TJ didn’t want any big fanfare when he arrived home from Kuwait. He didn’t want us at the Great Falls airport to greet him with the big signs and balloons, nor did he want anything drawing special attention to his arrival home about twelve days later. He just wanted things to be “normal.”
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| Working together on his lamp. |
On Monday, February 21st, TJ pulled into the driveway. He had been given an extended leave and he took full advantage of it! Just before coming home, he had signed a lease on his first apartment and purchased a bed for it. Beyond that, he did not have too much in terms of household items. Therefore, we spent most of our time with him looking for things he needed for his apartment or working on decorating it. He and I turned the kitchen island into the work center for many of these projects. It was so much fun to see his excitement as candle holders were made into lamps, as he turned thrift shop picture frames into works of art, and to watch him making plans to decorate his own place, taking this step of total independence.
TJ had to report back on base on Monday, March 8th, where he spent about two weeks at his old job in the armory. He then went into the Airman Leadership School (ALS) for an intensive six week class required before he would be allowed to put his Staff Sgt stripes on in June. We were warned that he would have heavy loads of homework each night and were told not to expect much communication during this time. Not a problem for this Mom who had just gone through six months of deployment! We told him we would not call or text unless it was an absolute emergency - and for most of the time we held true to it.
The reports of the amount of homework had been very accurate. He had tons of reading to do and wrote many papers during the class. One of his papers was his view of leadership. It listed his six core values of a leader and by the time he was done explaining each one, providing numerous quotes from other military leaders, the paper was over ten typewritten pages!
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| Presentation of the Commandant's Award |
At the end of the class TJ called home to tell us that he would probably be receiving an award. On May 3rd at the ALS graduation banquet TJ was presented with the Commandant’s Award. The Commandant’s Award is sponsored by the Air Force Sergeants Association, and is presented to the student who, in the Commandant’s judgment, made the most significant contribution to the overall success of the class. I asked TJ out of all the awards presented which one would he have wanted to earn. He said, “This is the award I wanted.” He went on to explain that it would have been nice to have earned the award for being at the top of the class. But to earn the Commandant’s Award meant that all of the students in the class voted on who they believed was deserving of the award. After that, the commanders who taught the class made the final decision. TJ was honored to know that first his fellow students had recognized him for this award, and then the leadership.
TJ really doesn’t care for a lot of attention and is not a big fan of large celebrations being given in his honor. He never sees his exemplary work as anything more than what is expected of him. For TJ doing his job with excellence is very … well, “normal.”
