Promotion Ceremony

Woke up today with a lot of wind and a lot of dust. I'm fortunate that my door has good weatherstripping to keep the dust out. Others were mentioning at our morning meeting that they were going to have to completely re-clean their room. It was pretty bad last night, however, even in my room. I woke up and could taste the dust in my mouth. Having grass, even dead grass, like California in the summer is much, much better than the desert here.
Anyway, to explain the title of this post. This morning the Army 2nd Lieutenant who runs most of the IT support here on Camp Patriot was having a promotion ceremony. He said his LT Colonel was coming down to do it and he invited myself and my Chief Petty Officer to attend. It was a small ceremony in his office space. But it was a good chance to show our appreciation to the 2nd LT who has been helping us and make him look good for his boss by having myself attend, since I'm the same rank as an Army LT Colonel. There were civillian contractors there and all of the 2nd LT's soldiers and much of the LT Col's staff. With the new Army digital uniforms, the rank is simply a velcroed patch on the front blouse. So to promote, they simply read the promotion letter then the LT Col stepped up, tore off the 2nd LT rank and put on the 1st LT rank. Then we all clapped. The new 1st LT said some words then I took the opportunity to thank him for his efforts on behalf of all the sailors at the base. Then we all ate some of the Baskin-Robbins ice cream cake they had bought. Yes we actually have a Baskin-Robbins on the Kuwaiti portion of the base.