Behold My Field of Horse Hockey Pucks
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Photo by Lance Cpl. Ricardo R. Davila/Marine Corps)
The commandant of the Marine Corps removed the commander of a Marine family program following a complaint that the general made inappropriate comments at a townhall meeting.
“Marine Brig. Gen. Kurt W. Stein, the director of Marine and Family Programs, has been removed and reassigned after an investigation into his remarks at an all-hands meeting April 6, 2018,” the Corps said in a Monday command release. – Article
The link is here. It is a brief, and non-specific article.
To put it bluntly, I want to know what this senior officer actually said that got someone’s undies in a bunch. I dislike this coy, manipulative way of teasing the public into looking further. If the General used an inappropriate word like “bitch” or “asshole”, fine. He’s old enough to know better. Obviously, good manners are always in vogue, and while one can occasionally forget the rules of polite conversation, I have not yet run into anyone who has objected to GEN Mattis’s occasional (and appropriate) use of profanity.
In addition, the constant use of profanity and inappropriate pejoratives used by the current generation has lost its shock value almost in its entirety. When every other word you utter is profane, and your entire conversation is awash in vulgarity and profanity, then YOU have nothing important to say, and you clearly demonstrate your lack of intelligence and sloppy education. You look as stupid and uneducated as you are.
Neller says he “lost confidence in Stein’s ability to lead the program”. Hogwash. I have yet to run into a Marine whose sensibilities are so delicate that the offhand use of a pejorative would cause the Marine to faint.
If this has to do with the gender-bender population demographic, they need to grow up, NOW. The Real World is a nasty, mean, obnoxious, slum-guzzling bitch on wheels that wants to turn you into a sniveling pants-wetter, and doesn’t give a crap about your feeling. Means as a snake. Go back to your corner and weep. I have no tissues to lend to you.
As Gunny Rzezckowski would say: Behold my field of fucks. Look upon it and despair, for it is barren. This is the 1st Lesson and the 2nd is like unto it, but harsh enough to skin your sorry, useless, self-involved hide right off your bones.
Category: "Teh Stoopid", "The Floggings Will Continue Until Morale Improves"
Someone got offended he used a gender specific pronoun on a gender fluid person….im assuming
Oh…and First? Its 10am on Saturday people! Reveille!!!
Dahell? A Marine officer using inappropriate language? Shocked I am! Never heard of such! (/s/)
I make a very spirited attempt to watch my mouth. Always concerned that Mama gonna reach down from the Heavens and smack me upside the head….And then, wash my mouth out with lye soap. Yes, it happened once. I learned my lesson. I will admit to some slippage on my comments at TAH, usually cause some POSer has made me so angry. (HT to Marvin the Martian)
Maybe if some of the snowflakes out there wore the proper size and gender type of step ins, they wouldn’t get them bunched up….Just saying
The Marine Corps article said the general referred to sexual harassment as fake news. There you go. If it were an “all hands” address it was probably from his command. If the Marine Corps Marine and Family Programs crowd is anything like what I had as an Army Director of Community Activities in Family Support Division, he was faced with a group of above average educated touch feely easily offended pains in the asses used to getting all of the funding and their own way. Some actually contributed to mission accomplishment and making soldier’s family’s lives better. Most would file a complaint in a heartbeat which is why I avoided that division like the plaque.
I was tasked at one point with being the liaison officer for a regimental key wives program. I spent more time explaining why I couldn’t find new furniture and filing cabinets for their officer than I did preparing the unit for an upcoming deployment.
Office not office.
When I was the officers club officer for Schweinfurt, I asked the 3/7th Air Cav Commander’s wife why she always sent one of the younger wives to pry freebies from me. She replied, if you think you will be able to fuck her, you give away the farm. She was right, I gave away the farm and enjoyed some memorable afternoons because what that CO’s wife forgot was “girls just like to have fun”.
I wish I had cool stories to tell from that time. The truth is I was constantly in running gun battles with the wife of the CO of 8th Marines. If she asked for something and didn’t get it she had no problem dropping dimes to the colonel. When she didn’t approve of the furniture we put together for them the colonel told me to find new furniture for their office. I ran through what we had available and gave them my own filing cabinet. It still didn’t measure up and Captain Animal found himself standing tall, again in the colonel’s office. He asked what part of his instructions I didn’t understand. I quickly evaluated whether it was worth it to resist or stand up to his wife. I never was very smart. I told him I didn’t understand his instructions to mean take furniture away from the Marines common areas in the barracks and that I had given them my filing cabinet and there just wasn’t anything else available even at DRMO. He half smiled at me like, “You little smart ass” and told me that would be good enough. I wish I could say I was victorious in those battles, but it would be a lie. I got run over like a French tank regiment in WWII.
Does the Marine Corps really need a BGen in charge of “Marine and Family Programs”?
Yes, to share his wisdom with them. Obviously, some of them don’t have enough brains to absorb that.
gotta create more billets to justify some Gen or SGM hanging around for 30+ years.
