Trailblazing female who became infantry Marine is getting kicked out for fraternization

Discussion in 'Warfare / Military' started by Lil Mike, Sep 14, 2018.

  1. dave8383

    dave8383 Banned at Members Request Past Donor

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    This really surprises me. I spent several years in an infantry unit and never heard of a male being sexually assaulted. I read of an incident in Iraq, 1st Cav., in one of the links posted in this thread. First of all, when do you have the time in a line unit, in a combat zone, to act like that? Second, everyone is armed. I don't get it. If that had happened in Vietnam in an Infantry unit it wouldn't have been long before the assaulters were dead.
     
    Last edited: Sep 22, 2018
  2. Nightmare515

    Nightmare515 Ragin' Cajun Staff Member Past Donor

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    The reason why it's seen as such a big deal is this. Think about it in the same way as statutory rape is treated in society. Most people are intelligent enough to realize that teenagers have sex and a 16 year old having sex with a 20 something year old probably wasn't physically "raped". The 16 year old probably gave "consent" and the sex was mutual, however it's still illegal. It's illegal because of the "coercion" aspect. Society feels that teenagers aren't able to actually give "consent" because they are still children and their brains are vulnerable to coercion from a more biologically mature individual older than they are. Even though logically speaking anybody who was ever a teenager knows that 16 year old "kids" aren't all innocent little confused children who get tricked in to sleeping with people. Hell even society can't figure out when teenagers are supposedly smart enough to handle themselves. We try teens as adults sometimes. Smart enough to take responsibility for shooting that guy but not intelligent enough to actually give consent for sex with an "adult". But I digress.

    Now transfer that to the military with our rank structure. People like me are "adults", when I walk into a room people snap to attention. When I walk into a meeting with a discussion going on between NCO's they all immediately stop what they are doing and ask me how can I help you. People call me Sir, I have authority and power and seniority due to my rank and position within the unit.

    That authority that I have is still entrenched outside of the base 24/7. If I were to begin a sexual relationship with a 20 year old Private then who is to say that this whole thing was actually consensual? Did I as an Officer tell her that if she doesn't sleep with me I'm going to ruin her career? Did I tell her that if she did I would help her career? Maybe get her out of that PT test that she might not pass? Write her an award for something to put her above her peers for the upcoming promotion list? Was she just afraid of me and my authority and afraid to actually say no? Was she afraid to even tell anybody how uncomfortable she is because she's just a Private and afraid of the consequences of trying to go up against a Senior Officer?

    Or was it all actually consensual and we are humans and we just happen to like each other and establish a relationship?

    Who knows? And the military has no way of knowing. There is no way to actually tell if this Senior Officer used his authority and power to force a Private into an uncomfortable situation and even make her too afraid to admit the truth even when directly confronted about it. And there is no way to prove that she is actually telling the truth if she says no we are actually just in love. So since the military can't deal with those types of situations, they make it illegal for two "consenting adults" to establish sexual relationships if they are of different ranks and/or positions.

    Myself, Officers, and NCO's are "adults", the lower enlisted are the "teenagers". Is a 20 year old woman actually a child incapable of giving consent? No. Is a 20 year old Private in the Army incapable of giving consent to a ranking Officer or NCO? Yes. For the aforementioned reasons.
     
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  3. Nightmare515

    Nightmare515 Ragin' Cajun Staff Member Past Donor

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    I was a grunt as well for many years and here is what I think. You know as well as I do how infantry units roll. Everybody is "gay", at least nowadays not sure how it was back when you were in. Grunts just walk around and do gay stuff all the time. During my Afghan deployment I remember walking into the Joe's tent one time and they were all just standing by the tent flap with their junks hanging out waiting for somebody to walk in lol. Another one of our Joe's decided one day that he was just gonna walk around kissing people on the cheek until he got to our SAW gunner so promptly clocked him in the jaw. People are always drawing penis pics on everything or slapping each other on the ass or something or purposefully make themselves excited in the shower and walk up to people. None of them were actually gay they just do gay crap like that for some reason lol.

    When I swapped back over to Armor it was our running joke whenever we were co-located with the grunts in the field. We'd sit on top of the tank at night and just watch. "Yup, infantry dudes are bored they're about fighting each other and doing gay ****". Sure enough about an hour later after chow here comes the grunts outside staging a mud wrestling match in their Army issue tan whitey tighties lol. "Told ya".

