Boss Lady

I am the head honcho of the S3 shop today (my office)!  I am spreading my wings and taking charge while my boss is traveling the country.  I feel like a different person when I am in charge.  It is really hard to explain.  For once I do not feel beat down and trapped.  I am standing tall and able to take credit and take pride in the work I am completing and presenting.  I had a meeting today that went amazingly well.  The XO gave me a weird look when I initially took charge of the meeting as if to say, “Who are you and where did you come from?”  I was finally able to present my slides.  I knew what I was talking about and answered questions as they flew at me.  Senior leaders commented on how well I did and I even received a compliment from the XO while I was conducting my meeting.  It feels good to be in charge!

I am running in another 5K tomorrow morning.  This one is to support Military Working Dogs and is hosted by one of our Direct Reporting Units.  The dogs will be leading the run with their handlers.  These are dogs we are allowed to interact with and not be slapped with a fear of contracting rabies.  We are so brainwashed that anytime we see an animal we think of rabies.  This should make it interesting when I return and start looking into buying a puppy. 

We are all starting to plan what we are doing when we return from this deployment.  I received the exciting news of a Permanent Change of Station last night and I will be moving very shortly after my vacation to Afghanistan ends.  It is an exciting new opportunity to learn a new job in my career field.  My imaginary free time today has been absorbed by researching houses for sale and investigating housing areas in my soon to be new location. 

My investigation has come to an abrupt halt.  The female that made the original complaint has ceased communicating with me.  The other female involved asked for legal counsel.    I have no evidence, no witnesses, and the only information I have is in an email that contains three poorly written sentences.  I had the Legal NCO send me a template to request an extension.  It was in memorandum format.  He didn’t tell me who to send it to or who to write it out to, so I sent him an email asking those specific questions.  He walked down to my office and started pointing out all my errors on this memorandum.  They were mainly formatting issues.  I became angry and told him to leave until I finished at which point I would send him the memorandum and he could critique it from a distance.  After he left, I decided to take a different approach.  I walked over to the COL’s office.  I asked the COL for an extension in person, which he granted and advised me to wait an additional week then close out the case.  He then told me to tell the Legal NCO to write the memorandum extending the investigation for a week.  Much to say the Legal NCO is not happy with me, but his memo is written and it is to his standard.  All I had to do was sign it.  Soon, I will write my short report stating I found nothing to support any of her claims and the Soldier in question will continue with his existence as the COL’s driver.  This investigation was too easy, but I am not asking the world to challenge me with a more difficult case.  I would be ecstatic if I never have to do another investigation for the rest of my military career.