Posted on 05/29/2013 4:03:46 PM PDT by Up Yours Marxists
Beneath a rousing flyover of decades-old warbirds, 1,024 newly commissioned second lieutenants graduated Wednesday from the Air Force Academy - saluting the military's past while looking to its future.
Air Force Secretary Michael Donley, in one of his last acts as the Air Force's top civilian, implored the cadets to tackle the service's many challenges, a lingering war, fiscal uncertainty and the "scourge" of pervasive sexual assaults during the ceremony at Falcon Stadium.
"Each of you is responsible for the character of this Air Force, and its reputation," Donley said. "And I therefore charge you to serve with integrity, and by example - to lead, to say and to do what is right for our Air Force."
The class of 2013 included 443 men and women who expect to attend pilot training. Nearly 21 percent of the graduates were women entering a military that no longer bans women from serving in combat.
One sign of the times revealed itself the moment they tossed their caps.
Gone was the Air Force Thunderbirds demonstration team - a symbol of combat prowess and aerial ability. The F-16 fighters remained grounded amid $41 billion in Pentagon-wide automatic budget cuts known as sequestration.
(Excerpt) Read more at gazette.com ...
Didn't stop the patriots in the country though.
I find the link to past inspirational legacy to be great.
Having the latest hardware fly over too would be a definite plus.
Air Force over Country? Family? G-d?
Does their charge strike anyone else as misdirected or self serving?
Why were there pervasive sexual assaults during the ceremony at Falcon Stadium? … And why did they continue the ceremony in spite of them?
The Air Force just got 1024 new wheel chocks.
Seriously, good luck to them they are going to need it. i wish them all the best.
While you’re asking the “journalist” about his poor grammar, maybe he could explain to the rest of us “dumb folk” exactly how “budget cuts known as sequestration” work.
While commonsense seems to be a key liberal phrase these days, those using it do not have any commonsense. If you want to cut sexual assaults in the military the solution is simple. You do not put men and women or faggots in close proximity of each other, especially when there is rank to be gained and money to earned. This is too often done through politics and unfounded allegations to eliminate the next person in line. Compare that to earning the next rating on an equal basis.
Our nation would be much better off with women staying at home with children of our warriors instead of being warriors. And well, the faggots ... I just do not see a place for them at all.
I do believe that the military sexual assaults story is a desperate attempt by the admin and its minions to deflect away from the scandals plaguing its own self.
The rest of the social phenomenae you raise, notwithstanding.
On that sir, you are WRONG!
Rape and other sexual assaults are happening everywhere inside the military.
My wife is a psycho-therapist and has women through her office every week who have been raped either while in the service or by service personnel.
It's not just the military, recently she has had many young women who were date-raped while in high school.
It's sickening and this is supposed to be a good conservative city, Colorado Springs.
Last week DoD tried to have the private flyby cancelled. Kudos to my classmates Lt Gen Mike Gould the Superintendent and Gen Mark Welsh the Air Force Chief of Staff for saying this flyover will go on. It was to honor the graduates. My words: Damn the Sequestration and what you are trying to portray.
Graduate USAFA ‘76
Proud Father of: USNA ‘05 and USAFA ‘07
You are on to something. The broader Air Force is surveying the new, incoming members re: sexual assault. It is somewhere around 25% who have already been/believe they have been sexually assaulted. I may be off a percentage or two. This is jaw dropping. This represents the societal pool the services are drawing from. There have always been sexual assaults, my point I cannot believe that historical trends would show 25% in past generations. Is this the unintended consequence in how we have equalized men and women. Yep, I am a male chauvinist pig. I believe you should hold a door open for any female and treat them with the respect you would treat your mother.
What is her explanation?
Sometimes if knowledge of the raped becomes public in a high school, other girls will harass the victim. The only words that I am able to offer my wife (because helping her patients takes its toll) ; karma's a bitch!
I'm right there with you, brother.
And one more thing...
No women in combat.
How are high schoolers coming into contact with military at such a rate?
The high school girls have the same problems as everywhere else; alcohol, drugs and bad decisions that can leave a scar for life.
Well, that’s bad. but it’s not military. It’s not rape during a deployment among people with rank. It’s not something to address to Naval Academy grads.
You are describing a situation that must be handled by parents. It’s societal.
The difference between this and sailors on leave in the ