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Merry Christmas, Sailors
In a reversal of what has to be the absolute stupidest decision ever made by military management, the United States Navy has decided to immediately restore rating titles. The backlash against this abject asininity was immediate, harsh, and continual. A petition on the white house change website easily met the requirements to receive official address. The CNO was forced to admit that he rammed his bow forcefully up his own stern and misjudged exactly how unpopular this course of action would be. It turns out that hundreds of years of tradition cannot simply be swept away by the stroke of a pen. As so perfectly displayed in this Broadside cartoon, ratings were, and will be again, a functional part of the way the Navy operates and performs its mission.
Merry Christmas to all you squids. You are more than a number again — for now.
Published in General
Just a suspicion but with Mabus very soon to be shown the door it is difficult not to assume some connection.
The whole thing stemmed from the leftist PC push into the military. Rather than change rate names that include the word “man” to more inclusive locutions they decided to toss ratings overboard entirely. The force was not amused, to put it lightly.
Great news, KP! As a once-and-always Chief (Yeoman) before being flushed to the LDO ranks, I was stunned at the tone-deafness of the original decision to deep-6 the ratings. Seeing the reversal happen prior to the current SECNAV’s departure is nearly as surprising. ‘Tis the season of miracles (of course, if you are going to reverse course on such a policy, doing so just as the holiday season kicks off is brilliant). The collective wisdom of the deckplates, and the generations that preceded them, won the day. Thanks for the post – you made my evening.
Your mileage may vary, but when I put Ray Mabus into Google the first link shown is to Wikipedia, the second is to his .mil bio and the third is to DuffelBlog.
http://www.duffelblog.com/2016/05/mabus-admits-he-hates-navy/
Just sayin’ that the “leftist PC push” had a source. It must have taken a fair amount of searching by Navy guys to put that one so high up in Google’s search algorithm.
Upvoted for promotion to the main feed, so I can share this exact article with my fellow MMs, Navy Nukes, and the Lexicans on FB. They will be pleased. My wife the MR will be happy to hear also. She never doubted nor had any problem with what “Machinery Repairman” meant.
You do realize the other three branches have been doing just fine calling each other by our ranks for hundreds of years, right?
Glad to hear that my son is once again a UT1, hopefully a UTC next year. I suspect that the CNO was just following orders from the SecNav (did he lose his rating too?) Mabus pushed a lot of crap down Navy throats in the last eight years.
Merry Christmas and B-Z! re: this, TKP and all fellow squids/lettes.
Airmen are smart enough to remember their job titles without the Chiefs constantly reminding them.
Just sayin. ;)
I saw a video somewhere with an E-6 Boatswains Mate. She was not happy. I am paraphrasing but the jest was “I earned the right to be called Boats”.
Curious, can I still address a CPO as Chief. Last I recall, to address them as anything different would have landed me on the deck.
Me…I was just Doc. I suspect that just kicked overboard as well. Sad, I really honored that title. Tried to live up the standards of the Docs before me.
Marine ones, too, from what I’ve read/heard here and elsewhere, just plain ridiculous…Sheesh!
Now if they’ll just knock off the Marine-wannabe uniforms…
We used to joke that LDO’s Ensign bars matched the color of their hair :P
Ray Mabus appears to be a mentally challenged individual who never should have been put in charge of anything more complicated than a bag of sporks.
Thank God he will soon be unable to do any further damage to the USN.
That’s hilarious !
I cannot help but think that Trump being elected is part of this. They can see the writing on the wall. I wager Mattis would have made this happen.
The changing of people above CNO level was part of it, but the level of backlash that was received over the decision was indescribable. Adm Richardson probably felt like he was on the deck of a battleship that just fired a full battery.
Good.
No Bryan, this was just a such a dumb idea even the Mabusians could not justify it. In a tight situation, it helps if you know actually know who can do what. Go figure.
