Hoo-Rah

[elfs]

Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution is pretty simple. It says, 'Raise an army.' It says absolutely nothing about race, color, creed, sexual orientation. You all joined for a reason: to serve. To protect our nation, right? How dare we, then, exclude a group of people who want to do the same thing you do right now, something that is honorable and noble? Right? Get over it. We're magnificent, we're going to continue to be. Let's just move on, treat everybody with firmness, fairness, dignity, compassion and respect. Let's be Marines.

Command Sergeant Major of the Marine Corps, Michael Barrett, during a trip to South Korea.

What surprises me most is that Barrett is advisor of enlisted men to Marine Corps Commandant Gen. James Amos, the service commander who was most vocal in his concerns about letting gays serve openly in the military. Amos has done an admirable job of following the lead of the Commander in Chief, and ignoring the constant spinning of the Congress. He's been so complete in preparing his service to acknowledge these men and women clearly qualified to serve I'd like to think that Admiral Mullen's moral suasion was part of his turnabout.

Comments

[ionotter.livejournal.com]

I love Steve Markson's comment in the comment section.

Okay, people. Let’s get something straight here. In terms of rank and authority in the US Marines, it goes like this: God, President, THIS GUY, then everyone else. He’s not an officer, and he can’t give orders to an officer, but if this guy were to tell a general “Jump, sir.”, that general would ask “How high, Sergeant Major!” on the way up.

CHUCK NORRIS addresses this man as “Sergeant Major”, and says “Yes Sergeant Major!” and “No, Sergeant Major!” to whatever he says.

So you civilians can now stop worrying. It has been decided. Obama will now fall smartly in line, and so will the rest of the military.

It Is Done.

And so far, the other Marines all seem to agree.

[rick-bannerman.livejournal.com]

Similar to recent reports about Secretary Gates, in Afghanistan, basically telling Marines to suck it up, follow orders, and be a Marine, although the sergeant major carries a helluva lot more impact with the line Marines than Gates does.

[dossy.livejournal.com]

It's so very awesome when the message is "all humans are just meat" - seriously.

I think today, there's a lot of service people who can genuinely say "proud to be a Marine" again.