Change The Branch of Service Name to United States @$$ Clowns

 

It was brought to my notice that in yesterday's post, in some people's minds, my "picking" on a humble E4 in the Air Farce, due to her lowly rank and status, and her being subject to almost everyone higher than herself, constituted an egregious case of "blaming the victim".

Au contraire, pussies.

When last I attended Uncle's Summer School For Wayward Teenagers, my camp counselors took pains to impress upon a young lad-like Aesop a few wee salient points of military business.

Starting, about 3 seconds after my feet hit the footprints, with the observation that I and my fellow inmates were all fully and happily under the bosom of this quaint bit of legal arcana known as the  UCMJ, including this little bit of military jurisprudence:

"Though not specifically mentioned in this chapter, all disorders and neglects to the prejudice of good order and discipline in the armed forces, all conduct of a nature to bring discredit upon the armed forces, and crimes and offenses not capital, of which persons subject to this chapter may be guilty, shall be taken cognizance of by a general, special, or summary court-martial, according to the nature and degree of the offense, and shall be punished at the discretion of that court." - 10 U.S. Code §934, AKA Article 134 of the Uniform Code Of Military Justice (1951-present) {emphasis mine - A.}

They also rammed home the novel observation that the UCMJ wasn't like the Pirate's Code (really just guidelines, rather than an actual code) but was rather something which they really rather considered the,... y'know, actual enacted law of the Republic governing all military conduct for every swinging Richard and Lucy (mind you, this was back in the hoary days of yore when there were only two genders, by act of Congress) present for duty in every branch of the US military in all branches, plus at least three service academies, for all ranks from E-1 to O-10, inclusive.

Crazy, right?

So the first thing young private Aesop, let alone one at the exalted rank of Lance Corporal (what one would call an E-3 in my branch of an actual military service, as contrasted with the Air Farce) would have observed, rather than wearing the offending jackassically retarded fenestrated face diaper, would have been something like the following:

"Staff Sergeant, as a long-serving member of a military band, my ability to appear in the uniform prescribed at the time and place specified has been noted and rewarded by two prior promotions, so my military appearance and discipline are not a question at issue in what I'm about to say. ["Rieben, pay attention now, this is the way to gripe."] Clearly, asking me to wear a mask with a gaping hole where my piehole lies is not a lawful military order, seeing as it makes me look like a total jackass, makes this unit look like jackasses, and therefore makes you, our officers, our entire band, and our entire branch of service look like jackasses, under the provisions of Uniform Code of Military Justice found in Article 134 and enacted in 1951, I must therefore bring it to your attention, and must, in strict and full obedience to the regulations which govern my conduct and that of the entire military, under the laws of the United States of America, expressly refuse to wear any such jackassical fenestrated face diaper at any public performance of our unit.

Of course, should you and any or all members of my chain of command exercise your option to dispute my contention and cite me for failure to follow this order, and charge me for violations of the UCMJ in this refusal, I look forward to making my case at a court martial, with the full public airing and attention this matter deserves, and I submit myself wholeheartedly to any such further exercise of military justice and discipline."

That's how you do it.

And that would have been the first and last time the matter was ever heard of again, because if there's one thing NCOs and officers in the military dislike, it's shining the sun-like spotlight of attention on their own fuck-ups and shortcomings, and having their noses rubbed in their own piss, literally and figuratively, just before the rolled-up newspaper of senior command attention is thwacked smartly upon their noses or asses.

They could transfer me to the band in McMurdo Sound Antarctica (even if that made me the entire ensemble); they could recategorize my MOS as a shit-barrel combustion specialist; but they could not take away my rank, pay, or privileges, let alone my self-respect, by forcing me to knuckle under to such a jackassically beclowning uniform requirement as they did with Senior Airman Kissass Shitforbrains, and the entire Air Farce Bonehead Bugling Twat Detachment, as seen above.

"No one can make you feel inferior without your consent." - Eleanor Roosevelt

I would furthermore note, for the edification and enlightenment of those to whom the experience of military service is as foreign to them as Chinese calculus and Vogon poetry, that during that selfsame Summer Camp, lo these many summers ago, they also inculcated rather forcefully, the following military traits that have been considered a wee bit important down to the rank of E-1 basic trainee shit-gargler, in every branch and military, going back to the Greek phalanx.

I will list them, and then score my response's score, with SrA SFB for contrast immediately afterwards, on a scale of 0-10:

                            Aesop        SrA SFB

Bearing                 10                0

Courage                10                0

Decisiveness        10                0

Dependability        10                0

Endurance            10                0

Enthusiasm            10                0

Initiative                10                0

Integrity                10                0

Justice                    10                0

Judgement            10                0

Knowledge            10                0

Loyalty                    10                0

Tact                        10                0

Unselfishness        10                0

That's the difference between being a lackwit kissass automaton, and being the kind of service member who puts the country, the unit, the mission, and their fellow service members, ahead of themselves, and doesn't just "go along to get along".

In a perfect world, Sr. Airman Kissass Shitforbrains would have been charged under Article 134, and knocked back a stripe, for her conduct in subjecting herself, her unit, and the entire Air Farce to further ridicule and contempt (as if they're short of @$$clowns already).

Every NCO in her chain of command, up to Sgt Major of the Air Farce, would be reduced an escalating number of stripes, from 2 to all of them, at each ascending step of the pyramid, for failure to note the problem.

Every commissioned officer from her detachment commander to General of the Air Farce would similarly receive a minimum one grade demotion apiece, and be awarded a permanent letter of being ignorant career-polishing ass-kissing fuck-ups, in their respective Officer's Qualification Records. Requests to immediately resign their commissions would be entertained with alacrity.

And then they and SecAF and SecDef would be dragged before a special hearing of the House Armed Services Committe for a public spanking with a rolled-up newspaper, and sentenced to fifteen days wearing a red clown nose and floppy clown shoes daily, to drive the point well-home.

As it is, they wear those now 24/7/365/forever, and it's hard to imagine a bigger bunch of unmilitary @$$clowns in American history than the current bunch of brasshole fuck-ups.

If you're keeping score at home, the example of this ding-a-ling is every bit as egregious as the Navy sending out seagoing rustbuckets, and crashing into slower civilian ships, and the Army graduating open communists from West Point, failing to execute deserters and traitors in time of war, and marching male ROTC cadets around in red high heels (and not a single one of them having the balls to openly defy and ridicule their derelict command staff for doing it).

This exact happy horseshit is how you get drowning recruits in a swamp at midnight, My Lai massacres, Tailhook, and Abu Ghraib shenanigans. And it needs a good week-long dick-kicking, with steel-toed boots, every time it's observed, until the pain hurts everyone at every level from the offending unit to the senior service member commanding, with every step they take, until they feel it in their bones, and remember it until the day they die.

In Caesar's legions, they'd have been executed at swordpoint in front of massed ranks, or flogged with cat o' nine tails, pour encourager les autres.

And given the opportunity, the veterans of the Air Farce from when it was the Air Force, who served honorably, and with valor and distinction, in multiple of our country's wars, would doubtless like to do no less to SrA SFB and the entire Air Farce posse, top to bottom, until blood ran hip deep through their wing of the Five-Sided Puzzle palace, and on bases around the world.