No one is claiming that the problem is soldiers being sensitive and easily shocked. The problem is that the troops are rightly sensitive to preferential treatment for generals and that is deleterious of general good order and discipline.
Just one rather outstanding example from the days when rank still had its privileges. Back in the Jurassic era of WWII general officers had the officially sanctioned privilege of designing their own uniforms. Most didn’t do it but Eisenhower had uniform blouses made that ended at the waist. It went by the name of an Eisenhower Jacket. GI’s liked the look so much that they began taking their OD blouses to the tailer to have them made into jackets. This was a violation of regulations from two aspects. First it was destruction of government property and second if you wore one you were out of uniform. MP’s picked up people for wearing them and it got to be quite a brouhaha. The Army stuck to its guns for a little while but eventually gave in, allowed the wearing of the jacket and then made it a part of the issue uniform.
That sounds a little dubious. Over his head pretty much = Sec of Def. Most of his superiors of which he sems to have two, would have also been likewise four stars, IIRC, there can be only one 5 star, and then, an official declaration of war must be in effect.
You’re still mistaking my basic point. I do not deny that the guy broke the rules as they currently stand. The question is should those rules be on the books in the first place. Some seem to have argued that they should be on the books, because, apparently, the idea of someone having an extramarital relationship would somehow sap the morale and discipline of other soldiers. It has nothing to do with preferential treatment for generals. Actually, I’m almost positive that it’s lower-ranking soldiers who are given preferential treatment in this regard, and commanding officers who are held to the stricter code.
Five stars?! Not since Omar Bradley. Even then, there were several running around. During WWII, Marshall, Eisenhower and MacArthur were all O-11. At some point, Arnold made O-11, and circa 1949-1950, Bradley made O-11. Navy O-11s included Leahy, King, Nimitz and Halsey.
This relieved O-10 had two O-10s above him within the Army, something like five O-10s above him in the JCS, as well as various suits, including SecArmy, SecDef and POTUS.
No, No, No. You are mistaking the point of the rule It’s not the extra marital affair as “sex which would shock the troops.” Affairs, as Ex Tank pointed out, can easily distrupt the operation of an entire unit. It isn’t prudishness that is the reason for such a rule. It is a common sense rule for the purpose of maintaining cohesion.
And it does have to do with preferential treatment for high rank. If a general is told to stop, doesn’t and gets away with it the grousing, and worse, will never end when a Sgt. is court martialed for the same offense.
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The article notes that he was set to retire in November, that a usual punishment would be a letter of reprimand, and that he might be facing a reduction in rank.
I expect that he was looking at the relatively minor impact the punishment would have on him, given he was going to retire anyway, and weighing it against his own happiness and his partner’s happiness. He ditched his wife, so why not ditch the job, rather than risk what was most important to him – his relationship with his partner.
All it comes down to is possibly a slightly earlier retirement and possibly a slightly lower retirement income. No big deal.
Perhaps a valid point. In the interest of full disclosure, I should admit that I grew up in a military family, and have spent most of my life on Army bases. (I know the Ft. Jackson Burger King very well. :p) And you’re right that some bases can be very insular, and that seemingly personal events can have wider ramifications on base than they would in a civilian community. I can understand having laws forbidding affairs between soldiers or soldier’s spouses, because that can directly effect how well a base functions, and lead to problems. But you don’t have to have convoluted rules to stop there. In a figurative sense, what happens “off base” seems to me to be off limits.
Suppose you have a young married soldier who gets deployed – alone – to Germany for a year. He lives off base, falls in love with the German girl next door, and they sleep together occassionally. While I’m definitely not excusing that morally, it doesn’t seem to me that it would be any of the military’s business. Could his boss, should he hear about what’s going on, try to talk to the guy about his marital problems? Okay. Should a disapproving general pull some strings to get him transferred back home to his wife? Maybe. Should there be a law on the books that could make him fired for doing this? No.
Well, I tried to address your/Stuffy’s first point in the post above; in essence, if the affair is with someone who is not in any way connected with the base, it seems to me it should be off limits – at least as a fireable offence.
For your second point: no, you still don’t get what I’m saying! Maybe I’m not expressing it clearly. Given the fact that this rule is on the books, yes, it should be enforced, for everyone from Generals to Lieutenants to Seargents to Captains – though I do think that the punishment should fit the crime, which, IMO, it manifestly does NOT in this case, or ANY case where the person the soldier’s having an affair with has nothing to do with the military. But my main argument is that this should not be a law in the first place – any soldier of any rank should not be fired for having relations with someone who has nothing to do with the military. It it somehow becomes a problem and demonstrably affects the performance of the base, that may be different. But it has nothing to do with giving a general a free pass while Seargents are prosecuted.
