So If You Resign It is OK

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Okay, I think it is time to address the elephant in the room.


JAM it is my perception that as a Mom of a DD you are fighting the battle for women. I respect that. I get it, but I also think you have a men against women issue regarding the military. The majority of the hot topic debates that you are involved in center around the military injustices to women...subs, PT and not harassment. NOt saying there is no basis for your position or that I don't agree, just saying it seems to be your platform.

Do you honestly believe that the military has these injustices running rampant through the system, or are you searching for answers as a Mom who wants the best for their child regarding their future? Is it fear for your DD that motivates you or is it the expansion of knowledge and why these "injustices" exist?

To be honest, I think you want both, but are unwilling to acknowledge that the military is not sexist. The service members expect and demand the same level from everyone regardless of gender or rank. There is no freebie out. I support the military partially because I have seen that gender mean squat when it comes to promotion. A female can get a kill just as easy as a male, and regardless of their sex, their career got a bump.

I can be 100% off the mark, I am just saying my perception. FWIW, I am sure you will say the perception of me is a Hard Arse. I claim that and accept that. I see the military in a black and white issue, rarely seeing grey. I will also say that being a spouse of a military member of 20+ yrs, I rarely saw the Army or the AF saying that there is a dark grey regarding anything. It was a life of you will do this at this time. It was DP or P on PRF's, not P, but could be DP. It was pass or fail regarding fitness tests, not oh they passed the running, but failed the sit ups, should we pass them?

It is not perfect, but it is a system that works, and one they continue to improve upon, when they have clear cut decisions.

Sexual harassment exists and I don't believe anyone on this board would deny the fact that it does. However, I also think that the majority are not willing to bite off that it is rampant, or they are in denial. It is my opinion you were fighting saying that the Pentagon says it exists at this rate, look there is an issue, it is rampant and needs to be fixed. Whereas, others are saying, yes, it exists, yes the Pentagon is working to fix it, but let's not all shutter up our windows and start fearing the military that they might rape our DDs or hide the rapes for career purposes. It felt that you were implying it is more prevalent in the military than the "real" world. That is my opinion of how I read your posts. I can be wrong, but it is my perception.
 
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Pima - my friend, do me a favor. Don't speak for me or put words in my mouth. Neither my children nor their gender has anything to do with this thread nor my opinions.
Please quit trying to bring the conversation back to my personal situation.
After all, I don't make comments such as:
"PIMA, it is my perception as the wife of a NFO you are fighting the battle for AF Officers". Even if you are.
If you want to discuss your husband and son go ahead. I choose to keep my family out of this discussion.

This thread had nothing to do with women. It was about the male sailors that a male Naval officer sexually harrassed over a period of YEARS during his career and the speculation and wonder that he got away with it for so long.
Obviously, you have a problem with females serving in the military and along side your son and husband. You are entitled to your feelings on this issue - even if they are backwards. Just my perception.
 
JAM, Pima's headed in the right direction. You also just put words in her mouth. Pima's also not the only person who thinks you "have it out" for males in the military.

Lastly, YOU brought up females....post 20, post 28...etc. YOU!

Pima's right on it though. You seem to have something against male service members, I am not sure why, as I know they view males and females in the same way, "shipmates" or each service's equivalent status.
 
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Pima - my friend, do me a favor. Don't speak for me or put words in my mouth.


Obviously, you have a problem with females serving in the military and along side your son and husband. You are entitled to your feelings on this issue - even if they are backwards. Just my perception.



Well that is certainly telling, and not all that surprising.... :confused:

"Just my perception" doesn't negate the "words in her mouth" you just placed there.
 
Obviously, you have a problem with females serving in the military and along side your son and husband. You are entitled to your feelings on this issue - even if they are backwards. Just my perception.


Because I believe that women should not be treated as the "weaker" sex in any form, my feelings are backwards.

I support women serving, I am a proponent of it because I believe they will break the sexist barriers that exists in the military. There are women who can physically perform at the exact same level as men, so why should we reduce their standards?

