Promotion

I'm fortunate that in EOD they try to promote people as quickly as possible. Here's my fellow team member and I getting pinned our Sergeant's stripes. He's prior infantry and has waited a long time for this. In the regular army getting your stripes is a huge deal because now you're not just a junior enlisted soldier but a non-commisioned officer. You're expected to act different. You're in charge of troops. In EOD they always treated us like adults and expected us to act as such, from the 19 yr olds all the way up to us old guys. Our jobs haven't changed but we get more money for it (not too bad). We're also a step closer to becoming Team Leaders.

I was up at VBC working for a month at CEXC (pronounced 'sexy') so they made the trip up so that my fellow team member and I could be pinned together.

Just a little side note. That's the CPT wearing the army's new Army Combat Shirt (ACS). You wear it alone under your vest with your name, rank, and unit patches all on your sleeve.

Here's the team with our Platoon Sergeant. Yes, my team leader has a black eye. We got some boxing gloves and we've been fooling around with them. Nothing says "Hi mom, I'm doing well in Iraq" like a black eye.