On the the playing field, an inspirational meritocracy, as Navy defeated the vaunted Irish (6-3 this year) 23-21 in Saturday’s match up.
(Real) inspiration could be found on a football field this past weekend, in South Bend, Ind., where Navy again beat Notre Dame.
Inspiration is a division I-A college football team with a 5-foot-9, 193-pound linebacker and exactly zero future NFL players beating a team that has a quarterback who will go in the top 10 of the 2010 draft, one receiver who is a lock first-round pick and another who won’t be far behind.
Inspiration is a team filled with players who weren’t offered scholarships or even recruited by any division I-A schools — kids who are up before dawn most mornings, who spend their summers on ships and who will someday soon be sent overseas to fight and perhaps die for their country — beating a team that has its very own TV network, more money than any of us can imagine and a coach who thinks Knute Rockne might have qualified to be one of his coordinators.
But off the field?
Maybe not so much:
Leaders of the U.S. Naval Academy tinkered with the composition of the color guard that appeared at a World Series game last month so the group would not be exclusively white and male.
Accounts differ on whose names were added to the color guard roster, or purged from the list. But the net result was that one of the six who marched on the Yankee Stadium field Oct. 29, Midshipman 2nd Class Hannah Allaire, was selected because her presence would make the service academy look more diverse before a national audience.
I understand and even sympathize with what leadership is trying to do, but I can’t escape the feeling that we’ve somehow lost our way when I look at the fact that Navy athletes compete for their positions based purely on all-around merit, but Navy scholars who will one day lead sailors and Marines in actual combat may be selected for other reasons.
The first category plays games. The second does not.
Neither should leadership.
This all goes along with Gen. Casey’s remarks on the Talk Show Circus (er, circuit) Sunday.
WTF has happened to our top level warriors?! They are sounding a “uncertain trumpet,” and there is nothing worse for the morale of the men and women of our Armed Forces than this crap.
All this diversity claptrap is totally unsat. It will reduce our defense to a paper tiger, where all members will be trained in the art of conflict resolution by feeling rather than by killing the enemy.
Sigh.
This is the price we pay for allowing our country & military to become “politically correct”. I want the best qualified person on either side of me when I put my feet on the battlefield – I don’t care if that person is white/brown/yellow/ or chartreuse. I don’t care if the person is male or female. I feel that there are plenty of women who could kick your arse & mine, and I would welcome that person on my team if they were willing to do so to the enemy.
We have watered down “excellence” and replaced it with “well, we don’t want to offend anyone”….F*&K that – I think it is high time we start offending enough people until we get back to rewarding the best and allowing the best to lead, regardless of color, gender, or sex.
The heroic female Marines from Fallujah are a prime example – I served with some of these splendid warriors. The male Marines were heroic in many ways but these female Marines showed true valor.
Read about it at the link below -
http://www.marine-corps-news.com/2006/05/the_wars_deadliest_day_for_us.htm
Not fair, Cookie. Not fair. It took me forever to read through the article, having to stop frequently to run the wipers on the windshield. Esprit de Corps in its typically remarkable fashion.
Commander Salamander (Side Bar – Left) has been covering this in pretty good detail, one should check out his many “Diversity Thursday” posts. A real eye opener and then you want to cry!!
BT: Jimmy T sends.
I’m surprised that diversity selection at the Academies has not been challenged in the courts. Affirmative action should have no place in our society in this day and age. For goodness sake, we just elected a black president. End the whining. Fire the politically correct class of flag officers. Do it in 2012. Start the ball rolling in 2010.
“Inspiration is a division I-A college football team with a 5-foot-9, 193-pound linebacker and exactly zero future NFL players beating a team that has a quarterback who will go in the top 10 of the 2010 draft,”
Why would Notre Dame’s QB go in the top 10?
After all, he doesn’t have his four national championships. Dunno if he still has access to that stretch hummer either.
If the “Leaders” of today’s Navy served in the past, we would have such great and memorable quotes as:
“Damn the Torpedoes!…..oh….er…I’d like to take a moment to apologize to our crew for my coarse language. I will be available in my office after lunch to discuss this situation further with any seamen who’s feelings I may have hurt. NC1 Smith will post the number for the Inspector General’s office if anyone feels a need to call them and report me.”
“I have not yet begun to fight. I think it is important before any undertaking to fully staff my plans with the JAG and higher authority. This is a very serious undertaking and I don’t want to make a rushed decision. Additionally, I will be asking the CMC to discuss these plans with the sailors to make sure they agree with said plans. I do not want to actually commit to a fight until the powder blue “Battle Dress” uniforms are fully stocked at the Navy Exchange uniform store.”
“TURN ON THE LIGHTS”—unless doing so would interrupt or in any other way upset our shipmates of other faiths who may be worshiping in our ship’s non-denominational chapel.
Or, YOU MAY FIRE WHEN YOU ARE READY, GRIDLEY” – once we have concluded this morning’s diversity indoctrination, I mean classes, and you have assured this Command that all proper diversity classifications are properly represented in the gun crews….
“Don’t Give Up the Ship–at least until proper negotiations with the side opposite are entered into and the disposition of prisoners is fully agreed to and/or full compensation is mutually agreed upon for damage to property and financial arrangements made for all future claims and potential lawsuits.”
Gosh, you guys are being openly contemptuous. Do you have a chit for that?
One of those frequent reader admirals here is going to tell your mom and won’t you be sorry then.
I couldn’t agree more with your assessment. It’s a sad state of affairs when the true warrior ethos falls in line behind “multi-culti,” “progression,” or whatever the term-du-jour of the left is.
I was personally and professionally saddened when the words, “Warrior Spirit,” were removed from the mission statement of Marine Corps Recruit Training. Some of us have not forgotten, but I think we fall into a minority group.
Flatlander, affirmative action is routinely written into law now, like in our shiny new health reform law, see • Secs. 2521 and 2533 (pp. 1379 and 1437) establishes racial and ethnic preferences in awarding grants for training nurses and creating secondary-school health science programs. For example, grants for nursing schools should “give preference to programs that provide for improving the diversity of new nurse graduates to reflect changes in the demographics of the patient population.” And secondary-school grants should go to schools “graduating students from disadvantaged backgrounds including racial and ethnic minorities.”
Is too much being read into the composition of a color guard? On what merit are the members of a color guard at such an event chosen? Now, I’ve taught young men why and how to do a color ceremony for a while now, and I make sure they take them seriously. But when you’re on national TV it’s also a marketing opportunity. Unless there’s a merit selection process for that group that was circumvented I’m not sure what the controversy is here.
RonF, it is the all the acts in summation. First, the act of removing two for their race. There would be a problem if this were done to put Whites ON in place of another race. If what they did was, in fact, correct and right, then fine. Don’t obfuscate and hide behind the PAO. If you are afraid to address it head on, if you hide behind the PAO and spin the story, then, there is probably an ethical problem.
In truth, Prof Fleming has shined a big bright light at an ugly problem that is inching its way through the very fiber of the academy and the Navy as a whole. Furthermore, the young man that was the replacement showed exactly why he wasn’t on the “varsity” squad. He clearly was NOT ready for prime time. But, if we need to make it all conform to the demographics of the country, feel free to putting short people on the basketball team, and skinny people on the football team. Or, keeping race as the central deciding factor, adjust the racial composition of the football team. Why does adjusting team composition based on race sound so much more fullish than adjusting team composition based on race and gender for combat teams? Ya know, when real lives are on the line.