Posted on 06/06/2014 6:07:04 PM PDT by Half Vast Conspiracy
Bingo
Hoh!!!!
I am so stealing that line...
LOL! !!
“I heard about some problems during and right after Vietnam but by the time I joined in 1977 (DEP) and 1978 (Active) it had subsided to almost nothing. Of course, Presidents Carter and Reagan weren’t $#*+-stirrers.”
Integration doesn’t just happen, it’s forced from above. The moment policies are selectively enforced, applying to only some groups, it falls apart. Hell, the moment 24/7 policing and constant supervision and indoctrination towards assimilation stop the oil and the water will separate.
Human beings will be human beings. They will self-segregate upon obvious lines of similarity, and they will look out for their own self-interests. It takes EXTREME effort to get them to work together, as that is not normal — human nature is tribal. Religious, cultural, ethnic, or racial differences can be the fault lines; and any one of those elements can lead to generational warfare.
In the past multi-ethnic empires tended to give up on trying to make everyone play together all nice and happy, and just tossed the various different tribesmen into their own battalions. Certainly makes it easier to maintain some sense of unit cohesion when you don’t have to spend a significant portion of your time and resources trying to prevent hate-crimes from cropping up and smoothing over the grievances that inevitably crop up. It frees more time and resources up to actually train and fight, rather than sitting everyone down for mandatory powerpoints on sensitivity training.
In the early and mid 1980s I was spending some time with a French unit, and learned that all the pistols on the officers and NCOs were always loaded, this was in France, on field exercises and in garrison.
One French Lt had a friend in the US Marines, and he couldn’t understand how he had to wear an unloaded pistol, and that there were parts of Navy ships that a US officer could not enter because they were under hostile black control and were off limits to whitey.
I assume that his Marine friend had told him about stuff during the 1970s, but don’t remember for sure.
You have to remember, too, that even as an E-1 I spent more time with general and field grade officers than I did with other lower enlisted (save for a few co-workers and ROKA counterparts), so I suppose I was somewhat buffered from a lot of this. The bars in the ‘ville in Korea were strictly segregated, not from above but by choice and by music and venue. Also, the Korean women who comported with black soldiers and to a lesser degree Hispanics were looked down upon by the other Koreans and were usually not the cream of the crop as far as looks or English language skills went.
I think a lot of it during the truly bad period was because a big war was going on, which always empowers the ranks, and gives a devil may care attitude, plus, at the later stages of the war, there were a lot of draftees, so you had unpopular war, a bloody meat grinder war going on, and draftees, and the black power movement, all at the same time, that translates as a time of wild abandon, that you wouldn’t see in a 1980, military.
From what I’ve been able to gather (and, of course, it’s all mostly guessing at this point), this confrontation was neither about Obama nor about race.
It was, assuming I’ve got it mostly correct, about a former USMC DI disrespecting a piece of USMC gear specific to USMC Drill Instructors as a civilian, outside a USMC Recruit Training Depot as part of his (the civilian’s) protest.
A Smokey the Bear or campaign hat isn’t all that specific is it?
The Army uses them, women wear them, Boy Scouts, Cops wear them, Park Rangers, and we can all buy them at the surplus stores, and I assume a lot of DIs have a couple or few when the become civilians.
If it’s USMC issue, then it is that specific.
When Marines leave the service they don’t own their old clothes?
Of course they do.
But, the military in general, and the USMC in particular, are very heavily oriented toward tradition. And, the tradition is that uniforms and issue apparel aren’t worn except for approved ceremonial purposes.
In particular, the campaign cover has a special and honored place in USMC tradition. To use it for political purposes, no matter how proper the politics might be behind the purpose, is... frowned upon, heavily.
I do not know the actual laws on the books regarding such things as it’s never come up in my own acts and actions, but I do vaguely recall that there are actual laws in place on such issues as well.
Who and what the heck are you trying to sale?
Some liberal Marine Sergeant Major selling his left wing junk?
Soooo... you’re a telepath or some such?
You know, based on nothing but a short vid, what was in that Sgt Maj’s heart, mind and soul?
He’s black, so he must be an Obama supporter?
I don’t know the man’s heart, mind, or soul. I know what I saw. I saw a USMC Sgt Maj confronting a man about improper and inappropriate us of a cherished USMC symbol. That’s all I saw.
How about this, sweet heart. You and I just agree to despise each other and cease comms between us.
Mmmkay?
Semper Fi, Mac.
If Elijah Cummings had a son.....
No kidding.
Or, maybe, the Sgt Maj was attempting to save a former Marine from a $250.00 fine and up to 6 months in prison:
MCO P1020.34F
MARINE CORPS UNIFORM REGULATIONS
11002. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE DIRECTIVES PERTAINING TO UNIFORMS
1. Implementing 10 U.S.C. 772, the President, by Executive Order 10554 of 18 August 1954, delegated to the Secretary of Defense the authority to prescribe regulations under which persons may wear the uniform. The following excerpts from DoD Directive 1334.1 of 11 August 1969 outline these regulations:
b. Former Members of the Armed Forces. Unless qualified under another provision of this Order or under the provisions of 10 U.S.C. 772, former members who served honorably during a declared or undeclared war and whose most recent service was terminated under honorable conditions may wear the uniform in the highest grade held during such war service only upon the following occasions and in the course of travel incident thereto:
(1) Military funerals, memorial services, weddings, and inaugurals.
(2) Parades on national or state holidays; or other parades or ceremonies of a patriotic character in which any active or reserve United States military unit is taking part.
‘Wearing of the uniform or any part thereof at any other time or for any purpose is prohibited.’
11004. LAWS PERTAINING TO THE UNIFORM
1. Per 10 U.S.C. 771, no person, unless other-wise authorized by law, except a member of the Marine Corps may wear the uniform or a distinctive part of the uniform of which is similar to a distinctive part of the Marine Corps uniform.
2. According to 18 U.S.C. 702, whoever, in any place within the jurisdiction of the United States or in the Canal Zone, without authority wears the Marine Corps uniform will be fined not more than $250 or imprisoned not more than six months, or both.
http://www.marcorsyscom.usmc.mil/sites/mcub/library/MCUR/URCh11.htm
Something else I don’t think most folk get. The chucklehead with the DI cover had called around to various persons on the base to get permission to wear the cover and was roundly refused by one and all, as well as got informed of the appropriate law forbidding such.
The Sgt Maj might have been a bit hotted up by the fact that he’d already had that “discussion” with the numbnut over the phone.
The Sgt Maj never laid hands on the idiot. He took possession of a USMC uniform item that was being illegally used. Those are his “crimes”.
He was a bit abrupt in his demeanor. Tough. Marines tend to be like that when they’re doing what needs be done... especially when it’s with members of the same tribe who should damned well know better already.
Can’t tell exactly what specific issues they are arguing about (USMC respect or Obama), and it looks like the former DI’s cover simply fell off when the SgtMaj’s forehead contacted the brim, then SgtMaj caught it.
Hardly something LE should get involved with.
Or, maybe, the Sgt Maj was attempting to save a former Marine from a $250.00 fine and up to 6 months in prison:
Perhaps you can give me an example of this being enforced...for one uniform item.
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