You have misconstrued one fact, I demand that the field is made equal, and that includes physical ability. Decades ago the form of sexism that existed in the world revolved around brains. It was ASSUMED that women were not as smart as men. All women were qualified to do was make coffee for the boss and that every woman in the world wanted an MRS degree when they went to college, or that as soon as they got the ring on their finger they would spend the rest of their lives raising babies. Nobody ever thought that they would want to have a family and continue working like a man. IT WAS SEXIST.

If you ask would I want our DD become a flier or in tanks? No, because I know that when the bad juju arises it will be someone elses' life that is physically in her hands. She is 5'1, she is a strong swimmer, but I highly doubt she could pull our youngest DS who is 6'3, 230 lbs out of the drink, our 5'9 son could. It would be the guilt that she would live with forever for not saving them that bothers me. As a dependent child my kids always understood and knew that it wasn't just about Dad. As a wife I knew that too, and especially since Bullet's job was Goose in Top Gun...you know the guy who died. All of that being said it is my backwards belief that if our DD was 5'6 (my height), she would have the physical ability. However, the military does not lend themselves to a build determination, but gender and I am vehemently opposed to that for setting criteria. Marion Jones on drugs or not, can still outrun men, Amanda Beard is no slouch either in her field. It is physically possible to meet the men's standards if you want it bad enough. Jeannie Flynn and Fifi have proved that regarding handling a stick. The AF does not play the gender game when it comes to flying or performing a job, it is an equal playing field why should they when it comes to physical reasons in such a large amount?

You may think I am backwards, I do not understand your position because I want women to be seen as equivalents without any excuse...in other words, nobody in the military can say well, you have it easier because you get 2 minutes tacked on for your run. You prefer the option that they keep battling the illusion that they are allowed to be weaker.
 
As for the link of Paula Coughlin, JAM did you read it? Paula Coughlin is not the victim that you may want to believe...even in the AF, Tailhook was a huge story and it was constantly in Stars and Stripes, and the military Times, each branch. Coughlin, like Faulkner did more damage to women in the military than help. She ended her career all by herself, reporting harassment was not the cause, failing to identify her accusers and ruining their career was the reason.

However, in the case of Paula Coughlin, we found a series of disturbing facts, which make us doubt at least part of the former Navy lieutenant’s “story.”

The inconsistencies, embellishments, and her little-known record of falsely accusing not one, but two Marines, who were both later proven to be innocent, (one didn’t even attend Tailhook!) make us wonder what were Coughlin’s true motives? Her subsequent enrichment by several million dollars – through lawsuits against the Tailhook Association and Hilton Hotel Corporation – also is a cause for concern.

FALSE ACCUSATIONS

On what basis did all this upheaval begin? What was the credibility of the “accuser,” Lt. Paula Coughlin?

Downplayed in the media or not reported at all, was the fact Coughlin failed to accurately pick out a photo from a lineup of her alleged attacker – the one who she claimed grabbed her breasts and lifted her up in the air. The first man she fingered, Coughlin claimed, “looks exactly like him.” The lieutenant assured investigators, “if that’s not him, it’s his brother.”

Wrong! The man Coughlin claimed assaulted her was what is called in law enforcement a “ringer.” He was a Marine stationed in the photo lab at Quantico, Va. and had never been to Tailhook in his life.

“Gee, I heard I picked the wrong guy,” Coughlin reportedly told frustrated investigators when they returned with more photos for her to review.

Right there, the NCIS should have realized Coughlin’s story had serious “problems.” But the political pressure to court-martial someone – anyone – in the highly charged case, was intense. So, back to the mug photos they went.

This time, Coughlin picked out another light-skinned African-American. But she couldn’t have made a worse choice. Not only did Marine Corps Capt. Greg Bonam have a clean record, he was a church-going Christian and family man. And he vehemently denied any misbehavior regarding Coughlin.

