1914 tech still relied mighty heavily on real horse speed and the tired and true infantry footslogging of eons past and v. Kluck's cats had to literally haul assets in their sleep. When a divisional commander noted the dirty, dusty troops - were hungry, tired, and reeking of sweat - that was cool.
Closer inspection revealed they were also reelingly out of step and drunker than true Oktoberfest believers, the Prussian general mentioned it to das Korps Kommander v. Kluck himself.
v. Kluck - Furor Teutonicus in the flesh, laughingly laughed off such inappropriate tattletales and correctly saged that "...Abnormal demands require abnormal stimuli..."
Much like the mistaken naval response about CVN 65's ex new Captain and former XO of "XO Movie Nights."
1st off - the most dangerous place in the world to hang out and engage the deadly arts of Naval Air Superiority/ close combat air support is on the deck of an American aircraft carrier. Anywhere onboard is cut off from the outside world for extended periods of time - safety and professionalism is congruent with keeping up morale.
2nd - all the targets of what may or may not be accepted humor were targets of choice. Certain alternate lifestylers chose their alternate lifestyle - just as Surface Warfare Officers (SWO Boys) picked their branch of service to something larger than self.
Thirdly, Capt Honors evidently did everything exceptionally well as XO - hence his promo to full bird Captain.
As for complaints - it may be best to remember that in a fun and free choice society - the pinnacle of civilization where ppl volunteer to fight wars, stand long watches and risk tragedy and death on an hourly basis - morale, mission requirements and R n R are above and beyond what could be considered normal.
And abnormal demands require abnormal stimuli.
Pic - "F Bombs and SWO Boys" by Aaron Riveroll
Courtney, you kind of sabotaged your own argument with the line "certain lifestylers chose their alternate lifestyle". Unless you just meant they chose to pursue their inclinations, which is a different matter. Regardless, it was wrong to remove Honors from his command, and it would be even more wrong to end his career, which is almost certainly going to happen.
ReplyDeleteThis is not the best way to engender acceptance of homosexual soldiers amongst the greater military community. Honors is going to be held up as a symbolic sacrificial victim on the altar of political correctness, which is exactly what he was.
It's going to get worse too, I'm afraid. There will be a plethora of lawsuits filed, for all kinds of reason, most of which will be without merit. These will include, but not be limited to, charges of unfairly passing gays up for promotion.
You're also going to see gay rights group advocate (ie vociferously demand) that Robert Gates be replaced by a gay Secretary of State.
It's going to get really stupid, in my opinion.
You're also going to see gay rights group advocate (ie vociferously demand) that Robert Gates be replaced by a gay Secretary of DEFENSE, I meant to say.
ReplyDeleteA gay Secretary of State would necessitate shutting down the entire department for a celebration that would last at least an entire weekend. Forty percent of the department would just be too drunk and hungover to get anything done for a while.
As someone who served on the Big E, it is definitely not for the faint of heart. That being said, most fighter pilots tend to think with a part of their anatomy lower than their belly button, and sadly, the CO (then XO) not only went way over the line of common sense, he LEAPED over it. Aviators always mercilessly pick on the SWOs (especially nukes) as humorless, uptight dweebs, all in good fun of course, but back in my day we did it with a little more class and a little less crass. There was always plenty of comedic material without calling them fags every other word...
ReplyDeletePersonal note- as the almighty keeper of the daily airplan cartoon-the ultimate source of pointed punditry and barely camouflaged mockery of life aboard the ship, I could spear just about anyone, even the CO, XO, or Admiral's staff, but there was always a line to not cross. A darn fine gig for a LT to have.
Cant we all agree that CAPT Honors' videos were more about CAPT Honors then they were about improving the morale of his shipmates? I always hated a boss who imposed his personal idiosyncracies on to his crew.
ReplyDeleteJRC
Gutfeld nailed it 1/4rtney.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.dailygut.com/?i=4858
But I don't see it as much as offensive, as it is stupid. But I get why people say it's offensive. Because we have to say that. My feeling is, there's very little in life we actually find offensive. It's just that the stuff we laugh at privately, we must condemn publically.
We're hypocrites.
But the real truth is - this guy is losing his job, because he thought he was funny. That's it. He had the Michael Scott disease. Scott's the character in The Office - the boss of a paper company. But he's also a frustrated entertainer, who, when given the chance, makes videos, tells jokes, performs skits... all awful and unsuitable for the workplace.
Captain Honor's infraction is that he wanted to be funny - when he was just inappropriate. I don't know if that should kill his career.
But most important, this is a lesson for those who rise up in the ranks in any kind of employment. The higher you go, the more free time you have. Which is why we need to bring back building ships in a bottle. Yeah, It's pointless. But no one can manufacture phony outrage over it because it's so pointless.
But also, it gets the chicks.
This was tame compared to what we did in the sea services of old. What a bunch of PC nonsense.
ReplyDelete"This was tame compared to what we did in the sea services of old. What a bunch of PC nonsense."
ReplyDeleteExactly. The "no bad talk about Fags' PC bullshit is going to destroy us. When little johnny homo gets his feelings hurt when the guys in his squad called him a cock-sucking queer and those guys get NJP for it when he goes sniveling to the PC Officer, we are fucking done as a military.