The Smarts: Fire Academy Graduation

Well I have been pretty lazy lately and am very behind in my blog posts...now I do have to say in my defense in the past month I have packed up a home in Texas, got everything ready to be shipped to the UK, drove to Kansas and Michigan, and have been living out of suitcases! If that isn't a good excuse for not blogging I don't know what is :) On January 12, 2011 Brandon officially became a firefighter with the United States Air Force. A small ceremony was held at the academy for the graduates and their families...there was a grand total of 5 family/friends there, and had they not brought in a couple of other classes to watch it might have been a pretty depressing turnout! I have a few pictures to show, but sadly my camera decided to hate me on that day and to be totally honest my pictures SUCK ROYALLY! Oh well at least y'all can get a sense of what it was like. So as I said it was a small ceremony in a tiny room, but I was glad they at least had something for the guys. I set my camera and tripod up in the back of the room so I could take tons of pictures, oh well if it didn't work out! There were 12 guys graduating in Brandon's class, they were a mixture of Air Force, Army, and Marines. Now I get a chance to brag on my man a bit...there are 2 honors you can get. Two people can get the title of distinguished grad, and one can get Top Grad, which is the highest honor they can get! Well guess who got awarded Top Grad...that's right BRANDON...hehehe how bad would that build up have been if it wasn't him:) Brandon ended up being the only graduate to qualify for any of the awards! Yeah that's right, my hubby is the best! He got a trophy/fireman statue thing (don't really know what to call it) and a commanders coin which I guess is a pretty big deal! He also got a certificate/award stating he was top grad of his class. I was so proud of Brandon. He has really excelled in the military so far and I am so happy for him (and Brandon if you are reading this sorry but I had to brag some for you since you wont for yourself) OK now on to the rest of the ceremony. So about halfway through the ceremony they announce that it was time to pin the graduates, and for a family member or another military person to come up for the pinning. Now like I mentioned before there weren't a lot of people there so I had no one to watch to figure out if they really meant for me to come up, well the did, and I was totally lost as to what to do, or where to put the pins! Luckily the person who came up to pin the guy next to Brandon obviously knew where they were supposed to go so I just watched him and copied exactly what he did:) After that the commander talked to the guys giving a pep talk, then the chaplin addressed them as well. Also during the ceremony they played a slide show of the class during academy. I loved seeing the pictures, and it was played to an Eminem song, courtesy of Cory Hooker, unfortunately they shut the video off about halfway through, I didn't find out till later why. Basically as soon as the ceremony was over the guys were told to get their families and head to a classroom. Brandon stayed back to help me pack up all my camera stuff. Well as soon as the guys left they marched right back in along with the commander...who in a very scary manner told me "Miss you need to leave right now!" Yeah needless to say I grabbed my stuff and hurried out as fast as I could and packed up in the hall. As it turned out they did not approve of the lyrics in the song played on the video (now in Hooker's defense he had had the video ok'd by an instructor) Well the class went out with a bang the the commander came out of the room red faced from yelling at the guys. Now no other class will be allowed to play a video at graduation again...yep they are that class that ruined it for everyone else!!! Ok so not my best blog but at least it gives everyone the gist of the ceremony and you can see a couple pics! I promise my future blogs will be better...and from England!!!!