14 December 2007: Submitting awards - again

I submitted my team's awards prior to departing for R&R. The original suspense date provided by my command fell over the two weeks I'd be gone. I labored over the awards to make certain they were correct, accurate, and fair. This morning I received an e-mail that I had to resubmit them (for the third time since R&R). The original awards were written to be signed by my unit's next level of command. It turns out that they redeployed without signing - or even reviewing - the awards. That meant the signature blocks on all the original awards had to be changed to reflect the new chain-of-command. I did that back in November. Now I had to correct some "minor" errors on formatting of dates and petty shit like that. I promptly took care of this and got the awards resubmitted. It is extremely important to me that my soldiers are properly recognized and rewarded for their exemplary performance on this deployment. It's just comical to me, though, that we're told to submit our awards so early only to find that two months later they still haven't gone to our higher headquarters for approval.

The awards were my major diversion for today. I had to run to MND-Baghdad HQ to take care of this stuff. All the awards have to be digitally signed. This process requires a military ID card reader on the computer. It's a secure process that allows you to sign documents with a certified signature that can be e-mailed without scanning. I spent a few hours over in the division G4 cell using one of their computers. Afterward, I held an in-progress review with the G4 and the Division Transportation Officer. They were very pleased with the assistance my team has provided. They're even happier in the knowledge that almost all their brigades are finished. We'll be completely finished redeploying the division in the next three weeks.

Finally, I must give props to my homeboys from Appalachian State. You opened the season knocking off Michigan in The Big House. You finished what you started. Yes, the Appalachian State Mountaineers won their third straight NCAA 1AA National Championship by defeating Delaware 48-21. Once again, the party is in Boone, NC. Congratulations!