When my husband and I got married, he wore his dress uniform rather than a tux or other formalwear. It was something he already had in his wardrobe, apparently it was acceptable attire to both Miss Manners and the Air Force. Mind you, this was almost 36 years ago. I’ve seen other military members wearing their dress uniforms at weddings, either as one of the people getting married or just as a guest.
For a lot of enlisted personnel, that dress uniform is the most formal outfit that they own, and it saves them from buying or renting something else.
Okay, I’m old enough to have kids who have gone to proms (or not, in the case of most of them). But it wasn’t necessarily a couple thing at the school I went to, nor at the one my kids went to. For instance I went to my own prom with a date, but he was just a friend and not my boyfriend/heartthrob (my boyfriend was a college guy and he couldn’t go, TOO OLD. If you were married or engaged you could take your fiance/spouse no matter how old they were, otherwise you could show up with or without a date, i.e., with a gang of your friends or entirely by yourself).
And it not being merely a couple thing is a very good reason not to drag along your brother or your father as your “date.” You don’t need a date. It’s a school dance. The fanciest school dance of the year, but still–a school dance.
Yes, the actual person in charge of stamping out sexual assault in the United States Air Force decided it was OK for him to grab a big handful of ass. I feel a sweet sense of schadenfreude when I look at his mug shot: he hangs his head in shame, and his face bears the fresh wounds inflicted by his victim as she defended herself from his assault. With any luck, his career as an airman is over.
It seems obvious to me that the guy was hoping for all kinds of attention from tittering teenage girls excited to see a man in uniform. Whether or not he’d actively try and hook up with any of those girls, I won’t suggest, but from the way this event ended up playing out it’s clear that this guy loves attention.
A few months ago I was outside walking my dog and a couple of young guys came past my house on a jog. They were across the street from me but stopped and yelled over to me, asking if they could use my bathroom. I barely like having people I know coming into my house so I sure as hell wasn’t going to let these two young guys in. “I’m a Marine and just got back from Iraq” one told me, expecting that to be his ticket into my house.
Sorry, nope. There’s a BK a few blocks away, go there. It went back and forth a bit and he finally left after saying “This is how you treat veterans, asshole?” Because apparently going to Iraq gets you a free pass into stranger’s bathrooms.
Now, I’m not sure I even believe the guy that he had been to Iraq. He seemed too young, but who knows. Anyway, just posting this story to say that I do agree with the OP that certain people do try and use their service to get them benefits that they otherwise wouldn’t.
Don’t bet on it. His conviction if it comes will be overturned just like this one was by his base commanding officer. Chuck Hagle wants to change the laws. And, in about 25 years, he may. Or may not. Likely not. The military, it likes its own laws and ways of doing things.
The fact that this is a civillian case is irrelevant. The assailant in this latest case will wind up scot-free. As usual.
Yup, and some people want to share the fun at that dance with a family member, especially if there’s nobody else in particular they’d like to give their guest ticket to.
I think you may be hanging on to a somewhat old-fashioned idea that a girl who goes to the prom with her father or brother does so because she’s desperately trying to scrounge up anything with a Y chromosome to simulate a “date”. That’s not the impression I get about prom attendees nowadays.
A modern high school student’s privilege of inviting a guest to their prom, unless there’s somebody they’d really like to go with as a romantic couple, seems to be viewed basically as a generic Ticket to a Big Party. If you’d have more fun at that party in the company of your brother than you would going on your own, or if you’d like to make it a special siblings’ night out to share with your brother (which seems to be the motivation of the girl in the OP), you invite him. Simple as that.
That link states the commanding officer overturned the verdict because he found “there was insufficient evidence to support a finding of guilty beyond a reasonable doubt”. The link also states the woman’s side of the story being - she was staying at a couple’s house(ETA: house guest for a night because too late to go home, in case anyone feels that’s pertinent, I don’t) , and woke up to find the man groping her. His wife was in the house, walked in on this, and turned her out. The wife denies this happened, and said she turned the woman out for being too loud. In such a scenario, how could there be sufficient evidence of assault?
Note: I’m asking a legal question, not picking sides, before I get climbed on for being a misogynist.
..and if it’s against the rules, what the hell, do it anyway. Right? Simple!
Sorry. I’m all for family, but if you want a special siblings’ night out, the school prom is not the place. And if the only friends a kid has to take that extra ticket (really? they come with a guest ticket these days?) is a family member, that kid is socially inept and I feel for him/her.
? Nobody in the OP’s story did anything against the rules: the girl in question requested an exception to the rule in her brother’s case, the exception was not granted, and they abided by the decision.
And in any case, that has no bearing on the general question of whether it’s somehow “lame” or “weird” to go to prom with your brother even if he’s allowed to attend it, which I thought is what we’ve been talking about in our little hijack here.
I think you’re still not quite getting it: if a kid’s friends are going to be at the prom anyway (and given that most high school upperclassmen’s friends are primarily their schoolmates, this is a likely scenario), then the kid doesn’t need to get a guest ticket in order to socialize with them there.
No, a guest prom ticket is not free, but only a student entitled to attend the prom is able to provide one. Lemme spell this out more simply, because I don’t seem to be making my meaning clear.
A student entitled to attend a particular prom usually has the option of buying either one or two prom tickets: one for their own use and one for a guest, if desired. If they wish to invite a guest who is not a fellow-student, they must provide the guest’s name and other basic information.
Consequently, the only way that a prom participant will get to enjoy the prom with a companion who is not a fellow-student is to designate that person as their official prom guest, a category formerly (and still colloquially) called one’s “prom date”.
Nowadays, as I said before, there seems to be much less expectation that a prom guest has to fit into the conventional “date” category. Consequently, inviting somebody who doesn’t qualify as a “date” is much less likely to be seen as desperate, pathetic, creepy, or the last resort of a sad loser, which is how we old people were taught to regard it back in the good old days.
Why ever not, if it’s not against the rules and both siblings would enjoy the event? You Judgey McOldperson, you.
Absolutely. It’s seriously screwed up that anyone would care if you take a family member to the prom, let alone think negatively of it. Some people have way too much time on their hands.
I think that “gimmie” attitude is caused by everyone acting like they are doing some great service, when in reality most people join the military because they lost a job or had nothing else going for them. Its annoying, i agree
The problem with discounts is where do you stop? Already many buisnesses offer specials and coupons are everywhere. Seniors expect discounts, you want discounts for military, police, firefighters and other first responders, hell, why not discounts for the handicapped, single moms and other low income types? Pretty soon you’d need a checklist!
Of the people I know who went into the military, most* of them did indeed sign up for lack of something better to do (shitty job, no money for school, crappy home life). Fortunately many of them have improved their lives in doing do. Sure, some sign up out of a sense of patriotic duty but let’s not pretend that they all do.
*I do know some upstanding guys who are proud members of the military.
Just because a person joined the military for completely mercenary reasons (heh), whether they are educational benefits, or a regular paycheck, that does not mean that that person is experiencing a different work enviornment in the military compared to those that joined out of a some sense of patriotic or public service motivation.
