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At the Senate Armed Services Committee hearing today on the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) expressed his concern that repealing the rule would pave the way for allowing “alcohol use, adultery, fraternization, and body art” in the military — and that the army must “exclude persons whose presence in the armed forces would create unacceptable risk to the armed forces’ high standards of morale, good order and discipline, and unit cohesion.”
Yeah, the last thing you want is for your nation’s soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines and coasties to have tattoos. You don’t know what kind of unprofessionalism that’ll yield. And where gays go, tattoos follow.
I have six tattoos. (Well, I count them as five — one piece is spread across either forearm — but whatever.) And when I’ve embedded, I’ve been impressed at how little ink I have compared to our fine fighting men and women. It seems like a fair correlation that the high combat proficiency of the military has coincided with the rapid proliferation of tattooing.
Tags: looooooooong war, postcards from Nixonland
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Yeah. And soldiers don’t drink, either. JFC, what an idiot.
Enough already – let’s just clear up this communication gap in the military:
http://bit.ly/9YNli3
(social satire)
Every time I hear Chambliss speak I am comforted knowing that the tradition of bigoted, white, southern senators is in good hands.
There’s never been a point in human history where body modification wasn’t a central part of warrior identity, or indeed any cultural group regularly close to violence(i.e. you’re a punk). But I’m not surprised Chambliss is ignorant of all of human history.
Where the fuck has Chambliss been all of his life? I can damn skippy guarantee that all of the above have been active components of military life at all levels for more than a few generations.
Wait, this is the same saxby chambliss who defamed max cleland, the guy who lost three limbs in vietnam, covering a grenade so his comrades would be safe? The same saxby chambliss who had a “trick knee” that kept him from going to vietnam? I bet max cleland wishes he had a trick knee. What a disgusting turd, a pathetic excuse for a man.
Someone should ask him about his military experience. And then pistol whip him.
Despite all that, the fact of the matter is that the Marine Corps did in fact a few years ago place/tighten restrictions on the placement and content of body art — off the forearm & neck (hence placement in pic rather than trad. mid-20th c. forearm anchor&globe), no obscenity , etc. (perhaps more restrictive than that, I don’t recall) — did they not? And alcohol use in theater and adultery are both verboten by the UCMJ, are they not? Obviously Chambliss is a bigot and is full of shit that repealing DADT would have impact on such conduct whatsoever, but let’s not pretend such things are not in fact formally proscribed/limited, however much they are tolerated.
I have several people in my Army unit with neck tattoos… likely got them prior to enlisting. The Air Force is pretty restrictive on tattoos – a friend joined the Navy instead because the USAF didn’t appreciate ink, apparently.
And we also never, ever drink a drop of alcohol at home or on deployment. Because, you know, gathering socially is detrimental to unit cohesion.
Gotta love ignorance.