+1
Fabulous!
I may get flamed for this, but fifty lottery tickets or none, I doubt that this was simply left to chance. Don’t get me wrong. Officers Gaeta and Snell are the perfect couple for this, and I’m happy for them as well as all other… (actually, for the entire United States for what it’s worth.) I doubt though, that the brass would have left this completely to chance and allowed a random E-3 with a partner they had never met be the major photo op for the reversal of DADT.
Believe me, I’m proud for any E-3s and their partners as well, but the Navy has to keep things running, and putting this in the hands of personnel who can handle a press event well is only the right way to support the change in policy.
I won’t flame you, but I will disagree, and here’s why: if you read the article, Gaeta says she spent $50 on tickets, and that was a lot less than some people spent.
I have a hard time believing that a group of officers would permit their crew to be defrauded of hundreds and hundreds, perhaps thousands of dollars in the way you’re describing. It’s dishonorable, perhaps criminal, probably against US Navy regulations and rules, and I have a hard time believing that a ship’s commander would put his career and his reputation at jeopardy like that for what is really such a minor news story. I mean, if word got out that it was rigged, what naval personnel would ever follow this commander (or any other officer involved) again?
It’s not a photo op for the reversal of DADT; it’s a consequence of it. Big difference.
Good point, Telemark, and one I forgot to make in my previous post: this wasn’t a press event, it was just what happens when any Navy ship returns home.
There are about 400 crew on the USS Oak Hill. If all the rest only bought one ticket, her odds were about 1 in 8. Not unrealistic.
In any event, how would the phot op have been any different if she’d been the third person off?
The honor of the first kiss is apparently a big deal and makes for a great photo op. Otherwise people wouldn’t be buying tickets for the honor. Subsequent kisses are part of the rabble.
And not every other sailor on that boat is going to buy a ticket - some of them are single, some of them have partners who weren’t able to meet them at the dock, and some of them aren’t going to be interested in the raffle even if they’re “eligible” for it. So her odds of winning were probably a lot better than that.
I think RickJay’s point is that the social impact of the picture doesn’t depend on them being the first off the boat. If they’d lost the raffle, and just been snapped kissing each other as part of the “rabble,” the only thing that really changes in this story is that you don’t have as clean a composition for the photo.
Fair enough. I do suspect that there are a lot of higher ups who are worrying about how the end of discrimination will affect performance, and some of them will want to keep control of the situation. Whether this was handled or not, it’s a good thing.
So the little voice in my head went something like this:
*Ah, that’s cool to read about. Oh wait, there’s a picture. <click> Zoinks! That’s hot! O man, I am such a pig. But look at that picture! Don’t be a pig. How would I react if I saw that in public? That’s cool. But zoinks!
Pig.
<click>
Zoinks!*
There is a strong possibility that not all the lottery tickets were purchased by gay and lesbian service members. The straight guys could have tilted the lottery very heavily towards seeing the two women kiss.
You know what real progress looks like? That this happens, makes the news, and everyone is like “meh, so what?”
As someone who was in the USNR (and a lone woman in an almost exclusively-male SeaBee ,aka Construction Battalion unit) for six years - maybe I’m naive but I don’t see any underhanded shenanigans here. I’ve worked, on way or another, in male-dominated professions for almost 40 years and men simply aren’t that devious. 
Okay, I was going to read the entire thread before putting in my two cents, but in the tradition of fighting ignorance I had to break in here. The way the word “Officer” has been thrown around in this thread, and especially in this post, shows me that there is a deep lack of knowledge of Navy rank structure around here. The sailors involved were a Petty Officer 2nd Class, and a Petty Officer 3rd class. That equates to an E-5 and an E-4. “Petty Officer” is how the Navy refers to Non-commissioned Officers.
And as for how the reaction went in the ranks, it was pretty much “So What! It will be a big story when two guys do it!” This is the Navy, after all. THEOPHANE posted the words to “In the Navy” a few posts back. That song was written because the Navy has been known to be the most “gay friendly” service. Some people are uncomfortable with it, but everyone knows that it is here to stay and we better get used to it.
/My 2 cents
Respectfully,
Petty Officer First Class Tonyfop
disclaimer - My words are not meant in any way to proclaim Official Navy Policy, just the opinions of one sailor.
I can, of course.
Me too!
Funny how it’s pretty obviously easy to explain to your kids why two ladies would kiss as long as you’re not trying to teach them bigotry. That ups the difficulty quite a bit.