Commissioning (For a 4th Time)

Last Wednesday, September 1st, I was commissioned as a Lieutenant in the Navy with a designator of 4100 which means that I am now officially a Chaplain.  All that I am awaiting are some official orders and then things can really start to roll and get me to my first duty station.  I have a verbal confirmation of my next duty station, but will wait until after I see something on paper before I start getting ready to leave and start the next chapter.  So until I report to the duty station, I guess that I am on unpaid leave or something like that.  I plan to do a bit of traveling late this month and early next month (LA, Seattle, three GT football games in the ATL and a conference here in Durham) so I have enough to keep me busy besides getting the house ready for an attempt at selling it. 

It is really weird to be a LT again, but I guess not as weird as it was being an ENS again.  It will be nice going back in as a LT as people expect chaplains at that level to have a bit of experience and thus get afforded a bit more respect, though there will be a smaller margin for the typical mistakes when settling into a new job.  The other odd thing is that I may have been commissioned more than any other person I know.  First was as a line officer in 1996, then as a 1125 O-4 in the IRR in 2007, then as a Chaplain Candidate ENS in 2007 and now as a Chaplain.  Hence the reason for the pictures below not being in whites because I didn't feel that the commissioning needed a big ceremony with it being the 4th time.  Plus, staying true to my roots all 4 times the commissioning officer has been a submarine officer, hence the name of the blog.