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
“You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours.”--General Sir Charles Napier
"Μολὼν λαβέ" -- Leonidas
"Blogito Ergo Sum" -- Neptunus Lex
Dude…and I thought I was cold.
Wow, The PSYOPS guys get an A+.
On a serious note, same issue in Saudi but to a lesser extent.
Second-hand, but years ago, Yemen, my colleagues part of the team wooing local sheikhs in pursuit of someone who died later in an unexplained automobile explosion. The sheikh is most gracious, has them barefoot in his tent, wonderful food, good smoke. Then out comes the boy with no beard yet, his hands go under the sheikh’s flowing robes, and to the utter astonishment of the gathered non-Arabs the boy begins to snap his bean. The sheikh goes on as if nothing is at all out of place.
Nothing like a little cross-cultural exchange, eh?
“P’raps the president really does have his head in the right place.”
Brutal, Lex!
I’d often commented on this special aspect of the Pashtun culture on other sites and wondered when the subject would come around to open discussion within the Pentagon and grappling (;.o) with by the deployed ranks.
Wait till they get to wrap their minds around the fact that the Pashtun are seriously considered by some scholars to be ONE OF THE LOST TRIBES OF ISRAEL ….. a lineage claim acknowledged in their own oral and written traditions, archeological artifacts, as well as actual continuing religious practices.
They are purported to be descendants of the Lost Tribe of Ephraim, an cultural anthropological theory currently being tested by a genetic study whose results should be forthcoming within the year.
The Pashtun are sounding like one of the Lost Tribes of Sausalito!
I’m thinking someone should have clued in the writers of “Battlestar Gallactica!”
And from Ephraim they are not…
I thought they preferred goats.
Once again demonstrating that wrong doctrine leads to wrong living.
Good advice from ol’ Paul to young Tim, “Study to show yourself approved… rightly dividing the word of God.”
I LOL at your title… then again at your summation. Thanks!
I missed the women at sea. Thank goodness. As a shore station CO, I experienced the added problems of dealing with m vs f interaction broght to the table. I can’t fathom what the gay vs straight intergration will bring. Skipper, why do I have to room with Lt. Gay cause he is the only one in the squadron?
They never quit, do they Boss? I went on a long rant on this topic here a couple of years ago–one of my first posts,IIRC. My feelings on the subj. haven’t changed. I am STILL am waiting for an answer from Gates as to what happens when two same-sex uniformed officers decide to kiss on New Years Eve at the O-Club. Gonna REALLY help morale & retention, yessiree bob. All this talk about the new, “progressive” attitude of the younger soldiers/sailors making everything “work” as they are “beyond” such things fails to take account that these attitudes reflect the present environment, NOT one where such things are forcibly thrown in one’s face by the full weight of the command structure. And TRUST ME,quotas will not be far behind. The courts will see to it that they are inevitable once the law is changed.
VX, it already happens, although almost entirely on the female side (the good gay, as mypetjawa calls it). They attract all eyes, and are strangely invisible.
Touche, Commander Double Entendre. You are likely to get quite the rise out of this one. So, the young Pashtun lad goes off to his uncle’s sheep and goat herding operation in the mountains for the summer. He finds himself somewhat shocked at the close intimate relations shared between the seasoned Pashtun shepards and their flock. Not quite fully emergent from the awkwardness of childhood, nor quite fluent in raging testosterone, he finds himself conflicted. But eager. At the urging of the older hands, one summer’s eve, with the less than full cooperation from a wooly conscript, he crosses over. When he returns, somewhat disheveled from his transformational experience, all the old hands are laughing,and mocking him. With his young face burning red he inquires as to the source of their amusement. After a few moments, one of the elders manages to regain enough composure to tell the young lad, ” Five thousand sheep and goats, and you picked the ugliest one.”
You are likely to get quite the rise out of this one.” BWAHAHAHAhahahah!!!!!!!
I just told Knucklehead 2 about this. He says this is common knowledge among the linguists in his battalion. He wants to get to at least a 1/1 in Pashto so he gets language pro pay. I told him to learn from the DLi grads, not the locals.
Don’t the ragheads have special day, like Thursday, for this?
On thursdays if you drop your wallet in Helmland, ya gotta kick it all the way to Kabul before you can pick it up.
Thursday the is do-the-wife day, so the husband has his obligations out of the way come Friday prayers.
One of the things that queers our pitch here (sorry) is that the Taliban apparently tried to put a stop to pedophilia among the Pashtun tribes…
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/02/21/world/kandahar-journal-shh-it-s-an-open-secret-warlords-and-pedophilia.html?pagewanted=1
I understand part of the plan Gates and Mullen will brief is a banner recruitment ad here.
An unkind sarcastic person might remark on the amazingly large number of homo jokes which mention sailors. Or Flight Physical jokes which infer both. Oh, and there was a Village People song…
I’m gonna bump this up on Hot Mic, because I think the subject is funny.
Labrat over at Atomic Nerds, has written a right scholarly and erudite essay on the subject. See: http://www.atomicnerds.com/?p=3198
C’mon, guys, the NIS was famous as an ongoing homo joke (remember the Iowa turret fire?)
Don’t act all butthurt about it.
Once more unto the breech, dear friends!
I note that the Navy Football post is the most popular. IMHO, football is what is most wrong about the USNA, at least among the ring-knockers.
Football is of no consequence, and has nothing to do with training naval officers, whereas,
Homo jokes which mention sailors are funny. They have existed, and been funny, since there have been sailors.
After some reflection I’m left wondering about the gender of those 72 virgins…
Being a non-judgmental type, I figure if that’s what floats their boats then they’re welcome to it and pardon me if I don’t go along.
After all, half of all gay men interviewed stated that they were born that way, and who can argue against that?
The other half say they were sucked into it…
(badump-chink!)
– Max