If you have been reading some of my recent posts, you are probably aware that I have been talking about some of my exploits and experiences after being assigned to the Joint Interoperability Test Center (JITC) at Fort Huachuca, Arizona. My story today centers around a subject that is near and dear to my wife’s heart. Today’s post actually deals with my promotion to Major. I know, I know. You’re wondering how that subject is near and dear to my wife’s heart. It’s actually quite simple. You see, a promotion to Major means a significant bump in pay. An increase in pay means that she can spend more money. Women always love to spend more money. Spending more money makes them very, very happy. The other reason that my promotion to Major was near and dear to her heart was that it was a boost in prestige. I guess that the wife of a Major has a better image than the wife of a captain. I am not really sure how that works but, trust me, that prestige thing is real. Okay. Why am I bringing up the subject of a promotion to Major. You may recall that I wrote about a fake promotion that I had to endure while stationed at Fort Lee, Virginia. If you recall, I was stationed at Fort Lee, Virginia, just prior to being assigned to Fort Huachuca. I was assigned to Fort Lee to attend the Logistics Executive Development Course. While assigned to Fort Lee, the commanding general took it upon himself to give me a field promotion to Major, which he rescinded just a few days later. I suffered some extreme consternation and pain, as you can quite imagine. However, my time for promotion had come. The powers that be for the Department of the Army’s Major Selection Board chose to add my name to that venerable list of those being promoted. Yay. Not only that, I received a relatively low sequence number for promotion to Major. What did that mean? Well, that meant that I was going to be promoted either the first month or the second month after the promotion list was published. Sure enough, one month after the promotion list was released, I was promoted. My supervisor and senior rater held a promotion ceremony to promote me to Major. Of course, for them, that meant I had to treat them to a round of drinks or two or three over at the officers club. I can’t remember exactly how many rounds it was. But I’m pretty sure that I didn’t get off with just one drink. I’m pretty sure about that. Cuz, here’s the thing. Both of those guys were dropped off at the officers club by their wives. That meant they had designated drivers. Cool. Cuz you never want to get pulled over by the police or the military police and get a citation for driving while under the influence of an intoxicating substance. I won’t specify what that intoxicating substance might have been. And as it turns out, I was dropped off by my wife as well. Go figure. It’s not like I was deliberately planning to drink too much. But hey, shit happens. And since I made sure to plan my promotion ceremony on just the right day so that it coincided with bring your “senior right hand” (SNCO) night at the officers club, I invited my senior right hand, Marine Master Sergeant Hammond. Cuz all of the (S)NCOs I had ever worked with liked to drink. I’m not saying what they liked to drink, I’m just saying that they were fish. My supervisor chose not to invite anybody, but my senior rater invited his administrative assistant and the human resources specialist for the organization. As a result, there was quite a group of people at my promotion party. But I want to make note of the time I spent as a Captain on the promotion list to Major. In the Army, when a Captain is selected for promotion to Major, that Captain is referred to as a Captain-promotable. However, Marines don’t refer to officers on promotion lists in such a manner. When I say in such a manner, I mean, Captain promotable or Major promotable or Colonel promotable. Marines refer to such officers as Major-select or Lieutenant Colonel-select or Brigadier General-select. Why am I telling you all of that? Excellent question. In the intervening months from the time that the Major promotion list was released and I was promoted. My NCOIC told everybody that I was Major-select Masters, not Captain-promotable Masters. I always thought it was kind of weird when I heard that. But that is just one of those little idiosyncrasies that you get used to when you work in a purple environment. For those of you that don’t know what a purple environment refers to, it simply refers to a joint military environment that is made up of all the military services. My parting shot on this whole promotion deal is that this time it was real. This time I was really promoted to Major. Normally, when a captain is promoted to major, they have to integrate into the regular Army if they are a reservist. However, since I had less than twenty-four months remaining before reaching twenty years of active military service, I was given a choice. I could either integrate into the regular Army or I had to retire at twenty years of active military service. I chose to retire after twenty years of active military service. I got the best of both worlds. I retired with full rank and benefits, but I didn’t get shackled with any of the disadvantages of regular Army integration. I will talk more about my retirement in the future. For now, just know that I was actually promoted and the promotion was real, and I celebrated the promotion and experienced no exercises in futility, even if my wallet did.
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