What happened next was best described in FALL FROM GLORY when author Vistica wrote that Navy lawyers, Capt. Mac Williams and chief JAG officer, Rear Admiral Ted Gordon, were “concerned” about winning a conviction because of Coughlin’s “credibility” problem:

“When she [Paula Coughlin] was asked to pick him [her main attacker] out of a photo line up, she identified the wrong man, a stand-in whom investigators had put in as a dupe. Later, with some hesitation, she fingered Bonam in a physical line-up held at the Marine base in Quantico, Va. She had also picked the wrong officer out of a photo line-up as the man she claimed yelled ‘Admiral’s aide’ when she was attacked in the guantlet.

“And there were no witnesses to support her story. She thought she had drawn blood when she bit Bonam, meaning hard enough to leave a scar, but there was no sign of any bite marks. She said he had been wearing a burnt-orange shirt, but a picture taken of Bonam that night showed him wearing a green shirt. Privately, both Williams and Gordon began to believe that Coughlin was embellishing her story, that she had probably been assaulted, but not in the dramatic fashion she was now claiming. Even [Secretary of the Navy] Dan Howard started to think Coughlin might even have her own agenda.”

For Capt. Bonam, who had to endure a “show trial” court-martial (he was later cleared of all charges), the soft-spoken Marine aviator might have escaped being sent to prison anyway. He had been diagnosed with malignant spinal cancer. Through a miracle, the cancer went into remission, helped not a bit by the extreme stress and mental torture of being tried for a crime he didn’t commit.

SHAVED LEGS AND MORE CONTRADICTIONS

The more investigators dug into Coughlin’s background, the more nervous they became. This was not only no “Little Miss Riding Hood,” Coughlin had a reputation as a foul-mouthed “party animal” who had attended Tailhook before.

“WHAT THE F*** DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING?” Coughlin testified she shouted at one of her “attackers.” There was no way she could claim ignorance of what went on when aviators at the convention got drunk in the middle of the night.

One former boyfriend told Admiral Kelso’s staff that Coughlin had shown up at a Navy “dining-in party” wearing “black fishnet panty hose, high heels, a short black miniskirt, a black tuxedo jacket and carrying a large rubber dildo.” Not exactly the “Anita Hill” image the Navy would have preferred.

What’s worse, sworn testimony from Navy Lt. Rolando Diaz tended to undermine Coughlin’s credibility even more.

Diaz, nicknamed “The Barber of Seville,” set up a “leg and pubic hair shaving stand” in one of the Tailhook hospitality suites in Room 303 of the Las Vegas Hilton.

A long banner hung out front, advertising FREE LEG SHAVES. Not only did Diaz testify under oath that Coughlin had her legs shaved at his stand, she did it two nights in a row, he said, including Saturday, September 7, 1991, the night of the alleged attack.

Diaz testified that evening he noticed Coughlin was “drunk” and said she “autographed” his banner with the damning phrase: “YOU MAKE ME SEE GOD. THE PAULSTER.”

Harried NCIS agents were in “no hurry” to weaken their case by comparing “handwriting samples.” They already knew they had a real “mess” in their hands.

Former pilot Tamela Redford told investigators she saw Paula Coughlin in “Navy whites” getting her legs shaved by a male officer the day before the lieutenant was “groped” by a gang of drunken aviators in the hotel hallway.

“I was appalled at the disrespect she showed her uniform,” the female pilot recalled. “For that person to be tearing the Navy apart really amazes me.”

I am not sure how or why anyone would use Lt Paula Coughlin and tailhook to place a positive light on people having career enders for claiming they were sexually harassed if they were truthful. Unless, you were trying to illustrate that the stigma exists because unfortunately there are women (coughlin) who create the problem by becoming whistle blowers when it wasn't working in their favor. The PAULSTER had no problem with what was going on, she turned a blinds eye, and did not do the honorable thing by blowing the whistle as soon as she found out about these things, instead she partook in them. She was no better of an officer than those that committed these acts. The person to admire is Tamela Redford, because she was the real whistle blower. She acknowledge that it was wrong for the men, but at the same time, Coughlin was wrong for playing the victim when only a day before she was also disrespecting the uniform while she was in it.
 
