To Salute or Not to Salute? The Business of Saluting...

Saluting.  That is something that I still find fascinating.

I have never saluted anyone in my life.  I tried, once, to demonstrate how I thought one salutes... And Lance informed me that my arm was at the wrong angle and my hand wasn't where it should've stopped at by my eye.  But this was a few months after we were married... but our story starts just a few weeks after I said, "I do", to a "community" that I didn't and still don't always understand.  And at that time, I had no clue about the world around me and what went on.  Lance normally would advise me, if he did something that I should follow suit.  But we never really fully discussed the Business of Saluting.  Mentioned in passing about saluting to officers and standing for higher ranking persons... but I wasn't really sure about my role in all of this....


We were headed to the legal office on base to change a few legal things, since after all we were happy newly weds.  Lance was in uniform, his ABUs (don't ask me what that stands for - but I know what they are!) and I was in shorts, a tank top, and flip flops.  Two peas in a pod.  A girl and her airman just talking away.  We parked the car and started walking towards the building.  Me, being a huge gabber that I am was just talking his arm off about something, probably the C17s.... when he suddenly stopped.  Mid-step.


Now the next few lines happened in a matter of just a few seconds.... try to envision it as this scene plays out... He'd just stopped... Mid step...And up went his arm in a salute.  I had stopped talking and stopped a step or two in front of him, completely confused by the "military airman" next to me.  I wasn't sure what had happened, I quickly glanced around and saw just a single man walking towards us.  I knew... something about this man and the respect that MY airman was giving him, meant he was important.  Lance greeted him and the officer greeted him back.  MY arm was half way up in whatever at the time I thought was a salute before Lance, without looking down at me, started walking and talking again, leaving me a few steps behind him in quite an awkward stance.   Needless to say, I didn't stick around long enough to see if the officer had caught my "naive" mistake.  I hurried and caught up to Lance as quick as I could.  I didn't look back....

Once we were finally back in the privacy of the car... and only then... did Lance laugh at me, he had seen my faux pax and then taught me all about the "Business of Saluting".