I have a little story to tell

One of my son's friends enlisted in the military recently and has been discharged. One thing that happened while he was in basic training was that the drill sergeant said he was not American enough to be in the military and ripped the flag off his uniform. The reason? the kid had a cleft palate at birth that was repaired. I guess the scar left over was too unamerican for the good drill sergeant. Good news, the drill sergeant was kicked out of the military for his actions. They used a violation of the "you cannot deface a uniform" rule to get him out, but I'm hoping his nazi like thoughts were the real reason.

My nephew, who was adopted from China, and just underwent yet another surgery to correct his cleft palate, is just as American as anyone else I know, and MORE of an American than our deserter AWOL treasonous lying son-of-a-bitch pResident!

just a shame your son's friend had to go through the humiliation of the event. Shame the drill sergeant was just kicked out & not kicked in too.

or some sort of similar speech defect?

Correct me if I'm wrong.

First Google hit for "what is dry drunk"

http://www.counterpunch.org/wormer1011.html

If you had listened to his speeches; you'd have noticed the problem was about 4 or 5 inches north off his pallet above the right eyebrow.

I believe it's called a frontal lobotomy,(unfortunately it didn't take)Although he had a damned good surgeon perform the operation, the usual scar is completely unnoticeable.

I'm proud that the military kicked him out on his ass. Tell your son's friend to watch his back, though. Remember the keywords: "I am White. I deserve to do Violent Criminal things!"

that is sewn on?

Truly.

I'm absolutely speechless.

I am sitting here trying to figure out the logic of this. How does having a surgical scar make someone "not American enough" to be in the military? There's got to be more to this story.

It's a great story...makes one think....
However, I'm having some difficulty believing that a "drill sgt." would be kicked out of the military for defacing a uniform. I've never heard of that. I mean I can see maybe an Article 15 or something...but getting kicked out??? Still a good story through.

-P

take a razor and cut off strips and American flags of troops being given BC or COTH discharges at their final outprocessing (right before being given a bus ticket to the airport). Never heard of "defacing a uniform."

he is tormenting now. :^(

Defacing the uniform shouldn't have been the reason to kick him out. Btw, how is your friend's son doing after all of this?

And I think the defacing a uniform was just an excuse they could use to get the guy out maybe they thought he had nazi tendancies too.

Our male company commander informed us that "Oliver North is a hero". Reagan was God as far as he was concerned. He would also "accidently" walk in on us during shower time. Our female CC lectured us about the importance of not being "sluts" when we were out on liberty since the male libido is uncontrollable. It was therefore our responsibility to fend them off by being 'ladies'. She also made me do pushups as punishment because, I kid you not, she saw something I had written and thought I had ugly handwriting.

But the most puzzling thing of all was the fact that female recruits were REQUIRED to wear clothing to bed, including bra and panties. This was actually specified in regulations. Males had no such regulations governing them. Guess it was for our own 'protection'. Very weird.

Always having to worry about mens' libidos? That just sounds like a dysfunctional living environment.

Sexual harrassment and abuse are rampant. My experience, which was sadly the norm for women in the military, caused a therapist I saw later as a civilian to remark that I showed the post traumatic symptoms typical of rape and incest victims. I was stunned by that because I totally minimized it. I had completely bought into the 'boys will be boys' myth and blamed myself for the degrading environment. I still work in a male dominated environment and have to put up with crap from time to time. It has taken me years to learn to be assertive and to defend my boundaries. I in no way mean to imply that all men are harrassers. It's really a small minority that are the offenders and aggressors. I just think that male environments can sometimes facilitate the behavior.

and I'm sorry about what happened to you while you were serving our country.

I don't know what's wrong with some people. All I know is that shrub represents all the worst attributes of human nature and he seems to bring out the worst in everybody else.

I realize that your service was during the Reagan years. Maybe my idea is wrong, but it seems to me that the qualities of a leader's character influence everything else.

And the Republicans complained about Clinton's character! Unbelievable.

When I was in the military, they told us to report stuff that went on, fraternization, sexual harassment, etc., but I personally saw what happened to your average young female private that DID report it, and it was like, no thanks, dude. I can cope with some jerk grabbing my ass, but I don't think I want to do Basic all over again, or get court-martialed for "lying" about a superior officer, Drill Sergeant, or whatever. Hell, a couple of gals that were RAPED got prosecuted. Bleh. Go ahead, grab my ass--I ain't sayin' NUTHIN'.

Lets face it the men who go into the military USUALLY are not the most liberated men I have ever met. Love some of them dearly, but... Also my father was opposed to me going into the military myself and later on when I realized so many women were raped and ,yes, even killed while in the military I understood why he was against me serving. Now I am opposed to the idea of my sons being drafted into *s military .

RTC Orlando, I assume. Mid-late 80's had a very bizarre trail of CC's coming through to push boots...

One of the unfortunate things about the military structure is that it puts a lot of power in the hands of people who are not mentally or emotionally equipped to handle it, and who can't draw the line between their personal preferences and their duty to the military.

I was in the military for many years. I was also a pagan. I wasn't too overt about my practices, but I did have some of my identifiable religious implements out among my personal possessions at the barracks. One day we had a surprise room inspection, and I received a lot of grief from my fundy Christian Sergeant-Major and another platoon MSgt who saw it. The Sgt. made the mistake of voicing his opinion that people like me shouldn't be in the unit, or even in the Army. The Sgt-maj wasn't so overt about it, she just harassed me and nitpicked me for the next year. Idiots.

To the Army's credit though, when I heard what the platoon Sgt said, I immediately went down to my Equal Opportunity branch, and informed them of this crap. They made the MSgt come down and verbally apologize at length, explain why he had made that mistake, and promise that there would be no more such problems in the future.

that Sgt. actually did your son's friend a favor. No way would I encourage anyone to enlist as long as * is in power.

One of my friend's sons just got sent to Falluja (sp?) and she's not sleeping well, as you can imagine.