11 September 2008
Today, on the 7th anniversary of the attacks on the U.S., which (depending on your views) initiated the U.S. Military presence in the Middle East, my Brigade ceremoniously said goodbye to Ft. Wainwright, Fairbanks, friends and family, local and state officials to include Governor Sarah Palin, and our units bosses, the commander of troops in Alaska, and the commander of troops in the Pacific. Our Brigade Commander, Colonel Thompson, insisted that every able Soldier in the unit stand in formation for the ceremony. The brigade of over 4,000 men and women marched onto the runway in front of one of the hangers on Ft. Wainwright to officially say goodbye to all the guests.
The beginning of the ceremony, 23 Soldiers were sworn in as U.S. citizens. (You do not have to be a citizen of the U.S. to enlist in the Army. ) We went through the formalities of any good Army ceremony complete with the Adjutants call where the Brigade Adjutant General (the officer in charge of the personnel) calls the formation to attention using a bugle call. The adjutant doesn't do the bugle call, but he/she (in our case she) calls it.
The adjutants call is by far the funnies sight to see during an official Army ceremony. If you're looking at the formation, the Adjutant stands on the far left side of it with the band and thus the bugler. She sounds off with a loud and thunderous "Sound Attention" to which the bugler sounds attention. Everyone in the formation snaps to the position of attention and the Adjutant yells "Sound Adjutants Call" and the bugler obliges, providing about 10 seconds worth of the funniest Army tradition. While the bugler plays the adjutant call the adjutant has to walk, not run, but walk as fast as they can to the center of the formation. The adjutant is supposed to reach the center of the formation where the commander of troops is standing by the time the bugler finishes the little song. So, imagine a person having to walk about half a football fields length in just 10 short seconds. Even though the Army is chocked full of physically fit Soldiers, the Adjutant somehow always seems to be either a very short female or very nonathletic person. Sadly I was in the back of the formation and was not privileged enough to see said Adjutants call, but for the Division Change of Command ceremony I had to stand in in Korea had an Adjutant who looked like he had had a long and probably poky pole shoved up his butt for several years, so that provided me with plenty of giggles to sustain this Adjutants call.
The adjutants call sets off a series of events, all of which require a salute by the Soldiers. In a Brigade formation you can't just salute, you have to go down the formation by Battalion and salute in sequence. So Saluting the colors, the honorable guests, and the national anthem all take about 10 minutes while you wait for 7 Battalions to salute in order then drop the salute in order. It probably looks cool from the stands, so I expect a report on the cool factor during the re-deployment ceremony since I will once again be in the formation.
One note I should add here about Brigade formations and why it may seem like I have a negative tone about what I could and could not see is that the intimidation factor comes into play with Brigade ceremonies. In order to look like the unit is comprised entirely of 6'7" 250lb ripped males, the tallest Soldiers stand in front, while we wimpy 5'4" 150lb Soldiers stand in the back, and subsequently watch the back of the persons head who is taller than you. Excellent place to stand if you want to wiggle in formation, not so excellent if you want to laugh at the adjutant and see the guest speaker. Yes I heard all four of our guest speakers, but I did not see a single one of them.
Back to the ceremony. Once the salutes are finished, the guest speakers have the podium. We had the Commander of troops in Alaska, General Layfield, Commander of troops in the Pacific, General Nixon, and the Governor of "the Great State of Alaska, the Final Frontier," Sarah Palin. All in all, the speakers didn't speak for hours about anything too boaring, but there was plenty of dazing off, esspecially since at noon the sun was directly in front of us and not exactly high in the sky. I watched the crack in the airfield for a good hour hoping my eyeballs wouldn't dry up and just pop right out.
Once the speakers were done all the Soldiers recited the Artic Wolves creed. Our Brigade is 'code named' the Arcitc Wolves. Very fierce! And our creed is just as intimidating. The best part of the creed was that having 4,000 people, probably about 3,000 of whom are males, all yelling the same thing while facing two metal hangers, it's loud! When we finished you could very clearly hear a gentleman in the audiance give his approval of our volumn.
The final bit of Army ceremonies is often the 'Pass and Review.' Sounds exciting but this is the dangerous part of the ceremony because all the Soldiers have been standing in the same spot with our hands behind our backs for about an hour and a half. Trying to walk after that is surprisingly challenging. As much as you wiggle and shift your weight in formation, nothing can prepare you for that first 100 yards where blood flows out of your feet and your muscles actually have to move. Your legs feel like they're about 200 lbs each and you have to keep up with the person in front of you, then not crash into them when the stop, then start again without creating a gap, stop, start, stop, start, all the way around the formation. We made a nice little rectangle, as the Brigade marches by Battalion passed the podium where General Layfield, General Nixon, and Colonel Thompson were standing. I lied before...I actually saw the two generals. General Nixon even gave us the old two thumbs up when our Battalion passed. But I didn't see anyone else and the only reason I saw those three was because they were standing up on a podium.
After the ceremony was over everyone was able to socialize for a bit since our ceremony was not followed by us loading on planes. Most of the Soldiers wont leave for more than a week, maybe longer than that if a contract to fly us over the Kuwait is never settled on. The most exciting thing about the socializing part was that we almost got run over by Governor Palin's motorcade as she went across the airfield. That was neat.
Since I was in formation I couldn't take any pictures so sadly I have none to post. But I will try to bribe the Soldiers who have spouses up here to see if they have any. The Brigade had a photographer taking pictures so there should be some online soon. http://www.wainwright.army.mil/sites/local/ is the website for our Brigade so I'll try to steal some for the blog when they're uploaded.