After all, our Navy must focus on more important things, such things as getting the DDG 1000 up to snuff so it can sail the entire way through the Panama Canal without being towed. Or, processing $300 a gallon green jet fuel. Or getting those Marine physical fitness standards adjusted so all people of all persuasions can pass them, for if ever in combat they certainly will no longer need to be able to lift a fallen comrade. Right now they are rewriting the unwriteen manual to read, “Leave some behind.”
This. In the navy you are what you do. Ships require so many different functional fields of knowledge that differentiation is required. If your house is on fire you don’t want just any public employee showing up, you want a firefighter, not a plumbing inspector.
If the navy really wants more ability to move people within the specializations they already have a way: rating conversion. Just make that process easier. But, even within the rates there is specialization, Navy Enlisted Classification codes. As a Missile Technician I carried NEC 3310 (C-4 weapons system), 3312 (D-5 backfit weapons system), and 3320 (nuclear weapons specialist). Each requires different training.
Every Marine an 0311!
Thank goodness Canada is leading the way by introducing a law requiring more labels in addressing civilians (over 80 different pronouns) so we all will know “who we are addressing” and showing respect for them. For the left, more labels are required to insure no one is “offended” while labels in our military denoting skills were seen as offensive.
This is 54 minutes – but it can be summed up as: “there is no biological difference between men and women.” Which is why Canada is considering introducing a law to insure all can be referred to by the pronoun they prefer. It is a civil right (or civil fight?).
I tried this my with life-time partner. But she would not address me as “Lord and Master.” Apparently I am not as omnipotent as I thought. Time to move to Canada?
That was one of the main arguments used in defense of the decision. Of course, it’s a nonsensical one which willfully ignores the separate histories, cultures, and weaponry. Even our Marine brethren (who themselves haven’t been wholly immune to Mabus’ PC binges) objected to the change.
Words that end in -man are by definition gender neutral. Simple failure to know this linguistic historical fact is at the root of the petty complaint that has led to so much of this language equitability nonsense.
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=man
So, all military branches must be the same? Just like all states should be governed identically? Maybe not. This is good news in a year brimming with it! HDAHA
NAVADMIN 283/16 has been promulgated and makes it official. The Navy still plans to modernize ratings to give sailors a broader range of skills, but one must wonder if they are moving too close to making them jacks of all trades and masters of none. At least this action shows that leadership is capable of taking feedback and acting on it. Only time will tell if that remains the case.
That is good news for us once and forever Navy types. The asininity of the attempt to banish the utterly commonsense practice of functional titles on ships could only be the product of this thoroughly rotten administration. I served on active duty from Jimmy Carter to the last Bush (please, God the last Bush), escaping somewhat to retirement before the current lot took over; never during those three decades did I see such towering incompetence as has been daily in evidence since 2009.
I say “somewhat” since I stayed on, working in the Joint world and, for the last year, back with Navy. The stunning decline in capability and outlook of the military could only be worse if most of the active duty force weren’t silently resisting the malignant garbage that has emanated from Washington and the Pentagon. Thank God for residual patriotism in uniform.
The November result has provided a spark of hope.
Does that mean that “Loblolly boy” and “Powder Monkey” are back in service?
I am surprised the Obama Navy did not get rid of “Boatswain” (from the Old Norse meaning boat and young man). A female Boatswain should be something like Boatfliode (Old Norse for woman is fljóð) but of course we want
samenessequality so maybe it should have been Boatperson but still pronounced Bosun (culture war compromise/win-win?) or maybe Boatenby (“enby” being the official gender neutral term for ‘person’ this month) pronounced “Bonebee” which would be sufficiently jarring and stupid as to make it clear who won the culture wars which is usually the point of these kinds of changes.It is ironic that people who loudly proclaim the wonderfulness of multiculturalism are usually oblivious to or intolerant of all other existing cultures such as those that exist in the military. The notion that these military cultures embody important functional information and create needed cohesion is foreign to the Enlightened.
That’s DOC for you knuckle head(in my best R. Lee Ermy voice)
You people need to grow a sense of humor.