Posted on 02/07/2019 2:58:58 AM PST by blueplum
After lawmakers and family demand justice, Navy changes regulation that led to Shannon Kent's deployment
The Navy is changing its waiver policy after the death of Chief Petty Officer Shannon Kent, the Fort Meade Naval officer who died in an attack in Syria last month.
Kent was in the process of appealing the waiver denial that led to her deployment before she became the first female sailor killed in the fight against ISIS on Jan. 16...
(Excerpt) Read more at capitalgazette.com ...
Yeah, she wanted to go to a school - but the school was denied because of a previous cancer, which is odd because she was found fit to deploy.
RIP
Sometimes life in the military does suck for the individual.
A couple years ago everybody and their mother was gung-ho to open up every combat position to female service members. I believe the Navy’s policy was already such that this casualty would not have been avoided one way or the other with regards to rules on women in combat.
Fewer than 148 females have been killed since 2001 as a direct result of deployment to combat zones, but this is a reminder of grim reality that people generally don’t face, but will face if the military continues to enthusiastically push women into combat.
She wanted the benefits of military service, but not the risks. Perhaps we should rethink the whole idea of women in the military.
If you’re in the military and your unit deploys, you deploy. That’s what our armed forces are for. If that’s not okay with you, why are you in uniform? I knew a small number of people who applied for and in some cases received waivers, and every single one of them disgusted me.
I’m confused. How did her having cancer in remission add to her dying in combat?
A sailor dies in combat in Syria. The Senate, including the Senators who signed this letter to the Secretaries of Defense and Navy, just voted to oppose us withdrawing from Syria. They think the cost in terms of lives and treasure is worth it. Perhaps what they mean is that it’s o.k. for some people to die in the war on terror but not females or minorities. This sounds like the outrage over the black special forces soldier who was one of four of our men killed in an ambush in Niger. We have lost too many of our best young men and women in these wars, no matter their color or sex. The burden of being the world’s policeman is very heavy and we are far past the limit of what we can bear.
There’s stuff left out.
Apparently, she was slated for a school that would have made her a commissioned officer, but didn’t qualify because of previous cancer. That made her available for normal enlisted duty. Cancer was not involved in her death by a suicide bomber.
If you aren’t fit to deploy, you aren’t fit to serve.
It’s not a damned charity.
If they are in a deployable occupation, they need to do combat tours with everybody else in that occupation.
As a Vietnam vet, I tell young people to stay the hell out of today’s military, for many reasons. But the one’s who listen all seem to be loony lefties. The one’s who don’t are the decent righties, who we continue to lose in large numbers in s**thole countries all over the world. It’s sad.
Once again, the military changes a rule because it hurt a female. Would this rule be changed if a male had met the same fate?
Unlikely.
JoMa
No, you don’t understand, they said she wasn’t fit to go to psychology school, but she was fit to deploy. Pure government horse manure.
And I think too many people, both men and women, have been lead to believe that the military is one big jobs program. Remember the Army commercial, circa 2012 maybe, where a stereotypical DI was screaming at recruits “WHY ARE YOU HERE!” and one replied “to be a graphic artist!”, to which the DI responded “THAT IS OUTSTANDING!” Followed by a spiel about how the military will pay for school, etc.
This sailor may well have then under the impression she could sign up, choose a job to her liking, get paid to train for a future career...
You realize of course that this waiver has nothing to do with gender?
This was a career enlisted person who was trying to further her education so she could continue to contribute to the Navy in another area as an officer. Are you suggesting the military should discourage enlisted people from doing that?
If you're fit to deploy then aren't you also fit to go to school to continue your education and serve the Navy in a different field?
My point is if the Navy wasn’t sending women into combat zones she wouldn’t have had to seek a waiver from a combat deployment in the first place. She may well have ended up on some other deployment, but she’d most likely have lived through it to continue working towards becoming a clinical psychologist afterwards.
She deployed five times. How is that not wanting the risks?
Amen
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