    It likely stems from stuff like that, with somebody "not playing" and not thinking it's funny to get slapped on the ass or kissed on the cheek or chased around the shower tent. I have heard stories of some insane hazing situations with newcomers getting forced to do some pretty off the wall sexual crap. It was brought up in one of those mandatory SHARP briefs we had awhile back but that sort of thing wasn't that common and was said to be isolated incidents.
     
  4. dave8383

    dave8383 Banned at Members Request Past Donor

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    I watched the documentary Restrepo awhile ago and noticed some of what you're talking about. I would say there's more of it now than when I was in. One reason I think is the amount of time on your hands. We were constantly humping and spent very little time just sitting around. We rotated off LZs, humped the boonies for a week or so, went back to an LZ and ran day patrols, night ambushes, platoon over nights, etc. then back to the bush. There just wasn't the time to do that kind of thing.
     
  5. Nightmare515

    Nightmare515 Ragin' Cajun Staff Member Past Donor

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    Yeah we are all wired a bit weird as combat arms but the infantry dudes are the worst. You can't give them down time in the field or during deployment or else they just start losing their minds. Dealing with grunts is akin to dealing with your toddler. The same "uh oh" feeling you get when your 2 year old gets "quiet" in the other room. You give your boys too much time off in the field nowadays and you don't "hear" them in the other tent then you better check on them because they are more than likely up to no good and they are probably not just sitting around playing cards lol.
     
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  6. dave8383

    dave8383 Banned at Members Request Past Donor

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    I wouldn't dare post in here some of the things we found humorous.
     
    Last edited: Sep 22, 2018
  7. ArmySoldier

    ArmySoldier Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Sometimes you get lucky and land a deployment with tons of indirect fire incoming so there's never down time!
     
  8. ArmySoldier

    ArmySoldier Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Grunts have the sickest and most ****ed up sense of humor. Have to find pleasure in something when my job is to literally fight!
     
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  9. Lil Mike

    Lil Mike Well-Known Member

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    Well I can't speak for Ranger school; most of my military courses have been in the MOS/Technical/NCOES type. But all of these courses were run fairly similarly. There were fairly rigid training objectives and graduation requirements, to ensure that trainees in different schools and locations would have to meet the same standard. There wasn't a lot of gray area. Such as there was, it had to do with recycles if someone failed a section. How many chances did they get? What if they had an emergency? So there was some leeway there. But not enough that anyone (that I know of) has ever complained that women were getting over in some way. They've always had to meet the same standards and got booted or failed out of courses for the same reasons as men.

    So you tell me, since this is out of my experience, but I would imagine that a combat arms course, like the Rangers, might have more leeway involved because you are not simply grading on accomplishing of tasks, but also on things like grit and if you trust this guy (or gal) in the foxhole next to you. So that might be room to drive a truck full of excuses through the course and on to graduation.

    But...a commandant or general officer telling the OIC of the course that a woman must pass, by any means necessary, and that is passed on to the NCO trainers, and they just decide to pencil whip her through the course...well that's a failure of integrity all the way down. There may be times in a military career in which you are called to wreck your career to uphold the values of the organization you are serving. But I never faced that particular moral dilemma in person, so maybe I shouldn't judge those who faced that and were found wanting, but we all know what the right answer is.
     
  10. Lil Mike

    Lil Mike Well-Known Member

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    I've heard that statistic before and I'm suspicious too. I can't think of even one straight male assault. I know it's a "statistic" and they are always right, but it has always sounded fishy to me.
     
  11. Nightmare515

    Nightmare515 Ragin' Cajun Staff Member Past Donor

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    Well heres the thing with these "non gentlemen" courses like Ranger, Special Forces, Sapper, etc. There is the course curriculum which is the official curriculum and there is also the unwritten part of the "school" that makes these schools what they are. So for example, lets say Day 0 is the PT test like it usually is in all those types of courses. The course curriculum says you must past the PT test in order to even continue. What the official curriculum doesn't post is the part where they wake you up in the middle of the night and beat some of you THEN make you go take a PT test. I don't mean beat as in actually beat, military folks know what beatings mean. Happened to us in WOCS. The official WOCS schedule that we were all given simply said Day 0 at 0630 initial PT test. It didn't mention the part about the instructors busting into to our rooms at 0400 and making us drag our entire barracks rooms down the stairs and reassmble our rooms outside in the parking lot dress right dress.

