Friday, March 02, 2007

Flashbacks


We had a milestone event and I had an interesting experience yesterday. Marianne had her promotion to Major pin on ceremony at work so I decided to get my hair cut because it was looking like a mop. I went to the same women I always go to in Mililani but this time she gave me a haircut that could pass for GI issue. I didn't like it. So anyway,........



Marianne's ceremony was well done. Not too much formality and lot's of cake. She's waited a long time to pin on and it looks great on her!
After the ceremony one of her NCO's comes in the office asking "what is a push letter? I need to submit a push letter with this decoration package" I immediately burst out laughing inappropriately.
A little background. A push letter is the quintessential waste of a tree. Basicly when someone your writing a decoration for has any markdowns on one of their performance reports, (ie, not the perfect human being,) the fact that you submit the decoration doesn't send a clear enough signal to leadership that you want them to receive a decoration, you must send a formal letter along with the decoration package stating that they deserve a decoration and you want them to have it. I thought that only USAFE was requiring this but I guess you can't keep a crappy idea to yourself in the military.
So sitting there with my short hair I dictated a push letter in a jiff. 1/3 facts and 2/3 flowery bullshit usually works. Brought back old memories. That's when I had a moment of clarity.... I am happy to have left this kind of BS!
In other/real news, I read that the Army is downgrading Iraqi combat vets disability status when they separate to save money on medical costs. The number of soldiers in the highest rated disability category has plummeted since 2003. What a class act huh?
posted by Marianne and Bryant at 8:12 AM

3 Comments:

Blogger Chris and Natalie said...

Way to go with that push letter, MSgt Hafler. We could use a good Airman like you here in Germany.

Marianne, congrats on the promotion!

3/02/2007 1:09 PM  
Blogger Buz said...

Congratulations Marianne!!!!


Bryant, I just want you to know it could be worse. Living 2 minutes away from the Army base in Fairbanks I decided to get a haircut at the Army base. To make a long story short I didn’t get another haircut for 2 months and I learned it was worth my time to drive 40 minutes to Eielson to get a haircut.

3/03/2007 8:31 AM  
Blogger Jebediah said...

Congrats Marianne!

3/07/2007 5:27 AM  

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