Credo
"Sign on, young man, and sail with me. The stature of our homeland is no more than the measure of ourselves. Our job is to keep her free. Our will is to keep the torch of freedom burning for all. To this solemn purpose we call on the young, the brave, the strong, and the free. Heed my call, Come to the sea. Come Sail with me." -- John Paul Jones
"Pardon him, Theodotus; he is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature" --George Bernard Shaw, "Caesar and Cleopatra"
"And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music."--Friedrich Nietzsche
"A kind Providence has placed in our breasts a hatred of the unjust and cruel, in order that we may preserve ourselves from cruelty and injustice. They who bear cruelty, are accomplices in it. The pretended gentleness which excludes that charitable rancour, produces an indifference which is half an approbation. They never will love where they ought to love, who do not hate where they ought to hate."--Edmund Burke
"Μολὼν λαβέ" -- Leonidas
"Blogito Ergo Sum" -- Neptunus Lex
Ain’t that the truth! I had three females on my Airframes Mid-Check at Atkron 128 in 89 and 90. One of them eventually made AMS1 with NDI. I saw her on footage from the Carl Vinson in March of 2003. She was a Final Checker/Troubleshooter LPO in some Hornet outfit.
Longing for the days of Rum, Sodomy and The Lash?
Actually, I’m quite conventional. On the first date.
You’re all making this Dad nervous, considering my daughter is right now suffering through Boot Camp at Great Lakes. ‘Course, she’s not going to be a Deck Ape, but a Sailor is a Sailor.
You’re right, Joe. Just having a little fun, probably unwisely. Tough time of the year to be at GLAKES.
Nice riposte there Lex.
Nothing to be nervous about Joe. A Sailor is a Sailor. As long as they do their job and keep their noses clean, they will go far. Whether they put on pants or a dress does not matter. Well, at focs’le follies it sometimes does…
evidently they still haven’t yet figured out how to keep their boot laces tucked up out of the way.
No worries guys, tried to make a little joke and it came out sounding a little too defensive.
Besides, I’m not too worried about my little girl having trouble, since the sheet-rock almost comes off the bedroom wall from all the Taekwondo medals hanging there. I’d hate to be the one who got on her bad side.
We’re in that early black-out time where we can’t have much contact, but did get a form letter that she was able to add a couple of lines to. Said the cold wasn’t as bad as she thought it would be, since they’re pretty much staying inside. Waiting for the real letters and phone calls to start soon.
Joe,
Not to worry. My son graduates from Airborne School on Wednesday. Had his last qualifying jump yesterday. He’ll herad back overseas in about a week,
When he went through basic, I wrote to him at least once a week. That was key motivator for him, having that bit of contact with the outside world. The sad part was finding out from him how many kids didn’t even get a single letter. Many didn’t have anyone there when they graduated either, although i understand how difficult it can be to get away for it.
I can’t imagine having mail call and everytime never hearing your own name called. I told him to pass along names and we’d write to them as well. Told him the same thing regarding his unit. Anyone NOT getting letters, let us know and we’ll rectify that right away.
As to going through boot camp, I can tell you that the hardest part is the mental part. If you resolve to make it, you will. She’ll be wicked proud when she graduates, and be part of a very exclusive club, a membership in which has a reward all it’s own, regardless of the job or longevity of service.
Good on her, and all her new shipmates.
Thanks Tim,
If the internet has done nothing else for me it’s put me in touch with people who’ve “been there, done that,” and really helped in the process. When daughters unit starts getting mail call she’ll be the one who needs a cart to carry her mail. We’ve also told her to keep an eye on the rest in case they need encouragement from the world.
Didn’t mean to thread-jack, but we’ll definitely update everyone in March after the Pass-In-Review.
This little colloquy just experienced above is a prime example of EXACTLY what feminism and PC does to to the armed services. Here everyone is dancing around on tenderhooks trying not to give PC offense and demonstrate one’s “progressiveness.” I jokingly said in another post here that I was all for a 100% female fighting force–I was only half-joking. Because my main point is that if everyone here–daughters notwithstanding–truly thinks females are “just sailors,” equal as long as they are “compenent, ” than everyone should have absolutely NO QUALMS, NONE, about a 100% female fighting force to protect this nation and storm the beaches, n’cest pas?
So—with that thought in mind, how many people here would, if time-machines were available, go back and replace the forces that took Iwo Jima and fought in every other battle with women–and hinge/risk EVERYTHING, EVERYTHING–our entire future, on an all-female force who’s abilities would decide the fate of the nation and it’s continued existence.?
Everybody raise your hands please.
On second thought, no need–to even ask the question is to answer it.
