by R. M. Gardner

Created on: November 07, 2008

Falling in front of an audience can be one of the most embarrassing moments in your life, a personal gaff for everyone to see.I suppose the typical reaction is to jump back up as quickly as possible and hope nobody saw you. I just wish it was that easy for myself.

First let me set the stage. I was a Senior Non Commissioned Officer in the United States Air Force, more specifically a First Sergeant. For those of you who don't know what a First Sergeant is or does lets just say they're the person you go to when the system breaks down or you don't know what to do. Needless to say my duties ran a full spectrum of responsibilities. On top of this I was temporarily deployed to Qatar, a small desert country bordering Saudi Arabia on one side and the Persian Gulf on the other.

Of the many duties I was responsible for, one was to assist the Commander in informing, recognizing, and congratulating personnel of their promotion selection. Sounds easy doesn't it, but in a unit of nearly a thousand people running a continuous 24-7,I had to confirm promotion selection, develop presentation certificates, coordinate maximum participation with folks spread out all over the base, and the list goes on.Although once the preparation had been taken care of things tended to simplified rather quickly. In this case all I had to do was follow the Commander around to units with folks getting promoted, gather every around and hand out the promotion certificates.I would arrange the certificates and hand them to the Commander, he would read the name off, the individual would then come up, salute and receive the recognition of promotion in front of supervisors and peers. Simple but dignified; promotions are a big deal in the military as we work very hard for them.

On this particular occasion we had handed out and recognized all but hand full of people and had finally arrived at the last unit. In an effort to speed things along I had called ahead and everyone was in place and ready to go when the Commander and I got there. As we were walking in, the Commander in front and me following, I utilized the time to prepare the promotion certificates by opening the folder the certificates were held in while at the same time attempting to walk besides a mini-platform-come-stage that had been set up. Unfortunately while walking along the side of the stage my right foot bumped into it and in doing so forced it front of my left foot. Try as I might staying vertical was not an option and I dropped as if pole-axed.

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