Sharing a Picture

OK, so I said I'd share a picture of EP raisin' his hand when I could...FINALLY, I can! It seems we had a lot more snow and cold weather than I thought, because it was "impossible" to bring the camera in from the car for THREE DAYS. But, here it is

He is in the last row, all the way to the left in the picture. He is one of only 3 recruits raising their hands; #3 is out of sight to the right. (A poem...) The National Guard swears a different oath than the other services, so they say theirs separately.
In case you're wondering, they do not swear to take over the country, or any such silliness. They simply swear to obey both the Governor of the state and the President. And, guess what? The Governor takes precedence. If he tells the President that, no, this unit cannot be deployed by you, then they can't. This actually happened to JP4's unit shortly after he finished his training. The President asked to deploy them in 2002, but the Governor said, no, too many IL units were already deployed. The President had to wait, and he did, until 2003.
If, perhaps, the Governor of Louisiana had thought ahead when she agreed to deploy her troops in 2004 and 2005, perhaps the story in New Orleans would have been different. Perhaps not.
Enough of that. Take a good look at my kid. Doesn't he look happy? Excited? Proud? I know, you can't tell. That's because his dad loves to take pictures of us FROM THE REAR. He calls it "focusing on the event, not being distracted by smiling (or otherwise) faces."
I call it goofy.
Oh, and notice the red carpet? They actually do that to emphasize the "specialness" of the event and the people participating. That's what I was told, anyway, by another soldier there. It was really a cool day. Except...I did not cry. I will, when we finally send him off to training. But not yet.