Until then, I have about a week left in Alaska. I'm hoping it snows once before I go, I'll feel much better about missing winter for a year in the desert if I see snow before I go. We're rapidly losing day light, about 7 minutes a day. The sun is setting around 8:45 and rising about 6:45, so it's actually dark here which is new for me. Other than that, work is slow because the mind set is, if it can't wait until next week when we're in Kuwait and have nothing else to do, then we're in for a long year. But luckily we have compitent people in our section and our work can pause for a week.
The beginning of the ceremony, 23 Soldiers were sworn in as U.S. citizens. (You do not have to be a citizen of the U.S. to enlist in the Army. ) We went through the formalities of any good Army ceremony complete with the Adjutants call where the Brigade Adjutant General (the officer in charge of the personnel) calls the formation to attention using a bugle call. The adjutant doesn't do the bugle call, but he/she (in our case she) calls it.
The adjutants call is by far the funnies sight to see during an official Army ceremony. If you're looking at the formation, the Adjutant stands on the far left side of it with the band and thus the bugler. She sounds off with a loud and thunderous "Sound Attention" to which the bugler sounds attention. Everyone in the formation snaps to the position of attention and the Adjutant yells "Sound Adjutants Call" and the bugler obliges, providing about 10 seconds worth of the funniest Army tradition. While the bugler plays the adjutant call the adjutant has to walk, not run, but walk as fast as they can to the center of the formation. The adjutant is supposed to reach the center of the formation where the commander of troops is standing by the time the bugler finishes the little song. So, imagine a person having to walk about half a football fields length in just 10 short seconds. Even though the Army is chocked full of physically fit Soldiers, the Adjutant somehow always seems to be either a very short female or very nonathletic person. Sadly I was in the back of the formation and was not privileged enough to see said Adjutants call, but for the Division Change of Command ceremony I had to stand in in Korea had an Adjutant who looked like he had had a long and probably poky pole shoved up his butt for several years, so that provided me with plenty of giggles to sustain this Adjutants call.
The adjutants call sets off a series of events, all of which require a salute by the Soldiers. In a Brigade formation you can't just salute, you have to go down the formation by Battalion and salute in sequence. So Saluting the colors, the honorable guests, and the national anthem all take about 10 minutes while you wait for 7 Battalions to salute in order then drop the salute in order. It probably looks cool from the stands, so I expect a report on the cool factor during the re-deployment ceremony since I will once again be in the formation.
One note I should add here about Brigade formations and why it may seem like I have a negative tone about what I could and could not see is that the intimidation factor comes into play with Brigade ceremonies. In order to look like the unit is comprised entirely of 6'7" 250lb ripped males, the tallest Soldiers stand in front, while we wimpy 5'4" 150lb Soldiers stand in the back, and subsequently watch the back of the persons head who is taller than you. Excellent place to stand if you want to wiggle in formation, not so excellent if you want to laugh at the adjutant and see the guest speaker. Yes I heard all four of our guest speakers, but I did not see a single one of them.
Back to the ceremony. Once the salutes are finished, the guest speakers have the podium. We had the Commander of troops in Alaska, General Layfield, Commander of troops in the Pacific, General Nixon, and the Governor of "the Great State of Alaska, the Final Frontier," Sarah Palin. All in all, the speakers didn't speak for hours about anything too boaring, but there was plenty of dazing off, esspecially since at noon the sun was directly in front of us and not exactly high in the sky. I watched the crack in the airfield for a good hour hoping my eyeballs wouldn't dry up and just pop right out.
Once the speakers were done all the Soldiers recited the Artic Wolves creed. Our Brigade is 'code named' the Arcitc Wolves. Very fierce! And our creed is just as intimidating. The best part of the creed was that having 4,000 people, probably about 3,000 of whom are males, all yelling the same thing while facing two metal hangers, it's loud! When we finished you could very clearly hear a gentleman in the audiance give his approval of our volumn.
The final bit of Army ceremonies is often the 'Pass and Review.' Sounds exciting but this is the dangerous part of the ceremony because all the Soldiers have been standing in the same spot with our hands behind our backs for about an hour and a half. Trying to walk after that is surprisingly challenging. As much as you wiggle and shift your weight in formation, nothing can prepare you for that first 100 yards where blood flows out of your feet and your muscles actually have to move. Your legs feel like they're about 200 lbs each and you have to keep up with the person in front of you, then not crash into them when the stop, then start again without creating a gap, stop, start, stop, start, all the way around the formation. We made a nice little rectangle, as the Brigade marches by Battalion passed the podium where General Layfield, General Nixon, and Colonel Thompson were standing. I lied before...I actually saw the two generals. General Nixon even gave us the old two thumbs up when our Battalion passed. But I didn't see anyone else and the only reason I saw those three was because they were standing up on a podium.
After the ceremony was over everyone was able to socialize for a bit since our ceremony was not followed by us loading on planes. Most of the Soldiers wont leave for more than a week, maybe longer than that if a contract to fly us over the Kuwait is never settled on. The most exciting thing about the socializing part was that we almost got run over by Governor Palin's motorcade as she went across the airfield. That was neat.
Since I was in formation I couldn't take any pictures so sadly I have none to post. But I will try to bribe the Soldiers who have spouses up here to see if they have any. The Brigade had a photographer taking pictures so there should be some online soon. http://www.wainwright.army.mil/sites/local/ is the website for our Brigade so I'll try to steal some for the blog when they're uploaded.
Until then, I have about a week left in Alaska. I'm hoping it snows once before I go, I'll feel much better about missing winter for a year in the desert if I see snow before I go. We're rapidly losing day light, about 7 minutes a day. The sun is setting around 8:45 and rising about 6:45, so it's actually dark here which is new for me. Other than that, work is slow because the mind set is, if it can't wait until next week when we're in Kuwait and have nothing else to do, then we're in for a long year. But luckily we have compitent people in our section and our work can pause for a week.
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