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Don't you just love the people the Left chooses as examples of their virtues? :yllol:
 
Unfortunately, they do choose the wrong people to represent their cause and realize it too late.

Like I said...Tamela Redford would have been a much better example of how many people were unbecoming as an officer. The problem with using her as a poster girl, she would have hurt the "female" officer's image too.

As little as I know of her, and the only thing I do know is from that link...it seems to me the military lost a great female leader. She echoes my feelings, it is about the uniform and not your gender when you join the military.

I guess that is sexist to some, because I am not of the mindset that life is 50 - 50, and you deserve or earn a job based on how many X's you have in your chromosomal make up. I believe chromosomes have nothing to do with how you can perform.

Back on topic, I do believe more women feel that in the military men cross line with comments regarding sexual innuendos. For some it is hard to determine if that is harassment or just a joke that came across the wrong way. I recall a Male Commander who was placed in a sticky situation, an E-3 admin officer had a tongue piercing, he asked why she did it, and she said it was because of sexual reasons. It was awkward for him and others at the command desk to hear her explanation. He did not expect that answer, and if there was someone there that felt it was inappropriate conversation, he could have been in trouble. I should state the reason this conversation arose was because the piercing was effecting her job requirements, since it was causing a lisp, and her job was to answer squadron phones. It was not due to curiosity.

Sexual harassment is not a clear cut issue many times. Is it harassment when a commander says "The uniform does no justice to your body" after seeing you at a party off base...or is it a compliment, stating uniforms for women stink? That is in the eye of the recipient of the comment. Is it sexual harassment to say "If only I was single and 20 yrs younger" or is it a joke? PC has replaced common sense.

Is this story sexual harassment, guy on guy....Gulf I there was a guy, very religious, threw out every Playboy that other guys had whom he shared a tent with. He was persona non grata among them and taunted by the squadron for his action. Was that sexual harassment? Or was it just a case of guys needling another roommate?

Sexual harassment can be very clear cut...grabbing body parts is clear cut, innuendo not so much. It is hard to make a case when the victim is uncertain that if it was harassment or misconstrued. It is hard to defend a victim when they played the game too.

I am hard on my sex, harder than I am on men, because I have seen too often how we have damaged our own credibility. No women deserves to be groped, pawed or reduced to tears believing that they may have caused it. However, you can't send mix signals. I am a very clear cut person. Don't put yourself in the situation where they can't understand the line. We are all responsible for own actions. Sorry, but if you don't say right away to your boss, be it in private or public "EXCUSE ME" when he says "The uniform does no justice to your body", then you hurt the woman's cause. If you stated it immediately, and he continued with the action, at least, you shot the warning shot over the bow. You told him, that the comment was wrong. You tried to make him re-think his position. You tried to change the world. You may fail, but if you continue in that manner of calling him out you will eventually win your case and make others think twice.
 
Unfortunately, they do choose the wrong people to represent their cause and realize it too late.

Actually, I'd say they choose them quite accurately. :rolleyes:

Is it harassment when a commander says "The uniform does no justice to your body" after seeing you at a party off base...or is it a compliment, stating uniforms for women stink?

Well, they do.

Sheesh, even Jeff Bacon made a cartoon about it at one point.

I am hard on my sex, harder than I am on men, because I have seen too often how we have damaged our own credibility. No women deserves to be groped, pawed or reduced to tears believing that they may have caused it. However, you can't send mix signals. I am a very clear cut person. Don't put yourself in the situation where they can't understand the line. We are all responsible for own actions.

Preach it, sister.

Oh, and men? Please remember what it means to be a GENTLEMAN. It's funny how GENTLEMEN can still joke around and everyone knows it's a joke.
 
