Recently William won Outstanding Airman for the Warfare Center. This put him up for Outstanding Airman of the Air Combat Command. For this they sent us, even me!, to Omaha Nebraska. I know what you are thinking, What in the world is there to do in Omaha Nebraska?! I had the same thought. Omaha happens to have several nice conference centers and some fun things to do. While there we got to visit the Strategic Air Command museum. We had a great tour guide named, George. He took us to all the planes and told us personal stories of things that happened with the crew and the planes. We also got a backstage tour of the Omaha Zoo. This was totally awesome. I don't have any of these pictures here, but I will post them in a different post. We got to go where all the zoo keepers go and to hand feed the Giraffes and see the behind the scenes of the aquarium. The Aquarium was amazing. We stood at the top of the huge tank on the catwalk and the dorsal fin of the sharks were touchable! So awesome. Then on Wednesday night we had the ceremony. Let me preface this by saying William did not win the award, but we sort of realized that on Sunday when we saw a guy with a ribbon rack up to his ear! This helped take some of the pressure off of him and he was able to enjoy the experience. We got to meet all of the command chiefs. We know them by name and they know us like wise. We sat with Generals and Colonels. Something that is very rare for a low ranking Airman. We felt very special and well taken care of. These pictures are off the banquet. If you want a better view just double click on them and it makes them big!
I thought this was a picture of General Fraiser, but it isn't. So enjoy the picture of random people. The one on the far right is Chief Klukas. He is the command chief of the ACC.
The morning of the Banquet we had a special breakfast with the keynote speakers. Isreal Del Toro is on the left and he was an Airman who got injured while in Iraq. He is the first fully disabled Airman to be able to re-enlist. The guy next to him was Meyers. He was an Advocate of Wounded warriors. He was a retired Master Sergeant of the Air Force as well.
Hand feeding the Giraffes!
All the nominees. William is in the back in the middle.
Honor Guard with the flags before the banquet
The table setting. I just thought it was a pretty picture.
William and I. He was being presented for the banquet. I loved walking through the swords!
William will hate me when he sees this picture, but here he is talking with a Chief during breakfast! Hehe!
