Is He the Very Model of a Modern Brigadier General?
From a production of “Pirates of Penzance”:
You have to admire the capability of the actor in managing those tongue-twisting lyrics.
And the subject at hand is an inquiry into the behavior of one BGen Cooling during a confab at the five-sided nut farm in Foggy Bottom.
This BGEN Marine may be either be a social moron, or he may have lapsed into the 1960s when saying stupid things in an offhand way wasn’t nearly as likely to get you hammered as it is now. Or else – and this is more likely – he’s someone who doesn’t yet realize that offhand remarks are always, and without exception, taken the wrong way nowadays by the SJW crowd.
Someone should tell them to get their britches out of their butts. I’d give him the benefit of the doubt, because guys are known to say and do stupid things without thinking about the side effects. And since there is an entire population demographic looking for an opportunity to let everyone know just how butthurt they are, I’ve taken that into account.
From the article: In the report witnesses told investigators Cooling explained that it was because women were physically inferior to men that male Marines had to “pick up the slack” during training and “men have had a difficult time adjusting to open combat roles because they can no longer refer to certain rifle parts as female body parts.”
In his response, Cooling said that he didn’t say those things.
“Well, one, that’s a ludicrous statement,” Cooling said. “Two, I don’t recall having any conversation [like that] at all with anybody on the Senate staff.”
At a December 2017 congressional fellows breakfast during a question and answer session witnesses allege he said women make better schedulers and secretaries.
Cooling denied using the word secretary but did say that in his experience women make better schedulers. He saw that as a compliment noting the important aspect of that part of the job among congressional staffers.
A few of those in the breakfast meeting took offense, seeing the comment as demeaning to women and brushing off the position as “menial.” – article.
In regard to anyone who says that being a secretary is a menial position, any corporate exec will tell you that a good executive secretary is worth her/his weight in gold, period. An executive assistant is worth even more. At Fidelity Investments the average executive secretary starting pay is $51,075. West Virginia Regional Jail Authority pays the lowest at around $42,826.
Executive assistants have more responsibilities and scope, and pay reflects it. The average salary for an Executive Assistant to CEO is $60,685 per year in Chicago, IL, which meets the national average.
Anyone still think this is menial work? Anyone? Bueller?
So some of these SJW female twits got their bikini briefs in a bunch over the use of the word “SECRETARY”, as if there’s something wrong with that kind of work, when there is not. The narrow-mindedness going on in the current work world, civilian and military alike, is a waste of your tax money.
My response to this is that no matter who you are or where you are, there is someone lurking on the sidelines to make a fuss about what you said or did. It is much ado about nothing. If the military’s focus is on who got their undies in a bunch over some offhand remarks by a senior officer or SNCO, I want to know why that is more important than getting the job done.
I have this strong urge to yell “Shut up, slut!” at the women who have their bikini briefs in a wad over some of Cooling’s offhand remarks. Perhaps they should spend some quality time in the shoot-shoot-bang-bang world with women who are not desk jockeys. And the use of the term “menial” reflects on their own attitude that once they’ve gained some rank, their lofty view is that they are superior to all those (especially other women) who have not achieved that significance of higher rank.
I have to go sharpen my claws now. Try to be good until I get back.
Category: "Teh Stoopid", "The Floggings Will Continue Until Morale Improves", Marine Corps
A. Being a Secretary is hard work, the Fidelity Number is the STARTING salary, I worked there for years and our “Executive Assitants” Are worth their wieght in Gold.
B. Grow up ya bunch of babies.
C. He is a Marine.
D. If he did say it, he has a new title, Dumbass!
The are two forms of language: formal and casual. It is sometimes harder to switch to a more formal, literate form then it is to switch from that to the more casual form. And people are known to make a “slip of the tongue” now and then.
I would give Cooling the benefit of the doubt for now.
On the other hand, if he said something directly to me that indicates he’s looking down his nose at me, I’d go right up HIS nose about it.
Also, Kudos to that actor, Modern Major General is a Monumental Tongue twister!
Y’all know about that filter that’s supposed to be working between your brain and your mouth? Yeah, well, mine is broke, repair parts no longer available.
“try to be good….” You should know by now that there are certain ones of us that you can’t leave unsupervised.
