Full of Love and Life: Calvary Ball

The 2-116th held their annual Calvary Ball last weekend.

How do we look? :)

My handsome man.

This year the ball wasn't held in a nice ballroom as in years past, but a hockey rink. Budget cuts??? Who knows. No matter though, the place was still decorated nicely and festively.

Jed did a lot of socializing. There were many people he was happy to see again. So most of this post you're gonna see a lot of Jed visiting with his friends. I was happy to take pictures, a great excuse to just stay out of the conversations since I didn't know most of them anyway.

Jed and Sgt. Stanley

Jed and Sergeant LaMott. I love the new Calvary uniforms - I like the dark blue better than the olive green.

Jed with Commander VanHooser.

Sergeant Fallows and Jed.

Jed with his friend, Tony.

Tony, Jed, and Lieutenant Price

I was soooo glad that Julie came to this event too...she was the only other female that I really knew well. And the fact that we're friends too made it even more fun. :) So we made sure to sit close together.

Tony is SUPER excited to be here. :)

Tony and Julie.

Colby and Tony - some of Jed's closest friends.

Yeah, I don't know what to say about this one, Jed was being funny.

The traditional GROG ceremony.

The Cavalry Grog is a long tradition where during the years of the Westward expansion, Cavalry Troopers would share their spirits (alcohol) with one another thereby insuring that all fellow troopers had something to drink. The alcoholic spirits usually consisted of whatever an individual trooper’s taste was, and that when mixed with other alcohol created a powerful drink known as "GROG". The grog or punch bowl ceremony is now a symbolic reflection of this age-old tradition.

Holy crap, every kind of alcohol was put in that huge punch bowel! That had to be some extremely potent stuff! Tequila, Vodka, Rum, Brandy, etc were all poured into the mixture, each representing war campaigns that the Calvary has been a part of. Once the grog is complete someone from each table goes up and gets their container filled.

Then the toasting begins - with your grog, of course. For most of us at our table, we just stuck to the non-alcoholic lemonade, thank you very much. :) It was fun watching everyone else get drunk though, lol.

Before the toasting begins, you first you gotta "mount" your horse. Sadly, since there are no more horses used in the Calvary, chairs would have to do.

The toast is called out and everyone repeats it with one loud voice. After each toast, you take a drink of your grog. By the end of the whole toast I'm pretty sure all those drinking that stuff were sufficiently drunk within minutes, lol.

Then dinner was served.

Our men look like they were pretty hungry.

Actually, they were being gentlemen and holding the us ladies' plates. Awe, chivalry isn't dead after all. :) Ok, ok, to be completely honest, Julie and I gave them our plates so we could make an early run to the cheescake tables...yum.

The food was delicious.

Eric and Jennifer were at our table too.

Then it was time for the Yellow Garter - another Calvary tradition. Upon arrival, each wife/girlfriend was given the "Order of the Garter." Tradition states that when a new wife came to her first "Hail and Farewell" she was welcomed with a garter and a kiss for good luck at her "new post."

The legend of the Yellow Garter is this: Long ago when the Calvary went off for patrols, these Troopers would be gone for several days or weeks scouting. The girlfriends and wives would wear yellow ribbons in their hair while the Troopers were away. Over the years, this idea has taken many forms that we are familiar with today such as tying yellow ribbons on trees and houses.

Jed performing the yellow garter ceremony. I love traditions. It connects us to those from the past.

Cadet Holt with Jed.

Sergeant Mark Foster and Jed.

Lieutenant Roberts - he and Jed lead the platoon in Iraq together. They became good friends throughout the deployment.

Jed with Keith, one of the soldiers he served with in Iraq.

We had a great time.

Later after we left the ball, we got together with a few of the other soldiers from the troop, such as Eric and Jennifer Rankin and Colby, and went hot tubbing back at the hotel where a lot of us were staying. There, the guys retold funny and eventful stories from their Iraq deployment. We had a really great time laughing over and over again. It was a very entertaining night.

The next day a troop picnic was held.