Welcome aboard Shipmate!
I see by your shiny dress-blues that you are one burnt slider* removed from Boot Camp. Good. Let’s discuss what you should not do in the Navy. Advance warning: this example may defy common-sense. Do not try at home.
Flash forward to a month after Boot Camp and you are tired of playing the military game. You want to get away. From “A” School, at the Defense Language Institute. Somehow you have the Navy pegged as oppressive. Really, your life is good. You are told what to: wear, eat, do. And when to: show up, wake up, push up, sleep.
Casual readers, pull your children in close. This is not for the squeamish. You really wanna get off base. And taste some freedom. The problemo: you don’t have wheels. It is a couple of days before the weekend. You decide to hide. From class, from the world.
But not from the Navy. We can find you. And we do. In your girlfriend’s wall locker where you have been holed up for 3 days. Huddled inside like Gollum, like Smeagol, waiting. Good job, hope you enjoy that Captain’s Mast. We would take your cherished stripes away, but heck, you’re a Seaman Recruit. Think buck E-1. Stripes, you ain’t got any.
Let’s switch services. Some Air Force big-brains decided to take a little squadron snapshot. You know the type where you suck the gut in and puff out your war-fighter, tiger-striped chest. (Full disclosure, I’ve clenched my jaw through a couple of these, too.)
You say you want to get a little tough wit’it? Okay, what do you have in mind? Somethin’ rough, something a little street. Ahhhh, street? We are in the military, the only street we should be running is Route Irish in Baghdad (well, not anymore.) So you pull this:
- “Da Dumpt, Da Dumpt………Sucks 2 Be U,” Air Force Casket Photo, 345th Training Squadron, Fort Lee, Virginia
Whoops, rookie move. This one is going to claim a couple of stripes. First of all, you are mocking our brave Men and Women who have given their all. Big mistake. Huge:
The Air Force has launched an investigation into a controversial photo that shows several non-commissioned officers posing with an open casket, in which a fellow airman poses with a noose around his neck and chains over his body.
The Air Force Times received a copy of the photo over email, which includes the caption, “Da Dumpt, Da Dumpt …. Sucks 2 Be U.” The casket is similar to those used to transport deceased U.S. soldiers home from the battlefield. . .
The photo, dated August 23rd, was reportedly taken by airmen with the 345th Training Squadron at Fort Lee, Virginia, according to Gerry Proctor, spokesman for the 37th Training Group at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas, which includes the 345th Training Squadron.
That giant sucking sound is your career, senior guy or girl. And for all you junior folks looking all tough in the picture, think about your actions. Just like that Sailor who hid in a wall-locker for a couple of days, you will be caught. If you have to be hip and edgy, get a blog. I hear it is a great way to blow off some steam. . .
- Lana Del Rey of Video Games says- Be like the Mellow Jihadi and get a blog!
* That’s right, I linked to Martha Stewart. And Lana Del Rey. In the same post. A blogospheric first. . .
I saw that photo. Anyone in it is about to receive a nasty backlash. But I will say, you get inured to death after awhile. I do not apologize for their actions but I understand. I visited a friend at who was stationed at Golden Gate and while I was there they brought a “floater” onto the station.
Did that person get the respect they deserved? No. But when you have to deal with death on a daily basis, you have to find a common ground. My friend was professional, but not respectful in a religious sense. The folks in the picture got a bit too comfortable with death. My friend, even comfortable with it, never took it as casual.
I would love to hear the chewing out that results from that photo going public.
Of course, the Air Force would have to borrow personnel from another branch in order for it to be truly frightening. A Marine CSM or Navy Master Chief should do the trick.
This photo makes you wonder, “What were they thinking?!” And surely they were thinking something – or not. I do wish one of them would get a blog – at least long enough to explain their thinking.
In a way, this appears similar to those rather intemperate photos some Army types took during the Iraqi campaign during GWB’s tenure..all those prisoners naked and in chains with the dogs…not the same outrage of course, and surely not quite the same topic; but nonetheless, they should have thought about consequences a little more than they did..this appears to conform to the adage, familiarity breeds contempt…and the same attitude…anyone who participated in this particular bit of stupidity has to live with it, even the adults in the room…k
I had to pick my daughter up from high school the other day. As we were stuck in the school-created traffic jam, she suddenly exclaimed “What are those idiots doing?” “The idiots” in question were girls who were getting out of the car on one side and racing to get in on the other.
“That, my dear, is the mob mentality in action.” Mobs don’t always mean torches and pitchforks. Collective thinking, especially by young people, often means egging each other on to do things that, as individuals, each would realize is stupid, dangerous or distasteful.
My conclusion about the photo is that it shows the same type of mob mentality, one dedicated to self-inflicted wounds.
I’m not admitting anything here, but I’ve had to hide in a girl’s wall locker at the Navy barracks at DLI a time or two when the PO on the floor came knocking, and it’s quite cramped. I can’t imagine doing it for three days. If you’re going to skip out on the Navy, you should try to do it off-post.
Ha ha! Hiding in the wall locker? I am not sure I could even fit in there. Or at the least, it would be very cramped. And it is not hard to go properly UA. He was just lazy. . .
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