Friday, September 10, 2010

"Below The Zone"

There is an award that all airman work for at the beginning of their careers in the Air Force called "Below the Zone." It can only be achieved when you are an Airman First Class (two stripes). If you get this award it allows you to rank up six months early to Senior Airman (three stripes) and you get a pay raise. The only thing is that this award is extremely difficult to win. You have to be an extremely hard worker, score high on all of your tests, do extra service and stand out from all the other airman to even be considered. There were about 12 people out of 1100 that were put up for the award and had to go in front of a board of commanders for an interview as well as have a package submitted showing all of their accomplishments thus far in their career. After that was all finished, four people were actually awarded BTZ...
AND CAMARRON WAS ONE OF THEM!!!!!!!!



The Commander of the AMXS (basically she is over everyone that Cam works with in the weapons department) came in and awarded Cam with his extra stripes, gave him his certificate, and coined him as well. (Coining is something that happens when a superior officer feels like someone has gone above an beyond what they were expected to do and they reward them with a coin. Before the military coins were created soldiers were given gold coins like the South African Krugerrand.)

Then they taped on Cam's extra stripe and I and Cam's old supervisor got to punch Cam in the arm. Ssgt McAtee almost punched Cam over. Since we punched so fast we then had to stage a punching.