There's Angels, and there's... Soldier's Angels.

Or Sailor's, or Airman's, or Marine's... it's all good.  They come in many forms.

Around here, longtime readers will have met Carborundum, ANGCOM's (ANGelus COMmand) long-suffering Guardian Angel (or GA as oft-termed in that military fondness for acronyms) who has spent long millenia (Bill's old, have we told you that?) keeping an eye out for Tuttle.  Even to the point of forgoing promotion because of his masochistically morbid desire to see how Bill is going to creatively try to get himself killed this time dedication to duty.

At times, Carborundum, known as "Carbo" for short, has had to drop everything and sprint to catch Bill because of Bill's penchant for making bad decisions at the drop of a hat.  Brings a whole new dimension to the term "carbo-loading" when you see this pic of Carbo grimly hanging on during one of Bill's Excellent Adventures...

There are many forms of Angel.  From the traditional type, to the avenging type, through the combat medics to the highly skilled and dedicated professionals who work the military trauma teams in theater through to Landstuhl and beyond to WRAMC and BAMC, Balboa and elsewhere.  Then there is that very special category of Angels, as that is the term the medical community uses for the wounded who clearly aren't going to make it, but who haven't given up the fight yet, at some primal level...

Then there's another group.  I asked Carborundum about those angels.

ANGCOM generally prefers to work in secret, mysterious ways -- it's traditional, and ANGCOM, bless their little bureaucratic haloes, are nothing if not traditional. For example, simply putting sugar in the gas tank of a shuttle vehicle so the available motor pool is reduced and the schedule runs late [such as during this recent event] or a few spritzes of ACME Tire Rot Spray to bog down traffic, or a strategic sandstorm -- whatever it takes to protect our targets by separating them from the explosion that would otherwise "bring them home" ahead of schedule . Certain targets (Tuttle!) go out of their way to make that close to impossible, but we've got a lot of tricks. However, sometimes even our training and expertise is not enough and we have to call in our version of the Special Forces.

There is an elite group that is authorized to make direct contact, even be seen by the mortals under protection when strategic entropy would be difficult or not advised. They live in the mortal plane, but they are, most definitely, angels.

Michael Yon wrote about them - the volunteer angels who move among us, wings unseen, in a recent tale of a severely wounded British soldier, who was surrounded by angels of every category.

"The right people were only an email away: Soldiers Angels. And so within about two minutes, these fingers typed an email with this subject heading: CALLING ALL ANGELS.

Soldiers’ Angels Shelle Michaels and MaryAnn Phillips moved into action."
 

Don't be lazy and skip that link unless you've already read the story. 

These angels hate the spotlight.  They shun it.  But today, well, one of them is going to shun it no more.  It's her birthday, and by golly we're going to note it - we're doing to note the Angel who has been giving up her free time to establish, grow, nurture and maintain Soldier's Angels Germany - MaryAnn Phillips.  There are many angels, but only one of them has a birthday today.

Carborundum provided this picture from MaryAnn's ANGCOM CAC card...



Happy Birthday, BeerGirl.  You, and those like you, simply rawk.

[As John-Not-The-Armorer notes in his comment - if you are as impressed with the work of these Angels as we are... click this link and donate! - John-Who-Is-The-Armorer]