EIB Lost Forever

Yesterday, was a huge upset for me. I lost the chance to get a EIB forever. The way EIB is earned, is you must complete at 12 mile road march within 3 hours. You have to find 3 points in the woods on a map using nothing but a map, pro-tracter and compase. You must also find 3 points in the dark in the woods only using a compass, no flash light. Once that is done, you have to do tests were you get a "no-go" or a "go" if you pass them. Each has their own standards, such as putting a machine gun together in a certian amount of time in an exact order. Each station has a different Infantryman's task, call for fire in under 3 minutes, shift from known point in 30 seconds, plotting a grid point on a map in 1 minute, clear/assemble/disassemble/functions check on a m249 SAW in 3 minutes. There are about 30 different tasks all together out of around 20 stations. We had 3 days to do all this testing, and I was blade running with 2 no-goes (If I got one more no-go I would be kicked out of EIB). On the second to the VERY last station I had, I got a no-go on the m240 Bravo machinegun. I forgot to put the weapon back on safe before loading it. A really dumb mistake! I couldn't believe it. I was out of the EIB, after knowing for SURE that I was going to be one of 10 guys out of 100 who was going to get it. The 240 is supposed to be an easy station, I only had plotting a grid and identify terrain features, which is also a really easy station. I messed it all up on the damn M240. I can never get it now, since I have less than a year left, and by the time EIB starts up again I will either be overseas in Iraq or I will be home and out of the service. I already have the CIB, which you must earn by being in combat for 30 days. It is probably the most important badge you can earn as a Infantryman, but I'm still very upset about not getting my EIB after being sooooo close to getting it.