Heehee! I have my moments, too, 5th/77th!
5th/77th FA,
You just go ahead and cock that cannon! I’ll provide commo.
And my filters are almost as broke as yours. My Mrs Deplorable has a hard time keeping me in check at times.
Hey, I got thrown out of an EEO class once!
Me, too!
You take your time and sharpen those claws good and sharp, Ex-PH2.
Are you going for an everyday work sharpen (~25 deg, not as sharp, but lasts longer)?
Or are you going for a surgeon’s scalpel sharp (~10 deg, much sharper, but doesn’t last near as long)
I guess I’ll have to “broaden” (see what I did there?) my definition of Kongressional Klown Krew. I used to think of them in terms of just the elected asshats. Now I’ll have to include the secretaries (GASP!), ass-istants, sychophants, and other non-functional ass-orted hangers-on.
Lesson learned to the BG, DON”T TALK TO the KKK (Kongressional Klown Krew) without a JAG present and a recorder recording.
Best yet, don’t talk to them at all. You have better things to do, SIR!
I won’t be surprised to see BG Cooling rebound and be promoted. He’s an Annapolis grad and there’s plenty of ring knockers in the Corps to facilitate his career aspirations. The Army has the West Point Protective Association (WPPA) but I don’t know the Navy equivalent.
As a dinosaur, I am still amazed at my lack of courts martial, SHARP investigations, EO complaints, promotion to field grade rank, harsh command climate surveys, surviving 14 years of Selective Retention Boards and other indications of pissing off the diversity commissars.
Maybe performance really does matter
Was looking at the pic of the Pirates of Penzance and it had to be a Major General production. I have it on CD and yes, beside my love for DooWopp music, I also like Broadway Musicals and C&W music from the 1920’s up until they took the twang out of Country and went to the Nashville sound plus the awful use of electric guitars. Give it some time and the off hand remarks by the Corps General will be Cooling off unless the desk jockey brass decides to be PC and try and ruin his career.
And the Progressive leftists continue to remove from the active ranks any military man who is the kind that shows a bit of edge to them. Problem with that is that being a career infantry guy tends to give you an edge. You know what the Army and Marines need? Career infantry men. Pretty soon we’ll be surrounded by Wesley Clark and Michael Mullens types. No disrespect meant toward their long service, but they aren’t the kind needed to lead men in battle.
I’ve been in two units that have had COs canned. Both were edgy and tended to say things that the SJW crowd wouldn’t approve of. In the end, that is certainly what happened to the first and likely what happened in the second.
Hopefully, the SJW folks will miss some of those guys who have been trained to keep their heads down long enough to stay in. We may need real warriors in the not too distant future. Not just guys who don’t say things that hurt the feelings of sensitive female and wimpy male swamp dwellers.
Frankly, Fuze, I would be more offensive to those SHWienies than Cooling or your two COs ever thought of being. And I would enjoy it, too.
Ha, ha! Yeah, I kind of figured that. I chose my words carefully. “Sensitive female and wimpy male” was used because I know there are females such as yourself that are tougher and more rough around the edges than a lot of guys. I think most of the folks on this website would not mix well in Crystal City parties. My last duty station was Quantico and that was about as close to DC as ever wanted to work. I split the first chance I could and now work in Texas, as God planned.
Well, when I was in the work force, whether it was Navy or the civilian world, I did my best to avoid profanity, because it was inappropriate in my view to use it, even under duress. I did develop a rather colorful vocabulary as a result, which frequently does show up here.
It’s not that I can’t cuss. I could probably embarrass a salty old Bosun’s Mate.
But there are times when somethings are appropriate, and others when they are not. I think that BGEN Cooling simply has some sloppy habits that he earned a right to use, but which are inappropriate in that hotbed of insanity known as the Pentagon. Perhaps a wider vocabulary would help him avoid solipsisms.
I lost the ability to keep my mouth shut about 50 years ago when I hit puberty and am still amazed that I got an Honorable Discharge out of the US Army…
Fuck ’em….
Once again, let me spell it out for you.
GEN Dave Perkins defines a stressful situation as being wounded four times, surrounded, and out of ammo. I think he knows what he is talking about.
