Shane’s Promotion to Captain!

Happy Friday!

I know it's been a minute since I've been here in this blog space. On Tuesday of this past week, I actually had three people reach out to me (all on the same day!) to just check in and ask about this blog since I was MIA...haha! I really appreciate your checking in. I’m sorry I’ve just been lazy!

There's no good excuse for why I haven't been on here; I've just been busy with work I guess and once I stopped writing new posts, I just wasn't ever in the mood to get going again. I guess there's also a lack of content due to STILL being in our apartment without most of my belongings! I don't know...regardless, here I am on this Friday with an extra special return to posting.

Today's post is about Shane's military promotion from 1st Lieutenant to Captain that happened yesterday!

I was able to go on base to participate for the quick ceremony with some of his "bosses" and some of the other guys from the bullpen (the big open office in the building where some of the other TBS instructors work alongside Shane). 

The ceremony was right outside the building where Shane does his admin. work when he’s not out in the field or instructing.

It was nice to meet some of the guys that Shane works alongside. So many of these Marines are just the sweetest, most polished, well-mannered guys. I've said this ever since Shane joined, but whenever I see the male Marines in uniform, I can see how they would be intimidating and powerful, but I can also tell they're just people and that they have good hearts. This is probably politically incorrect and stereotypical and all that, and it’s absolutely just my own over-generalized opinion, but whenever I see female Marines in uniform, they are absolutely terrifying. They come off as whatever is the next step beyond intimidating and they put the fear of God in me, haha.

Anyways, I was laughing because one of the men came up to me, causing the other guys to step away from our convo., and this one was super friendly and just started chatting with me. I could tell he was a "higher up" because he looked a little bit older and because of how the other guys responded to him when he came around. (I later asked Shane and Shane confirmed that he was the Commanding Officer in charge of all of the guys that work in the bullpen with Shane. He’s the head of warfare fighting there.)

I don't know if you're familiar with the military, but rank is EVERYTHING in the military. I don't necessarily agree with all aspects of that, but these guys give so much admiration, respect, fear, and intimidation to/from their higher ups. Rank precedes anything and everything else here. Anyways, I figured that Shane's Commanding Officer dealt with people shaking in their boots with him every day, and he's just another guy, so I treated him as that (albeit, with the respect I would give anyone I come across)...and he ate it right up. His wife is actually from the town where my mom is from, so we were chatting and I was teasing him about that. I also threatened him that I would unleash my cousin who is a sheriff of his wife's hometown and arrest him so...got a big laugh from him but you know Shane was ready to ship me back to the apartment.

It was really sweet because at the end of the ceremony, that same Commanding Officer (CO) came up to me, thanked me directly for my support and said that he wanted me to hear this from him personally- that Shane will continue to have to do long hours working there, but that as a CO, he prioritizes family and that he promises he will ensure that Shane has time with his family as well. He kept emphasizing how much he appreciates and respects family, so he wanted to honor that through Shane's time of working there.

The ceremony started off with all of the formalities and stating of things beyond my comprehension. #worstmilitarywifeever

Shane then had me and his friend Yates pin on his new bars. This is my second time being able to pin Shane's bars on him...the first time was at his ceremony when he became an officer (also at Quantico) all those years ago! This Marine that was observing me told me I'm ready to be a Marine now with how I did pinning that on, hah! I also heard him tell Shane that they'll fix it later though so...I'll take that with a grain of salt.

After all of the formal parts of the ceremony, the guys relaxed in their stances and Shane gave a little speech to the guys that were there. He also publicly thanked me for my support. Shane's leaders spoke to him and his abilities as well. It made me proud to hear what they had to say!

Shane's boss’ boss (lol, kick me out of the overall military spouse organization for failing to use all the technical language always) came up to me and also spoke to me personally about how well Shane is doing professionally in his new role at Quantico. Especially since Shane came from aviation maintenance (which is COMPLETELY unrelated to this infantry type training and instructing), he was mindblown at how successful Shane is. It's very rare to get from where Shane was to what he is doing now, and he said that speaks volumes to what his prior Marines thought of Shane to have him currently working in the role that he's at now. 

So Shane technically wasn't supposed to promote to Captain until next year, but because of the role he is currently in, they promoted him to Captain in title and job only. This sounds like some real world-of-education type stuff, but basically they promoted him but aren't financially promoting him (which is a significant pay increase) until next year. So, he has the title and he has the work, but we don't have the money. Again, typical of the education realm I work in, but I would want to expect more from the military. Oh well!

As I mentioned, Yates pinned on Shane's other bar. Yates and his wife are the couple we've gotten together with a few times here at Quantico. 

I actually keep double checking this picture to make sure it's actually Yates in this picture because he looks so different in his camies than when I see him usually! Whenever I'm on base and I see every single person around in their uniforms, I honestly struggle to tell Shane apart from any of them- unless we're up close haha. If the dogs and I happen to walk by a guy in camies in our neighborhood, it seems that they also do a double take to see if it's Shane or not.

In our time together and in Shane's time in the USMC, he has now promoted from 2nd Lieutenant to 1st Lieutenant and now to Captain. Just call us Captain and Mrs. Blanchard now! 😉Proud of my hubby! We'll celebrate at our first Marine Corps Ball (that I can attend and that has been held since COVID) this weekend together!

Hope you guys have the best weekend. Hopefully I'll get my act together and be back here a bit more often next week!