    And then beating you because "you ungrateful candidates think it's ok to allow the Army's expensive furniture they provide for you out of the kindness of their heart to get ruined outside while its raining because you were too lazy to bring the roof with you"

    Doesn't mention the part where the instructor walks into your room during inspection and "accidentally" knocks your wall locker over then says you fail the inspection because "your room is a mess and you are a terrible officer candidate who can't even follow simple instructions" and says your room better be perfect when he returns in 20 mins to reinspect. Meanwhile you have a written exam on the other side of the training complex in 15 mins.

    Same with every other "checkmarks" required in the course. Gotta pass the ruckmarch in the alotted time with X amount of weight in the pack. Doesn't mention the part where the instructor walks up behind you and tosses a cinder block on your ruck halfway through just to be an *******.

    These courses are far more than just the published curriculum. WOCS is absolutely nothing comparable to Ranger school I'm sure, but we all received copies of the curriculum to "manage your own time" when we first arrived there. The days on paper were straight forward, something like "0500 wake up, 0515 PT formation, 0700 breakfast, 0800 academics, 1200 lunch, etc"
    What the course ACTUALLY was was more akin to "0500 wake up, 0501 should have been downstairs in formation, 0510 beating in parking lot for being late to formation, 0530 PT, 0630 showers, 0645 beating in parking lot because you nasty candidates used the showers and refused to clean up after yourselves, 0700 breakfast, 0730 beating in grass outside of chow hall because you disrespectful candidates didn't salute the senior chief 100 meters away on the other side of the complex when he walked by, 0800 academics, 1200 beating in parking lot outside of academics when the instructors arrive because the academics professor says he saw one of you yawning in class which means you must think learning about our history is boring and unworthy of your precious time.

    So on and so forth. It's not the actual curriculum that makes these courses, it's ^^^THAT kinda stuff that makes these courses what they are. Sort of just like initial basic training, we all remember "that guy" who just got it worse than others. Sometimes you can remain in the shadows, sometimes you are "that guy" who the Drill Sgt's knew your name from day one because "you look like a *****".

    So it is highly possible to "help" a candidate "get over" in these courses by simply not subjecting them to any of the special unwritten treatment that is conducted throughout these types of courses. Never walk in and trash her room while shes not there. Don't toss bricks on her ruck sack, don't take her outside for special treatment in the middle of the night because she "woke up and went to the bathroom in the middle of the night during unauthorized using the bathroom hours". So on and so forth.

    Yes there is a lot of leeway in these courses based on how the instructors decide to treat you while you are attending them. I'll admit I had a fairly "easy" time in candidate school compared to others. I was a shadow for the most part. Some other people were in the instructors offices like 15 times a day to receive corrective training and citations for stupid **** like "failing to keep hand on guard rail while walking down stairs resulting in unsafe training environment for both himself and other candidates who he may have injured if had fallen down stairs and contacted other candidates" lol.
     
    Last edited: Sep 22, 2018
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  12. Mr_Truth

    Mr_Truth Well-Known Member

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    As our Founding Fathers demanded, NO STANDING ARMY.
    No army, no rapes.
    Solving the problem is as easy as can be.
     
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  13. Mr_Truth

    Mr_Truth Well-Known Member

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    When a gay or a female is sexually assaulted it is "rape". But the link tells us that when a straight male is attacked (not by one but by an entire gang), it is called "hazing" which suggests it is only a game, not an actual sexual assault. This is a ridiculous double standard - one of mind boggling and unmatchable stupidity.

    Congressional hearings during the Bush years clearly and unequivocally proved that straight males were the majority of rape victims. Yet, nobody has been arrested or convicted for these rampant attacks.

    None of this is any new revelation. These facts have long been established. But the rape culture continues unabated. The easy solution, again, is the dissolve the standing army as our Founding Fathers demanded. Right wingers claim to be Constitutionalists. If they were, they would demand no less. This after bringing those sexual deviants (and the commanding officers who stood by and did nothing) to justice.

    Let's see all forum right wingers endorse this demand.
     
  14. dave8383

    dave8383 Banned at Members Request Past Donor

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    While I like the idea of no standing Army from our Founding Fathers point of view, obviously it's unrealistic in today's world.
     
    Last edited: Sep 23, 2018
  15. Nightmare515

    Nightmare515 Ragin' Cajun Staff Member Past Donor

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    Dissolving the standing Army would be an absolutely terrible idea the same with dissolving the "Air Force" because the modern Air Force isn't mentioned under the term "Army" in the Constitution.

    There's strictly adhering to the Constitution and there is doing what actually makes logical sense....

