Week #2 - EWTGPAC (Yes, that's an acronym!)

Sunny San Diego - After being fully mobilization processed last week, our main reason for being this week was to attend a planning course right here on Naval Amphibious Base, Coronado. It couldn't have been any closer unless we camped on their doorstep.

Spooky pre-Halloween effect, the BOQ at dusk

The class was at Expeditionary Warfare Training Group, Pacific. Or EWTGPAC for short, pronouced "ewe-dubble-you-tee-gee-pac." I actually consider this one of the cooler acronyms in the Navy. Knowing how to pronounce it means you're in the "in" crowd of acronym linguists. Or that you went to a class there once, one or the other.

It was actually a great idea on the Commodore's part for reasons I can't go into here (or, you know...). And it was a great class. Kind of took the place of the official icebreaker, and got us all working together. Of course I had the pleasure of playing admin officer, something I really have no clue about yet. But I'm learning. Really fast.

After class we wound up doing squadron and mobilization stuff right there in the classroom. I'm glad we weren't forced to drive down to the MSRON offices at Imperial Beach.

Senior Chief leading us through our stretching exercises

It was our first full week of morning P.T. I think we did Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday morning. Only reason we skipped Thursday was because the Commodore had to attend a retirement in the afternoon, so we started class at 0600.

MSRON 1 "Always Ready"

This week was also the Chief's pinning. This is the promotion ceremony for the new E-7s. The Navy considers this a pretty important promotion, because Chiefs (E-7 and above) wear different uniforms than Petty Officers (E-4 to E-6). At at least they used to. The Navy has a new uniform that makes every look like a Chief or officer. And of course we wear utilities (e.g. camofloge utility uniforms, CUUs, or cami's for short) which all look the same. In that case the only uniform difference is the collar devices, the metal (or sewn-on cloth) rank insignia that go on the collar.

Anyways, the Chief in admin just got promoted. So for the first week or so he was a "Chief select." Now he's a Chief.

My senior enlisted at my last unit also just made Chief. I'd like to think I had something to do with it, but its really the individual, of course.

That's all for now. Already a day-and-a-half into this week. More next Sunday.

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