The Lion's Ass

When my husband's battalion got a new commander, one of the first [non-essential] things he did was create the Lion's Ass Award (a little back-tracking: their unit... mascot?... is a lion. Obviously). The award is like the Stanley cup (that is the hockey one, right?) in that it gets physically passed around every Hail and Farewell(that is how it works, right? Well... this one is the same "trophy," passed around to the new winner from the old one). Nominees are selected based on their "that guy" moments, and any of the battalion members in attendance can nominate someone and any of the officers and senior NCOs can be nominated (though, as far as I know, no NCO has ever been nominated, much less received the ass).

Anyway, the nominator has to explain why they are nominating the nominee (how many times can I write some version of the word nominate in a sentence?), but their story only has to be 10% true. This leads to some pretty amazing stories, most of which include the executive officer (XO) running around training fields naked, Captains shattering windows with broomsticks while attempting to prove their Olympic javelin skills, LTs borrowing their buddy's sweaty gym socks...

My personal favorite was when my husband was nominated last month. Apparently, he took the elevator to the bottom floor of a two story building to get a Snickers bar, and when he came back up the elevator got stuck. Of course, he was getting that candy bar because he forgot to bring the lunch I had packed and reminded him 3 times to bring that very morning. And it was the fifth time in a row he forgot his lunch. He was trapped in there for 3 hours, and ended up getting dehydrated and nearly passing out. Thankfully, they were able to bring in the Army's version of elevator Jaws of Life, and tore him out of the sardine can.

Moral of this story: if it's only 13 steps, take the stairs.


*The above was a round-a-bout way of me telling you that I am now going to employ similar tactics from here on out. Only 10% of my blogs will now be true. Or not. Just to keep you guessing.