    Russia/China/N Korea/Iran: Hey look everybody, our main enemy just decided to completely dissolve their military because their Constitution said they should. Lets....I dunno....attack them and run amok throughout the rest of planet Earth.

    Yeah no thanks.
     
  16. Lil Mike

    Lil Mike Well-Known Member

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    So...you are basically saying that since it's impossible to have males and females serve in combat arms together, dissolve the military?

    I admire your spaghetti like train of logic.
     
  17. Gatewood

    Gatewood Well-Known Member

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    You jest, but eventually our leftists will make it so.
     
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  18. Gatewood

    Gatewood Well-Known Member

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    Trying to explain the whys and hows of military existence to lifetime civilians is often as difficult and frustrating in practice as explaining the desirability of integrity and ethics to modern leftists.
     
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  19. Nightmare515

    Nightmare515 Ragin' Cajun Staff Member Past Donor

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    Man we got attacked like every other day and were always busy doing something yet those dudes still found the time to run around doing gay stuff to each other every day lol. Something is just "wrong" with infantry dudes.
     
  20. Mr_Truth

    Mr_Truth Well-Known Member

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    Straight males have always been the victims of sexual violence in the army. Only when gays and females also became victims has society troubled itself with the issue.

    Dissolve the standing army as our Founders demanded and the problem is ended.
     
  21. Gatewood

    Gatewood Well-Known Member

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    Yeah and when an aggressive nation with a standing army rolls over your defenseless nation it's too damn late to say Time Out.
     
  22. Mr_Truth

    Mr_Truth Well-Known Member

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    In the movie Casablanca, Rick Blaine was asked 'can you envision us Nazis invading the USA?' He replied, 'there are parts of NYC I wouldn't recommend'.

    Right wingers love the 2d Amendment. It was created for a purpose and a standing army is its biggest obstacle.
     
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  23. Nightmare515

    Nightmare515 Ragin' Cajun Staff Member Past Donor

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    It's mainly because a lot of people view the military the same way as normal society when in reality the military is a completely different society within our society with it's own laws and protocols and whatnot. I mean it's really not hard to understand, what other job in America can your boss make you do lunges and roll around the parking lot in the rain because you were late for work....

    Military is a different world. What might make sense in civilian society doesn't always make sense in military society.

    Why can't men and women in a relationship serve alongside one another? No other job has such blatant segregation. Well because no other job may require you to send your girlfriend charging through a murder hole to assault a mortar entrenchment and end up getting shot in the head. Which will probably cause you do lose your ever loving mind and do something reckless if you saw that. Or since you like your girlfriend and don't want her to possibly die you refuse to send her through the murder hole. Or spend more time trying to protect her next to you than assaulting the objective degrading the combat strength of the squad.

    This sort of thing really isn't that hard to understand. Anybody who is married and/or has ever been in a romantic relationship just needs to ask themselves a simple question. You're sitting in a foxhole, orders come down to assault that machine gun nest in front of you. Are you going to send your wife/girlfriend to charge that emplacement? What about after you saw 3 people from the other squad get mowed down a few mins ago? You gonna do it or are you going to try to protect your wife? The overwhelmingly vast majority of humanity is not going to say no. And they know that. But for the sake of being argumentative and pushing an agenda they will pretend that other people would be ok doing something like that so we should allow it.
     
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  24. Nightmare515

    Nightmare515 Ragin' Cajun Staff Member Past Donor

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    Yeah, as many guns and all the patriotic people we have here with guns isn't going to be able to repel the damn Red Army if they decided to conduct a beach landing at Quantico....

    That whole no standing Army thing worked during an era where civilian weaponry was roughly equal to military weaponry minus cannon and whatnot. Doesn't quite work in the modern era where civilian weaponry consists of a whole bunch of semi auto AR-15s and your enemy countries have T-90 tanks and nuclear bombers....

    Unless of course you want to dissolve the actual military and then distribute a bunch of armed Apache helicopters and ballistic submarines out to the civilian populace. I'm pretty sure my crazy neighbor wouldn't mind having an Abrams tank parked in his yard next to his Dodge....

    And no I wouldn't trust the National Guard alone to protect the United States from our enemies. There is an obvious reason why we have a standing Army in the year 2018, please do not try to pretend otherwise for the sake of being argumentative...
     
  25. Mr_Truth

    Mr_Truth Well-Known Member

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    Yup. Those Russkies are going to cross the ocean on tanks and armored personnel carriers and miraculously bypass the navy and weather exigencies.

    Woohoo ...
     

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