Our Last Holiday Ball at CRDAMC

Once again, the CRDAMC Holiday Ball came upon us, and once again LTC Courtines sponsored Lisa and I so that we could go. (As a side note, when I went to thank him last year for paying $50 for our tickets, he told me not to because he had a double motive for doing so. Apparently if he sponsors someone, he doesn't have to go and he confided to me that there is nothing that could induce him to go to one of those things. So I guess it is a win-win situation.)

At these balls, the attendees are permitted to wear civilian attire and since it is such a hassle to put on the dress uniform, I always opt on my suit. At these functions you tend to have military guys that feel they have carte blanche to go over your uniform and look for flaws and "fix" them for you, usually with the end result being your uniform looks more messed up than if they had just left it alone.

Since I had spent half the day helping set up I knew exactly where we were sitting. We were seated with SFC Howell, a friend of hers from the Womens' clinic, SPC Loomis, SPC Villegas, and MAJ Craun and his wife. After going through the rather awkward reception line we sat down and chatted with the other guests. I talked mostly to Mrs. Craun and was pretty proud of the fact that I managed to talk about neutral subjects with someone that had obvious liberal tendencies. Luckily her lifelong dream has been to go to Italy and so I spent most of the night talking about what to see, how expensive things are and where to find the originals of most of the artwork in Florence (the answer is the Uffizi).

Lisa got stuck with a steadily imbibed Loomis that started getting a little emotional as the night wore on.

We went through the whole pageantry of our sponsored school (Saegert) singing Christmas songs and then moved on to the color guard and the ceremonies involved with setting the table on the stage by all the different veterans of previous wars enacted by the color guard. We also did the ceremonial toasts and once again I almost choked on the toast to the President. COL Darnauer took 30 minutes to give an introduction to the festivities which should have only taken two to five minutes. It was certainly a prelude of things to come.

Dinner consisted of salad, chicken and beef with mashed potatoes and vegetables and for dessert we had raspberry creme brulee. After dinner, the speeches were scheduled to start again and if we were lucky, there would be dancing. The baby was feeling pretty restless and Lisa's back was starting to hurt from the chairs, so we decided that then would be as good a time as any to make our exit. Lisa snapped a picture of all the junior enlisted that were able to attend from radiology. From left to right is SPC Ramsey, SPC Villegas, myself and SPC Loomis.

Later we found out from Villegas that the speeches went over the time limit and the dancing didn't last very long. So, we were just as happy that we grabbed our commemorative glasses and left early. We picked up the kids and kicked off our shoes at home and watched a show. The perfect end to the evening.