Absolutely it does. Two things to consider here: First, a word about 1 Star Flag and General Officers. They seem like big shots, but in reaity they are the 2LTs of the FOGO corps. Just like the new 2LT in the battalion, they get every crappy job no one wants to do- key control officer, cup and flower fund, SARC, etc. This is partly because no one wants to do it, but also because these jobs are a good way to introduce a young officer to responsibility. These are easy jobs, but the penalty for screwing them up is career death. New FOGOs usually draw something like this as their first star-wearing assignment. Some program that just requires them to keep things running, kiss a few babies, and be smooth in public. Secondly, job in particular is very important and very visible right now. The institution needs someone that can ensure we are taking care of families while Marines are off at war or preparing for war. The vast majority of military spouses are young and away from home for the first time in their lives. On top of that, we have contracted all this stuff out and failed to keep an eye on things. Toxic water, substandard housing, lack of access to health care, etc. Sexual harassment is a big thing right now, and at the same time the ground combat services are realizing that very few women are making it in combat arms because they can’t maintain standards. We can’t afford to have Congress think it’s because our generals are sexist. Stein blew it. To make a comment like that behind closed doors is bad enough, but to say it in public is just stupid. Everything a FOGO says in public is considered to be official policy, like it or not. To paraphrase Vincent Vega from Pulp Fiction, wives aren’t gonna have a sense of humor about this stuff. Marines knew it, their wives knew it, and Stein shoulda known F’ing better. If he couldn’t do that simple bit of political correctness arithmetic he has no business wearing… Read more »
Let me rephrase my question. Should the Marine Corps have let programs like this get to the point where they require a BGen to be appointed over them? They had influence far beyond what they should have when I had to be involved with them. I can only imagine how it is now.
Well, no they shouldn’t have let the programs get to the point that we had to have a GO run it, but of course they did.
DoD, and the Marines in particular, have let things go slack this arena for way to long. Housing, infrastructure, sexual harassment, are all making the news, and putting a GO in charge creates the appearance that we are taking it seriously. Then knucklehead says something stupid, and the Commandant and SecNav have to explain it to Congress.
Stein may have been right- it may actually be fake news, it really may be a few isolated but visible incidents, but he should have come up with a better way of saying it.
My point, Reddevil, is that the allegation regarding what Stein said is implied to be “sexual” in nature, but is non-specific as relayed to the news/us.
I took what you said into consideration, too, but the accusation was anonymous, indicating that the “offended” did not ask Stein directly to tone it down, if he DID say something off color.
Therefore, I find it difficult to accept that a very senior officer would be ill-mannered enough to let fly without realizing he’d made a faux pas and apologizing for it right away. At that level of seniority, if they had no concept of social manners, they’d be gone.
Stein was a one star talking to his military and civilian employees, referring to a case in which a general allegedly sexually harassed civilian employees.
He made what he thought was a funny joke about that case being fake news, and another bad joke about the chaplain that was videoed having sex with a woman (not his wife) in public getting more action than him.
He may have been right, and that may have been hilarious locker room talk, but it did not go well in front of the audience.
This was an open Town hall with hundreds of people present, all of whom worked for him one way or another. Of course no one said anything- they don’t want to get fired. You can’t place the burden on them. Stein knew better. This was absolutely and ridiculously stupid of him.
I Marigot react differently if this was a junior officer or enlisted guy with a group of Marines in their unit- a First Sergeant doing a weekend safety brief or something, but Stein is responsible for programs that are supposed to educate Marines not to do stuff like this.
There are posters all over the walls in government buildings warning you not to do this. It don’t take no GED to know that it is going to get you in trouble.
By the way, everyone has to go through on line and in person training on this every year because idiots like Stein keep doing stupid things like this.
https://terminallance.com/2019/03/26/terminal-lance-540-signed-in/
Reddevil, your final line has far more truth to it than most people realize. There’s no doubt that the enlisted force (and especially the lower tier) needs some correction, but when the person that is supposed to be setting the example does this, all it does is creates more for everyone below! I hate to think of how many hours were spent online because of this very incident!
Granted, the article is a year old now, but I question the removal of a capable senior officer because someone whined – anonymously, of course – about some unspecified offense, very possibly imagined, and most likely intentionally taken the wrong way. And there is a point beyond which my patience evaporates.
But as this dapper fellow in the video says, I’ve no more f–ks to give.
Catchy little tune, Ex. Thanks!
That being said, one wonders what General George Smith Patton Jr. may think of the issue, but you know he’d get in something about shoveling shit in Louisiana.
Hmm. Not sure how a certain L. Puller would have fared in today’s Corps.
Oh, and Ex-PH2, you have a magical way with words. I fully intend to borrow some.
Please do so. Thank you.
I enjoy confusing those in the younger generations whose level of understanding is slim, and whose vocabulary is slim. It is their misfortune, because that could have been fixed when they were in the 2nd grade.
I wonder if they had these problems back in the days of the China and horse Marines eras???
In my opinion the military has become too top heavy, I remember that not to long ago Colonel’s were base commanders and Generals were based only at some of the more major bases and in D.C. E-9’s were few and far in between and E-8’s were mostly at headquarters. The lower ranks carried more load and responsibility than they do now. Now a brass bar might as well clean latrines and brass leaves are glorified office boys.