I'm not sure how it works in corporate America, but the U.S. Air Force just loved to publicly recognize various individual accomplishments. Promotions, decorations, graduations and other awards would usually be announced and presented at a Group or Squadron Commander's Call in front of a couple hundred people and the recipient(s) would be called up on stage to "shake and take" from the ranking official. The more significant the event was, there were more folks who would have to be briefed in on the matter to get the logistics sorted out. The majority of the time, if you were to be called out, there were some subtle indicators and you could pretty much figure out that something was up and prepare yourself.
The Jedi Gunfighter nominations for Cactus Red and Uncle Ethan happened quickly and quietly. It's a pretty streamlined process and I doubt there were more than a dozen people, including the Jedi Council, who knew about them. Not difficult to achieve total surprise.
I understand that the nomination and approval process for SASS Regulators is a little more cumbersome, meaning lots of opportunities for "inadvertent or unauthorized disclosures", etc. I don't know the details or the background, but again, total surprise achieved. Anita and I had no idea.
Thank you to everyone involved in making this happen. We both are very grateful for this honor.
Jackalope
