This is why the Navy cannot have nice things.
Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel has ordered a close-up and comprehensive inspection of all military offices and workplaces worldwide to root out any “materials that create a degrading or offensive work environment.”
The extraordinary searches will be similar to those the Air Force conducted last year and prompted officers to scour troops’ desks and cubicles in search of photos, calendars, magazines, screen-savers, computer files and other items that might be considered degrading toward women.
The inspections will now target soldiers, sailors and Marines. They come amid heightened concern about sexual assault in the military and a new Defense Department report that suggests more than 70 troops every day experience some type of sexual assault.
To borrow a quote from comedian Rick Dukaman, " It's against the law to like beautiful women? Well, lock me up and take me to Russia".
It reminds me of the story a classmate told me once-about how some shrew fellow professional member of the team got upset with a "glamour shot" a guy kept of his wife on the desk in his office. Her complaint? It showed too much cleavage. Like that's a bad thing.
Besides it violates the Public Affairs Diktat Rule #1.
It is to weep………Guess I will have to take down my Lily Wong screensaver now.
TANJ.
Skippy,
Saw an article about the AF Chief of Staff told a Senate committee that an increased in assaults could be attributed to the "Hook Up Culture" prevalent among the young today. While I don't think all assaults are of this type, there are and have been bad people in the military, but he is not too far off on his assessment. Probably should have used more "PC" words but it is true.
I don't think he was blaming the women in his comments, but both parties. When you have TV shows and music videos and songs that pretty much tout about casual sex this is what you get. I find it hilarious that the liberal media (I am not a Foxphile either) will put out all sorts of crap in the movies and TV, and then get the vapors and need the smelling salts when people start acting like the Kardashians. I thought that their whole agenda was that one should do what you want to feel good about it.
FYI, I was up in your old stomping grounds at Atsugi and listening on the radio they were talking about the reopening of the new Officers Pub at the Atsugi "Convention Center." It seems the entire O'club is now called the Atsugi Convention Center, but the bar that was there is still some type of O'club Bar (Tanuki Tavern). This to me is part of a proble that started long ago with Tailhook, and the Air Force is now getting it's turn. Back in the day, when you had seperate clubs for the ranks, I am sure you had some issues, but for the most part, people went there to "hook up" if that was the case but you did so in the club and not in the work place. Now you have this big mixing of the ranks and boundaries get blurred. If you dated someone in the military, it was smarter to date a person outside of your chain and organization and at least in the same ranking area, but now they force everyone to the one club, and boundaries go away.
Perhaps they will hire George c Scott with his riding crop to tear down any pornography
TANJ?
You cannot convince me that the service has a higher rate of sexual assault than a simliar sized and aged cohort in general American society. I am talking about real sexual assault-not buyer's remorse. There is a lot more of that reported in the service than in American society in general. Why? Because the service makes it easier for people to make bad choices, regret them, and then choose to get even using the system. We've all seen that happen.
Also-what it seems to me-is that the leadership has yet to understand that by making the kinds of social changes they have, and by banning other reasonable outlets for sexual release, they have unwittingly accepted a higher "cost of doing business". The services would be well advised to stop pretending that the military is some sort of "moral" profession and stop trying to regulate the private lives of its Soldiers and Sailors. This is the world they said they wanted. Well in this world-men and women ( and now men and men) fuck. Get over it.
I think we are missing the point. There is a significant difference (in terms of the expression of power) between a sexual assault and a hook up gone wrong. I know of no statistics which would support or refute the claim that the same number of sexual assaults occur in the military as in a similar sized civilian population. However, it seems that if there were 26k sexual assaults in say Atlanta (a city about the size of our active duty military), that would be news. While the absence of evidence does not constitute evidence of absence, it bears some relation to the conversation.
Sexual assault is about power. Power over person and power over choice. When military leaders substitute their judgment for the members of a court martial who heard the evidence live, it sends a command wide message that complainants are not going to be believed. It is similar to the command where the first positive piss test gets a counseling session compared to the command where a positive piss test results in a special court martial and a bad conduct discharge. In the first, there is a constant drug problem. In the second, subordinates learn quickly what is unacceptable and comport themselves accordingly. When command discounts the report and sworn testimony of a subordinate, a similar message is delivered: discredit the accuser and you can get away with anything.
Similarly, the civilian community has worked for nearly 50 years to remove images which objectify women from the workplace. If the new military is going to be open to women in billets previously reserved for men, then the military needs to enter the 21st century in other ways. It takes all members of a team to accomplish the mission. If one member thinks she is, or actually is, considered less than her team mates, how will she perform? How will her team mates expect her to perform? I've known female military pilots who could fly circles around their mail counterparts. How does she feel if there are pin ups, or screen savers or other pictures objectifying women in the squad room? I've not asked, but I would suspect she feels like less than part of the team as a whole.
My grandfather commanded subs in the Pacific in WWII. I'm not sure he would understand the new Navy. Unfortunately, he didn't live to see the victory he fought for (his sub was lost on October 11, 1943 when my mom was not quite 2). However, he well understood the nature of command: every person on the boat dies or survives based on the performance and teamwork of every other person. If all are not valued, none are valued. Maybe that's the lesson the senior leadership is trying to teach again.
OAM, I think you bring up several points all at once. Specifically with respect to the idea of removing the power of the convening authority to accept or reject the results of a court martial is a dangerous slope to go. Don't like LTG Franklins decision? Then fire him-but don't get all on a high horse to change the system. Its a dangerous place to go-and I submit to you that Frankilin probably had access to items we will never know. He knew exactly the gravity of the decision he was making, and still he made it. Its in his perogative to do so. Regarding your second point-it has to work all the way around the ranch. Women getting promoted ahead of others offends me. Having the Navy expend scarce TAD funds to send people to diversity conventions offends me. The CNO having three policy assistants for female matters but none for males is a bit offensive too. Its a two way street-and there are more than a lot of Navy policies that make men feel undervalued. My point about AFN not being willing to highlight men is a valid one-however poorly stated. Assignment polices that encourage service members to marry other service members and give them a preferred place in the assignment pool offend a lot of men who are not married to military members. The list goes on. You have to make it all apply equally for your point to have merit. Plus-this is attacking a non-existant problem. I don't know a single workspace today that allows pinups or anything else, and most CO's are going to err to the side of extreme caution in these matters. Out of fear for their own survival.
Plus lets not forget a big problem. At work women want to be "just one of the boys" but then away from work they want to be women-and they dress like women. Men don't make that transformation. At a company it generally works out without incident because everyone goes home at night. Not so in the service.
You are really going to love my next post. I went out and brought in the big guns on this subject.
It's old.
TANJ=There Aint No Justice which accurately sums up the stupid notion that a place of work can be scrubbed entirely of images that offend the most insanely sensitive little soul who beholds them. Reminds me of time in Saudi where even the western news magazines were censored, individually, to black out the pictures of immodestly dressed ankles lest some ignorant camel take offense.