To address an earlier point: the default maximum rank for retirement for commissioned officers is O-8(Major General for Army/Air Force/Marine Corps; RADM for Navy/Coast Guard). Flag rank officers (O-7 and above) retiring at O-9 or O-10 can be “busted” back down to O-8 for retirement purposes. This is usually a punitive action.
The general will likely retire at O-10, hence only recieve loss of face for fucking around against orders. A more egregious example of this is a Lt. General (O-9), US Army, who was fired/retired with the threat of reducton to Major General (O-8), for saying the wrong things. He is appealing.
Embedded in the military community is a social contract that the military will do what it can to reward loyalty in its’ personnel, and to reward loyalty in its’ families. Adultery on the part of a service member is viewed as disloyalty and as evidence of poor judgment and ethical failure on the part of the member, regardless of the affiliation of the extramarital partner.
Strictly speaking, this isn’t really true. There is no article in the UCMJ, as enacted by Congress, that makes adultery a crime. Adultery is prosecuted under Article 134, the “General Article”:
Adultery is specifically enumerated as a violation of Article 134 in the Manual for Courts Martial (warning: humongous PDF file), but nowhere in the actual laws enacted by Congress. I believe it was an executive order (or orders) by the President (which President I don’t know but I’m pretty sure the anti-adultery interpration of Article 134 has been around for a long time) which has interpreted Article 134 to specifically ban adultery.
I think this discussion belies a more serious issue- that is the divide between the military and civilians. I’ve been in the military for 19 years. I think that the General was way out of line. He committed adultery (a violation of the UCMJ) and was ordered to stop. He then disobeyed that direct order and continued the affair. He was fired. Properly in my opinion. I cannot find one military member who disagrees with that decision. I also cannot find a civilian who agrees with it.
This is my point. There is a growing gulf between the military and civilian portions of the population. With the professional military and the end of the draft, there are fewer and fewer civilians with a military background (from retirees to those who “did their four years”). These two groups look at the world very differently, and with growing frequency, don’t understand each other. I’ll regret bring this up, but the whole Clinton / Monica affair is a case in point. The military was thinking, “I’d be sent home for this in a heartbeat, but it’s not a problem for the boss - what gives?” Drug tests are another area where there is a huge disconnect. At one point, I felt the reserve fore would act as a link between these two groups. But they are getting smaller all the time.
Let’s do some work on your adjectives, I think they’re obscuring your ability to think:
The UCMJ is much STUPIDER than civilian law; the standards are RIDICULOUS, especially for senior officers.
There, that allows for more clarity. Giving your boss the right to order you not to sleep with someone when you are separated is not a “high” standard, it’s a stupid standard. See?
Fortunate it is that we all are not subject to your sexual prejudices. I’m sorry for anyone who is. The law is in fact stupid. There are two issues here: is the law stupid (it is) is it reasonable to fire an officer for refusing to obey a direct order (it is). Should there be some fallout for the person who gave the order? (There should.)
Yeah, cause our soldiers … especially the ones serving in Iraq right now … are not going to notice at ALL right now that the only people doing time for Abu Ghraib are Lynndie England and a couple of noncoms. Yup, that’ll fly right over their heads, that will, in the realm of preferential treatment. So we NEED this bit of stupidity.
In an effort to save face, however, I will point out that Congress flirted with revising the definitions of adultery and fraternization in about 1998, in the aftermath of the young, female Air Force lieutenant being drummed out of the service because of her relationship. Like many congressional initiatives, nobody could agree on any changes, so they appointed a commission to study it, and nothing has happened since.
One of the properties of the rule of law is that those the law applies to, should have the law applied.
Selective prosecution or exemption is always a violation of this principle.
It is unreasonable to believe being a member of the military radically changes or can change human behavior regarding sexual conduct. I don’t have the numbers but I am reasonably confident sexual misconduct is not greatly less in the military than in civilian life and that this misconduct is often known and rarely penalized.
If the system permits picking and choosing who will and who will not be subject to sanctions for violation of a law, we are no longer a society of law but of whim.
Evil Captor - This is Great Debates, not IMHO. You’ve stated some opinions as fact in a fairly dismissive and condescending way. Can you explain what is stupid about the current UCMJ? And also what sexual prejudices were voiced by David Simmons? He seemed to me to be talking about maturity and restraint, not sex specifically.