PS: I should relate a conservation I’ve mentioned here before that I had in 2005 just before Katrina hit in New Orleans at a Jiffy Lube with a retired Navy Captain (Commanded last active duty attack diesel sub–he and boat retired at same time) whose daughter was an EA-6 driver.
“I don’t blame her for taking advantage of the situation” he said, “I would too if I were her–but do I think women should be in the armed services? Don’t get me started,” he continued, “Only don’t tell her what I said.”
Virgil,
Amen and amen. It may be the wave of the future and all-but serving in all male units was something I am glad I got to do before it all went away. Maybe the current state of things is better….but it certainly is not as much fun.
Having two daughters who served in the service of their country, I can tell you, Joe, that there isn’t anything to be concerned about for a young woman like your daughter. Anyone, male or female, who has their head on straight, will do just fine.
Our girls have both served in war zones, including Bosnia, South Korea and both with their own tour in Iraq. Our oldest is sitting here with me right now and when I just asked her if she thought joining was a good decision, she responded, “it’s been good for me!”
Young people who’ve been brought up well and good will all find a good reception in any one of the services, I’m convinced. Our girls went the ROTC route and enjoyed the life of officers, while our son enlisted in the Navy and loves being a sonar-man on a boomer.
He also experienced winter at GLAKES, but said it wasn’t all that bad. He was amused at how the Chiefs were able to weed out the bad apples at a regular pace, leaving only the very best to enter the fleet.
Joe, don’t worry… be happy, proud and re-assured!
I think I too would have a stupid grin on my face if I was standing next to her.
Hehm
Speaking of culture shock…
My father and his brother joined the Navy in 1939 and went to great Lakes for boot camp. The barracks were open rooms with hammocks lashed three high to metal poles, and hooks to hang their sea bags on. Communal head and shower, and they also did their own laundry on sundays before church service. Scrubbing tables and clothes lines, et al.
A different world, for sure. When I went through boot at Sandy Eggo, we were still in the old WWII era barracks, although newer ones were built. Almost all the piping in the head was copper or brass, and we had to clean it daily to a fine finish. Brass and copper fire extinguishers too, the bassids…
My son recently went through Army basic. Air-conditioned barracks. Laundry facilities on the ends of the building. Milk and cookies before lights out. 4 men to a cubicle with wall lockers. Life should be so good, eh?
I know a certain Senior Chief (ret) who would get right apoplectic at seeing that pic. He was a surface warfare type who had lots of philosophical problems with female sailors, primarily over the different standards that were applied to them. I tend to agree. I don’t have a problem with women in the military, in any role, as long as they are held to the exact standards of the men. Unfortunately, in the Navy, many standards were lowered due to outside political pressure (and, perhaps, to meet recruiting targets?) That’s not a good thing, and can lead to a poisonous environment on board ship.
There is also the issue of very high casualty rates among female sailors being medevac’d off ships deployed in combat zones due to pregnancy, which not only costs the ships in question the loss of badly needed personnel, but indicates a breech of discipline with copulation occurring on board in most cases.
Having noted the above, I have known some truly superior female warriors who don’t need or want lowered standards in order to compete in virtually any billet. It’s a case by case basis, but, unfortunately, I’m not sure that some of the women in the military should be serving in the roles they are.
Virgil … good question, and as an elderly member of the “gentler sex” I should perhaps not chime in. But I’m going to anyway. Women, young women mostly, during the Second World War, definitely had their place in the fight, and they served nobly — as WAAFs, as WAVEs, as nurses at field hospitals, and as substitutes for serving men in the factories producing tanks and ships and planes and other war materiels. It is only recently, however, that women have served on the “front lines” in battle against the enemy. They’ve done a courageous and mostly effective job, and they have my utmost respect.
That said, I don’t view an all-female military with approval. There are things that men simply do better and more naturally than women do, because aggressive response to aggression is ‘bred in the DNA,” that Laurie talks about here. Men’s command style is more direct than women’s. We naturally tend to a more consensus style of management. And we all know that consensus doesn’t work when the bombs are raining down and the bullets flying. “Reasoning with” the enemy is not an option at that point, and reasoning with your own foot-soldiers isn’t either.
Women and men are designed by nature to be complementary, not duplicative. In a crisis, we can all do what we have to do. But what’s wrong with doing what nature designed us to do. Women fighter pilots, women tank drivers can all be just as good as men, because the machines make us equal. But our inherent natures will never be the same, although we will always be equal, in rights.
I like it that way.
Marianne
UPS just called to report that they found my Christmas presents in Salt Lake City!