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2003-dec-07-tm-marines49-story.html
He relates the story of a Soldier that was wounded, out of ammo, and surrounded, but still reassured his brigade commander and the reporters filming his MEDEVAC that everything was going to be OK.
Being the USMC Congressional Liaison is stressful, but it just isn’t wounded, surrounded, out of ammo stressful. And, oh by the way, he wasn’t a private with a GED. He is a Brigadier General with a Master’s Degree. We hired him to think, and assigned him to work with Congress so he could effectively communicate the needs and priorities of the Marine Corps, Department of the Navy, and the Department of the Defense, in that order. Not make himself feel awesome by sharing some of his down to earth folksy, unvarnished ‘line troop’ wisdom with Congressional staffers and his co-workers.
Grow up. Get an education. Read a book. I was in the Army 22 years, 12 of those a paratrooper at the brigade level or below. I don’t cuss around my kids or my wife’s parent (mine are dead), or a whole other long list of people that really don’t need to know how rough I am around the edges. I would straight up smack my 19 year old son if he cursed in front of his mother.
And you are telling me that because BG Gooding is a Marine and he was in Iraq he gets a free pass on all of that? I thought Marines were tough.
Bullshit. He should have known better, and he needs to leave the service before he embarrasses himself and the Marine Corps- and by extension me- again.
I think there could be much ado about nothing, but you bring up some good points, Reddevil. Much is (or at least should be) expected of someone at that level.
At work, my usual language among peers would make Quentin Tarantino blush. If my mother, aunts, grandmother, or other female relative is present, I won’t say crap if I get a mouthful of it. I don’t even say so much as “darn it” in front of my kids or my nieces. And I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve uttered profanity of any kind in front of my wife.
On the one hand, know your audience. On the other, there are some people who rate a level of respect that prohibits coarse language.
He may have said something stupid. He may have said something inoffensive that was twisted out of context and embellished to gin up outrage. Or the whole thing may have been fabricated out of whole cloth by somebody with an axe to grind. If it’s the former, then you’re absolutely right.
If you read the whole article, reddevil, it is about ‘he said/she said/they said’.
He may have let slip a few coarse words, and he may have said things that were taken out of context.
But unless you take into account that the beast called Gossip has a life of its own, you missed the point: Gossip is a fungoid animal that can do more damage than a big, heavy artillery shell.
Oh, I read it, and I stand by what I said.
During an IG inspection they interview everybody involved, as is relayed in the article. The general and several other personnel all admit that he made inappropriate remarks.
Again, the Marines don’t have a Congressional Liaison to share gritty, in the trenches stories. They have a Congressional liaison to further the Marines priorities.
Think of it this way: of all the services, the Marines are under the most scrutiny for gender integration- how many women are in the Corps, what MOSs they are in, how they are trained, etc. on of the theories as to why the numbers are so low is that there is widespread sexual harassment in the corps. As evidenced by the Marines United scandal (Just the tip. Of the spear facebook groups, etc).
The last thing the Marines want or need is Congress launching their staff down to look into it because the Marine GO appointed to liaise with them is himself a walking, talking, EO violation.
I guarantee you that he went to a GO level’charm school’ (the Army calls it Capstone) where he was told that being. GO is a game changer. I also guarantee you that when he was selected for that job the Commandant and SecNav probably talked to him and reminded him that everything he says and does in the Pentagon or on Capital Hill is under scrutiny. I have no sympathy.
Again, it is not hard to watch your language,, and talking that way is just unnecessary. It does not reflect well.
No argument from me on that. I don’t doubt that he let things slip, without thinking about it, and bad habits are hard to get rid of.
The atmosphere in WDC right now is poisonous toward what I would term “normal” people, which makes it worse for people like him. He seems pretty normal to me, which very likely means he’s not someone who toes the PC line.
He’d be smart to wear a wire any time he talks to someone, period.
When I was an XO, one time my skipper went TAD somewhere and I was the man.
Anyway, one morning I heard his phone ringing, so I trotted into his office, plopped down into his chair and picked up the phone.
As I was chatting with whomever, I noticed that he had taped a piece of paper to the back of his desk nameplate.
In big letters, he had written, “ENGAGE BRAIN BEFORE OPENING MOUTH!”
One of the best things he never knew he taught me!
You HAD to post that ear-worm, didn’t you, Ex-PH2???