Shh...it's a secret.

Zach has been in the NCO academy for 4 weeks now with 2 weeks to go! It has been a rough 4 weeks! The NCO (Non Commisioned Officer)academy requires tons of homework as he prepares his speeches and other assignments. Last night we stayed up practicing the commands for when he leads the flight in marching. When he initially started he said he wanted to get it done, get his certificate and move on! Part of this comes because way back in 2002 Zach went to ALS (Airmen Leadership School)and did really well. Unfortunately they were needing to get so many through the program that his graduating class was (at the time) the biggest the base had had. He found out the day before graduating that he qualififed to graduate with honors and extra awards however instead of letting each instructor select a person they lumped the entire graduating class together and took the higher scores from everyone! He was beat by 1 point so therefore lost graduating with honors and was angry about it. That left a bitter taste in his mouth heading into the NCO academy.

For starters you always have those that are brown nosers, will volunteer for every tiny thing just so they will earn and award. Zach is not that way. He picked a volunteer job, shows up for class study groups and marching practice, but really just does what is required. Academically he thought he didn't have a chance at anything until last week. It was made known to the class that he had aced every test except one (he missed one question on it) and was leading in points.

So now he is hoping (and this is the secret part) that he gets "distinguished graduate" meaning he will graduate with the highest scores in his class. He doesn't want to get his hopes up, but hey there is only two weeks left and he is on a roll. The stuff he is learning is not easy. The air force has to make everything complicated! And boring I might add! (I read some of his required reading and let me tell you...BORING!)

Anyway we will see what happens in the next two weeks. I would like to see him get it since he earned it once before and had it taken from him all because the of the number graduating. And afterall it is costing up $60 to eat at his graduation so if he got an extra little award it might make the evening more enjoyable!