PME

What? What the heck does "PME" stand for? It stands for Professional Military Education. It's when the Marine Corps sends you to a training academy to fine tune your skills and knowledge in general topics that are important for your current pay grade. The idea is that this will make you a better staff sergeant (in this case) and prepare you for future promotion. I checked in on Wednesday and we did our welcome aboard briefings yesterday. That included a round robin introduction of the segment of the class that I will spend the most time with... my platoon. As we introduced ourselves I couldn't help but notice that I was the senior staff sergeant in the room... by a lot. Hopefully, with God's help, I'll do well at this academy and be able to get promoted this year. I got my picutre taken and I'm already enrolled in the non-resident course for the next higher grade. The only hiccup is that this school doesn't graduate until April 14 and the promotion board begins April 18, which is not a lot of time for me to get things entered into the reporting system we have before they lock the doors. Still, if I manage to get in the top 3 of the class (there's 93 of us) then I'll get a special commendatory report, which will definitely look good. I must admit, I'm a little nervous about the rigors of this PT, but there are several in the class who finished behind me at yesterday's PFT (see my other blog about that) so I should be okay there. I'm not worried about passing this academy... I want to win. I'm not good at much, but I am gifted mentally and it would be wrong of me to not put my one good talent to use when afforded the opportunity, don't you think?