As much as I complained on Twitter about it, I actually had a good time at the ball (if by good time you mean your feet hurt and you can’t breathe b/c the last time you wore your Blues you hadn’t had 2 kids but I digress). These things are tradition. They’re part of the lineage and history of what we do. The pants on the blues are lighter color than the jackets to symbolize our soldiers from the civil war, whose pants were bleached by the sun.
If they’re going to be done, they should be done right. When I tweeted about the spouses at our table looking beautiful, I wasn’t kidding. They were all dressed in very classy gowns and carried themselves in the finest tradition of military wives.
Other spouses, however did not look the part and those were some of the ones you read about. But here’s the thing: those folks might not have known better. Our soldiers should know better. Our soldiers should know that if you are in that unit, you come in uniform and at a formal, that uniform, ladies, is the skirt. Like it or not, at a formal event, you don’t get the option of wearing pants. And gentlemen, please refrain from sliding your hand up your wife’s thigh at the table. Not cool. Funny. But not really cool.
But over all, it was a good time. I shared a lot of laughs and we remembered some of the fun we had in Iraq, laughing at our mistakes or at others. It was a night of comraderie and laughs.
There are some units that you can’t wait to leave. There are others that you will never forget. My current unit is one that I will never forget, and that I will laugh over and remember for the rest of my life. I have a fantastic commander and first sergeant who are growing into a superb command team. The NCOs I work with are truly great and have potential to grow into the next generation of fantastic senior NCOs.
I will miss these folks when I move on to my next assignment. It’s a pretty special thing.
