Category Archives: military

Adultery the Military and Same Sex Marriage

I have been deliberately not paying attention to the David Petraeus story for various reasons, not the least of which it reminds me a lot of The Scarlet Letter, a novel I enjoyed teaching but never thought of as a model for good government.  Still, when I heard an explanation on the BBC this morning of the US Military’s prohibition of adultery and the possible punishments, I wondered how those policies work after the appeal of Don’t Ask Don’t tell and the advent of legal gay marriage in some states.

If a same sex couple gets married and then one partner, a member of the military, commits adultery, can he or she be punished under the Uniform Code of Military justice?  I would think the Defense of Marriage Act would prohibit the military, a government entity, from recognizing the marriage and thus there could be no punishment.  Any other ruling would lead a patchwork in which it would depend on when and where the marriage ceremony took place and also when and where the individual was based when committing the transgression.

So, to stretch things just a little bit, the root of Petraeus’s problem is that he is in a different sex marriage as was the woman with whom he had an affair.  Had they been in same sex marriages, there would be no problems (at least with adultery in the eyes of the military).

Pink Tank–Fabulous Artillery Range Target

I just love this photo of an M60 tank the Army painted pink.  No, is it is not about breast cancer awareness, it is a way of making it a better target for artillery   The image just totally messes with the stereotypical expectations I have regarding the military and gender.  I just hope someone makes a spoof of an army commercial featuring the tank and various slogans and images from typical military add campaigns.  Here is the CNN article for more detail.

 

Olympic Berets: Unamerican

With the revelation of the American uniforms for the Olympic opening ceremonies, there has been a lot of controversy.  I am not talking about the outfits being made in China; I am talking about the outcry over the berets.  Julia Turner of Slate decried the return of the beret to the US Olympic regalia saying that it was ugly, unfashionable and even un-American. I, however, do not mind the beret and would argue that it has its precedents in American culture and history.  First, here is the Olympic outfit.

 

Now then let us consider two other appearances of the beret. First, in the American military there are the Special Forces, particularly the Green Berets.  Now it might be a stretch to draw a parallel between the Olympic athletes and the Special Forces but there is certainly a place of honor for the beret in American military culture.

 

In terms of more controversial US History, the Black Panthers wore berets.  The actions of the Black Panthers were in some cases revolutionary and in some cases criminal, but they were certainly an American creation.  One probably could not completely defend the Olympic beret by drawing a Black Panther parallel.  In fact, such a link might work against hat. Still, if the point is to refute accusations of foreignness, this example gives it a tie to American history.

 

 

 

Montford Point Marines win Congressional Gold Medal

Today the first black Marines, the Montford Point Marines, were awarded the Congressional Gold Medal   The  Motford Point Marines, the first black Marines since the Revolutionary War, were part of the WWII effort but were not allowed to be in combat although they did face battle in the Pacific Theater.  They were at Montford Point because the Marine Corps would not let them train with white Marines so they built a new camp.

I did not know this history, so I was glad to learn about the experiences of these men.

 

This video gives a thorough history going all the way back to the history of the desegregation of all branches of the military.

Memorial Day Melting Pot

“Indian Country” proudly notes that one individual in this photo is Ira Hayes of the Pima Nation

Looking over various websites and postings on Memorial Day, I see a wonderful diversity for example…

There is the You Offend Me You Offend My Family  posting on Hollywood war films that accurately present Asian soldiers.

There is the Indian Country Today post “A Brief History of American Indian Military Service.”

There is a post on The Root “See 10 Places Honoring Black War Heroes.”

I am sure if I dug deep enough I could also find postings addressing the contributions of other groups  to the United States military. For example consider this piece on Project Q Atlanta on gay vets celebrating memorial day.

How utterly American to celebrate soldiers of all kinds.  What a tribute to the role of an open, meritocratic military in American society.

Nefarious Namesakes: Nathaniel Bedford Forrest vs. Lord Jeffrey Amherst

One high school is named after the first Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan; one college is named after a proponent of genocidal germ warfare against Native Americans.  Is either one worse than the other?  Should either one change its name?

I was shocked to see that in Jacksonville, Florida there is a  Nathaniel Bedford Forrest High School-named after a man known in my mind primarily as the first Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan.   Forrest was a celebrated  Confederate cavalry officer often connected with the massacre at Fort Pillow.  However, his role in the Klan is what sticks with me perhaps because of Forrest Gump.  In the movie Forrest explains his name saying,  ”Momma named me after the great Civil War hero, General Nathan Bedford Forrest… She said we was related to him in some way. And, what he did was, he started up this club called the Ku Klux Klan. They’d all dress up in their robes and their bedsheets and act like a bunch of ghosts or spooks or something. They’d even put bedsheets on their horses and ride around.”

Given all this background, I could not believe a school was still named after Forrest.  Doing some more research I found that the school is majority black and that there had been a 2006 petition to change the name but the school board had turned it down.  As a liberal northerner, I just could not imagine a school today being named after Forrest.

Then I thought about my biases.  I went to Amherst College, competed for the school for four years and wear Amherst gear with pride.  However, Lord Jeffrey Amherst, the school’s namesake has been implicated in one of the earliest known incidents of biological warfare.  He was the commanding general of British forces near the end of the French and Indian War, and in that capacity oversaw plans to distribute smallpox infected blankets to the Indians. For example he wrote a letter discussing,  ”Measures to be taken as would Bring about the Total Extirpation of those Indian Nations” and asked in postscript to another letter, “Could it not be contrived to send the Small Pox among those disaffected tribes of Indians? We must on this occasion use every stratagem in our power to reduce them.”

Why am I shocked and dismayed by Nathaniel Bedford Forrest High School but not particularly disturbed by my alma mater Amherst College?  Perhaps it is a matter of familiarity with Amherst, or could it be a northern bias against Civil War figures and Southern culture. Could it be a matter of publicity: more people know Forrest than Amherst?  Could it be a matter of legacy; the Klan went on to perpetrate many injustices and brutal crimes and is still around today, while Amherst’s scheme at most involved a limited number of items and there is actually uncertainty as to if it was ever really implemented.

I still believe that Nathaniel Bedford Forrest High School is in greater need of a name change, but I still cannot quite put a finger on why and cannot be sure my assumptions in this situation are valid.