So, how many of you have mandatory fun? It seems fairly normal to have an office holiday party, but during my time with the Department of Transportation, we tended to have all of those celebrations during the work day. Regardless, even if your company still has their parties in the evening, and perhaps your spouse also has a work holiday party or two, you STILL only have three or four somewhat-mandatory holiday parties. Well, as with most things, the military does things a little differently. Because Mr. A has moved positions recently, we had multiple holiday parties with each command. In total, we have four holiday parties with work, but then we also had a 'wetting down'* to go to, bringing the count to five. That doesn't include holiday parties with friends outside of the military scene.
Now, work parties aren't usually considered the pinnacle of fun. I know, at this point you're raising your eyebrows and are thankful that you get to spend your weekends doing whatever you desire. HOWEVER, the Marine Corps has clearly thought through this well. In a career where you are likely to change positions once every three years, growing lasting relationships can be difficult. Also, many marines come out here to Okinawa alone or with only their immediate families. Therefore, these parties are a way to connect socially during a time which can often be lonely for marines and their families when they're so far away from home. Lastly, it gives marines and their families a chance to get to know people outside of the high-paced office tempo. So, while they're still office parties, it's important to see what a great opportunity they are.
Another culture-shock when it comes to living in the military. Now, we don't pay for cable TV. It's not worth it to us. Instead, we watch AFN (American Force Network, I think). There are about 8 channels. I watch two of them: the movie channel and the drama (?) channel. Each channel takes several normal channels (USA, Bravo, Food, FX, etc) and selects a few shows from each of them, and that's what they play all day. For instance, the 'drama' channel plays NCIS and food-network shows, as well as some shows from Bravo. Now, you may get bored of the commercials on normal TV. But consider yourself lucky. The only commercials on AFN are public service announcements. You know those few super-hokey commercials that are clearly low-budget? Yeah. Every single commercial that we see is one of those. From recycling ("I'm a paper cup, yo!") to reminders to save the cell-phone accessible number for 911 in your phone to reminders to check your smoke alarm... We've got 'em all. I've posted a few of the most hilarious or most hokey of all of them below for your entertainment :) So, enjoy your holiday weekends (sans 8,000 mandatory work parties and sans all public service announcements).
*Wetting Down: A Marine Corps tradition when a marine is promoted to spend the first month's raise on a big party for those in the command or folks who have helped develop the marine professionally. Typically, the party has quite a bit of alcohol provided. In this particular occasion, the marine who was promoted doesn't drink, so he provided the location and food, but allowed those in attendance pay for any drinks they wanted.