This lass does not remind me at all of the 4 foot tall 200 pound E6 that helped moor a destroyer at NAS Alameda with her hand wrapped around a coffee mug and a nasty cig in her mouth which she shifted using her lips and tongue from time to time as she used her other hand to heave around on a 5 inch mooring line. No indeed.
GLAKES sucks. I cannot believe that we shut down RTC in San Diego and Disneyworld in order to consolidate it at GLAKES where no person has been permitted to visit the lake shore after dark for decades due to the criminal nature of whatever gets to dwell next to the lake on a naval station with impunity for a generation.
One of my peers last weekend had just gotten his lunch order at Magees when his daughter at OCS called him. They only get a few minutes each day for personal time so he was out the door and talking to his daughter as that burrito got colder and colder. He didn’t complain a bit when he rejoined us.
In that now, no longer missing bag of mine are plenty of pics of my little girl at Christmas. I’m looking forward to getting them.
Congratulations to all the mothers and fathers with youngsters in the military. Thank you for raising them that way.
Curtis:
RE: Closing down RTC in San Diego. Probably same sort of perverted logic that had the AF shut down both their maint. school and tri-service Intell school at Lowry AFB in Denver. Don’t know where it’s all re-located/consolidated now, but I ain’t puttin’ my money on that someplace being better than Denver–either life-style wise or accomplishment of mission-wise.
PS- Glad you got your pics.
What’s the world coming to?
A Deck Ape without callused knuckles.
Yeah, remember the stress fractures that have become common among the female line heavers.
Lets be blunt about this. It is a philosophical argument that returns to the foundation of what we are as a civilization. Any society that intentionally places women in harm’s way is barbaric. We can dance around the issue “keeping your head” and other nonsense, but placing our daughters at direct risk of combat says much about our society, and none of it is good.
I’m sorry if this offends, but the machines do not equalize. If we ever end up fighting a first class opponent again I fear for our country.
AW1 — my recent boot camp grad Marine would be glad to inform you that MCRD still looks like what your father knew. Open squad bays, rooming with 87 of your closest friends. No privacy, no washing machines. Laundry on the washboards — “you won’t have washers in combat, so you’d better learn how”. Communal heads. Single gender, alone among the services. I realize the Marines attract a certain type of recruit, but there is something uniquely good about the transformation they accomplish. Just the expectations they inculcate into those kids — expectations that extend to every thing they do, on and off duty. The other services would do well to consider emulating a few more of the Marines methods (as hard as that is for this sailor to say!). Start with the single gender thing.
Virgil — the intel school wound up in that center of the universe, San Angelo, Texas. Had to get the sheep/people ratio under 1. Thanks, USAF.
I had a seminary class awhile back titled “Gender Issues in Ministry” that sought to uncover the biblical support (or lack thereof) for denying women leadership roles in most forms of church government. For my term paper, I chose as my topic the subject of women in combat. Briefly, here are some excerpts:
“Female Marine recruits are not allowed to throw live grenades because the Marine Corps says most women don’t have the arm strength needed to lob the grenades far enough to prevent them from exploding dangerously near the trainees. Tests of three groups of female recruits taken in 1987 found that 45 percent could not throw the grenades the 49 feet required to avoid the burst radius.”
Major Terrence Brennan argues that “the debate on whether women can effectively serve in combat is insignificant in comparison to the reality of the military’s impaired training and readiness as a result of their integration.” He further proposes that, “If the initiation, selection, and training process includes shaved heads, pugil-stick training, forced marches with 60-pound packs and very little sleep, then everybody must be subjected to it. Only then should women be allowed to compete on an equal basis with men for Military Occupational Specialty selection. As a result, all combat specialties could be open to women, but only if they can meet the same standards and undergo the same training as men.” So basically he recommends opening the door to them, but making the standards equal across the board – a la “GI Jane.”
I tend to agree with Marianne on this one. Women have a great many talents to offer (no comments from the peanut gallery!), and there are many non-combat roles which are open to them. However, having personally witness the discrepancies at OCS and The Basic School, I think it is wise to continue to exclude them from direct combat-related MOSs.
I’m trying to imagine an all-female artillery crew unlimbering, setting up, loading, and firing an M198 howitzer. Nope, just ain’t happening…
Scott/
You know, we laugh about this base location business–now. But for an all-volunteer force that’s trying to keep quality people in, what sort of perverted logic says that permanent party instructors, for just one example, want to look forward to dragging their wife and kids to San Angelo for a three-yr tour maybe three times in a career as opposed to Denver. Think the wives might have something to say and influence decision to stay in or leave?
