Considering my clear disgust in the turns the "decoration program" has taken here, maybe this was poetic justice. The citations will be meaningless already. Besides the Shirt herself, I might be the person who cares least about the program at this point. But now I can't not care, because the troops deserve medals and we'd be remiss if we didn't give it our best shot, even though the Wing is doing all it can to hobble us at every turn.
Here is my rough draft for the Commendation Medal. Tell me what you think:
(Rank and Name) distinguished (himself/herself) by outstanding achievement as a (position title), 332d Expeditionary Communications Squadron, 332d Expeditionary Mission Support Group, 332d Air Expeditionary Wing, Balad Air Base, Iraq. During this period, (Rank and Name), despite an inability to procure supplies and equipment reminiscent of the Seige of Leningrad, cannibalized three dysfunctional Basic Access Modules to piece together a workable Frankenstein BAM, pledged their firstborn children to the Army to obtain backhoes for cable projects, and pulled 200,000 feet of Cat-5 cable out of their asses. With a Plans and Implementation Flight one-fourth the size of the average base, they managed five times the projects, including the initial installation of the Instrument Landing System, standup of an Land Mobile Radio tower for increased coverage, the laying of 15 miles of fiber and copper to extend the backbone of the base infrastructure, and the ground-up design and installation of the Joint Military Mail Terminal and environs. The high-speed-low-drag lieutenant of the Plans Flight voluntarily rewrote the CENTAF requirements process from scratch for them at their request, thereby paving the way for 23 bases under their command to actual procure equipment in the future. She also puts together a flawless Change of Command ceremony. The Mission Systems Flight worked around the clock with ever-shifting requirements to outfit the new housing area with internet and phone access so everyone could move to where most of the mortars hit three months ahead of schedule. The Information Systems Flight nicked equipment from mission essential applications in order to outfit the DV trailers with all sorts of capabilities the DVs never used. The Multimedia Services Flight provided instantaneous audio support for all requisite pomp and circumstance that came down the pike, and left the false security of Balad to take critical file photos of a downed aircraft. The distinctive accomplishments of this squadron reflect credit upon itself and the United States Air Force.
It may be a bit wordy. First and last sentences are obligatory, though.
d
