Specialist - new badge

Got a call from Specialist today and he received his Expert Field Medical Badge today. 400 soldiers showed up for training and 29 actually passed...and our Specialist is one of them. His feet are completely trashed after the 12 mile forced ruck march...3 hour limit with a 30 lb rucksack plus all their other usual accoutrements they have to carry. It entails 5 days of testing...the 5th day is the march. Wiki has a pretty good description of it. He told me last night that he had passed it all and was going to make today's march come hell or high water (and since he was at Ft. Campbell, high water was a chance!) as he was NOT going to return to do it all again. Apparently there were some soldiers that were on their second go-round for it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expert_Field_Medical_Badge

When I read up on the training that he is doing (he doesn't explain all of it to me), or view some of the things that he wants to do...I am astounded. For starters, this is one of the kids we couldn't get interested in Boy Scouts...apparently he has no patience for 'amateurs' (LOL!) Anyway, when I look at these badges and the training/testing entailed, then look at others, I am moved to tears by the dedication of our military forces. And their humility. Specialist says he and a couple of buddies will be out having a meal somewhere and a large percentage of the time, the waitress will tell them that the tab has been taken care of, just leave a tip. He says he gets frustrated at times because he'd like to be able to say thank you...I told him just accept it as thanks for what he does...because most of us wouldn't do it. I didn't, his father didn't, both of his grandfathers did...takes someone special...and he's special.

A very proud mama signing off here :D

So, Specialist has a new badge