My goodness, I hardly know where to begin so I will start here:

JAM, Pima's headed in the right direction. You also just put words in her mouth. Pima's also not the only person who thinks you "have it out" for males in the military.

Lastly, YOU brought up females....post 20, post 28...etc. YOU!

Pima's right on it though. You seem to have something against male service members, I am not sure why, as I know they view males and females in the same way, "shipmates" or each service's equivalent status.
I honestly don't understand why you think that I "have it out" for males in the military. I love military men. My father, brother and uncles were military men. Maybe you think this way because you "have it out" for military women?

Post #20 - addressed sexual assault and the reasons why people don't report it. I never singled out women - this idea is not gender specific.
Post #28 - I didn't bring up Tailhook.
 
Well that is certainly telling, and not all that surprising.... :confused:

"Just my perception" doesn't negate the "words in her mouth" you just placed there.
LITS - I hate to say this but read Pima's post #41 again. How many times does she use the phrase?

JAM it is my perception that
I am just saying my perception
but it is my perception
just responding to Pima's "perception".
 
Finally - I am really sorry this thread has traveled down the twisted path of Tailhook. An incident that tarnished the Navy almost 20 years ago.
Maximus - your post illustrates my post.

Pima said:
As for the link of Paula Coughlin, JAM did you read it? Paula Coughlin is not the victim that you may want to believe...even in the AF, Tailhook was a huge story and it was constantly in Stars and Stripes, and the military Times, each branch. Coughlin, like Faulkner did more damage to women in the military than help. She ended her career all by herself, reporting harassment was not the cause, failing to identify her accusers and ruining their career was the reason

And you concluded that from MilitaryCorruption.com? My goodness.
Folks - for those of you who can handle the truth - my source is from the investigation itself - not mysogynistic heresay.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/navy/tailhook/vic50.html
 
As a great friend used to say Mea Culpa, Mea Culpa, Mea Maxima Culpa. Sorry I started this. It has gone way off track.
 
From the above link:
we received several
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allegations indicating that LT. Coughlin engaged in improper
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activity while at Tailhook '91. We investigated
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all such allegations but found that the allegations were based
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on hearsay testimony or were otherwise without merit. .....


No credible information was found to support the
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allegations of misconduct on the part of LT. Coughlin. As
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noted by one male officer, it appeared the allegations were
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fabricated to discredit LT. Coughlin
for her public disclosure
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of facts concerning assaults at
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Tailhook '91.
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From an article in the Washinton Monthly on Tailhook by Katherine Boo:

When Lt. Commander Roxanne Barrett, one of the highest-ranking women harassed at Tailhook, was asked recently on a D.C. radio station whether Coughlin's coming forward had prompted her to tell her story, she emphatically demurred. She had thought it better for her career to stay silent, Barrett said, until the Naval Intelligence Service came banging on the door. "I thought that was the right time," she added primly - ignoring the fact that, without Coughlin's willingness to take the risk that Barrett herself opted out of, that time would never have come.

If anyone wants to read the results of the Tailhook Investigation and fall out -
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/navy/tailhook/91.html

Tailhook occurred nearly a lifetime ago to the young people who are seeking a military career today. It can be debated ad nauseum but I am done with it. I prefer to look ahead and not backward.
 
Those who ignore history are bound to repeat it.
 
LITS - I hate to say this but read Pima's post #41 again. How many times does she use the phrase?



just responding to Pima's "perception".

You miss the point...you throw the "words in mouth" complaint while puttings words in her mouth. It makes your post hard to take seriously.
 
Maybe you think this way because you "have it out" for military women?

I am dating and have dated a LT for the last 5 years...I don't think that's the reason, but of course, of the two of us, I'm the only one who has served with both males and females and appreciates them both, as equal shipmates.
 
I am dating and have dated a LT for the last 5 years....

There's a musical called "The Last Five Years." It ends (or begins, as the story is told from two contrasting points in a relationship) with a breakup. You better ask her to marry you quickly:yllol:

Just kidding.....
 
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