One of my 2nd cousins, a 70s grad of West Point who chose arty to follow in the footsteps of his 43 West Point Dad, was nagged by his young wife after spending 3-yrs of his first tour at Ft. Bliss to the extent the Army lost a fine, fine, young officer after his first hitch. Same with a buddy of mine in plt tng from N. Carolina (NCState grad) who went from 13 mos in Del Rio straight to Minot, ND. Couldn’t be helped, of course–luck of the draw, needs of the service and all that–but still not a big retention motivator. The services have enough el crapola duty stations by force of necessity without intentionally adding to the shit-pile.
And don’t talk to me about Denver’s COLA problems for the enlisted. Whatever savings they made there
are more than offset in short-run by base closing and re-location expenses, and in the long-run by the loss of good people. I wonder if the big kids have ever heard of the old phrase “penny-wise and pound foolish.”
Of course, what REALLY drove the move were the Denver real-estate interests which were salivating at all that prime location land and lobbied heavy duty for the bases’ closure.
I COULD shrug and say it’s no longer this geezer’s problem–except for the fact I care about my country’s future and wonder how we’re going to retain quality junior officers/enlisted when decisions like the San Diego and Denver closings are made.
MAJ H.
The nice thing about being around a long time is that someone brings up something that triggers a memory. Grenades and Female soldiers: Grenade range: Wildflecken July 1979. 3d AD PAO was present with a female E-4 Photographer for the Div Paper. My buddies’s Company had the range in the morning and I was to relive him as the OIC when my company took over after lunch. As I got there the PAO and photographer were taking pics of the troops doing the M67 grenade thing. Really nice facility- mulitple pits reinforced concrete walls with 6 inch plexiglass facing the pits and impact area. Female soldier moves back about 60 feet from the wall and just off to the side to get a better picture without checking with anyone Boom.
You guessed it. She howled and dropped like a bag of wet rags. Cease fire was called and the medics were with her in a heartbeat. Single fragment hit her just next to the left nipple and exited just below her armpit. Bled a lot. When the everyone realized it was a flesh wound and she wasn’t seriously hurt the medics had more help getting her to the ambulance than they could stand.
Some years ago when I was a MO, I had a very attractive AD3 that was assigned a routine job requiring a toolbox and the obligatory MIMS on top of an airplane. I walk out on flight line and see 3 – the female AD3 and 2 males – heading toward aircraft. Gal carrying nothing, one guy with MIMS, one with toolbox. Ack, get Master Chief out here now! We watch as they set down toolbox and HELP her to top of aircraft. AVCM goes charging out there and ka-boom. All 3 were chewed out, eviscerated, de-capitated, and turned inside out. turns out all the guys had been “helping” her and no wonder the MAFs didn’t get signed off so quickly. But, the other side of the arguement is that my sailor of the year that year was a female AE1 that was just a whiz kid. Professional, no nonsense, could do anything. I think no matter the situation you will always find those that use anything to their advantage – sex, looks, money, position, sea-daddy. Just basic human nature. But heads-and-beds is certainly a different game these days!
To interrupt the regularly scheduled gender debate…
What the hell are those boots? Why do they look terminally sketchy, and lacking in support – like the sort of thing that causes nasty joint problems, fifteen years from now? Or is that just camera angle, and so forth?
As for that PO3 – betting she runs six miles before breakfast. Kind of surprised, though, that a member of the Ninety Pounds Soaking Wet club would be on a line, regardless of gender.
Whoa, that mooring line is way too clean. Must not have seen much action.
BTW, my last sea tour was as 1st Lt on an UNREP ship and it was my first mixed gender crew. I was surprised that we lost at least 5 or 6 women in a straight jacket (figuratively or literally) for every one that we lost for pregnancy. We had huge problems with gay women ruling the berthing compartment (straight women were too afraid to “tell”) until we got a female MA-1 to replace the male MAC.
We also had 3 (out of 30 – 10 percent!) women who were single mothers and could never get underway with the ship. Every time we got underway for more than 24 hours, we sent them TAD to our squadron. They didn’t have anyone to leave the kids with for more than that length of time, out in the wilderness of NWS Earle, New Jersey.
Everything looks rather clean, unless the deck-apes in question take toothbrushes to the non-skid – post-refit photo, or something?
On a tangent… does the USN still paint ship while underway?
Continuously, the needle gun providing a staccato overture to the brush work.
Just not usually over the side, while under way.
Chaffee is a relatively new ship, commissioned n 2003, and returned from deployment in September 2007. She probably had some yard work after that, and the shoes do tend to keep things looking proper.
Ah. Interesting – I’d heard something about painting, beyond the most minor of repairs, becoming a yard/alongside problem.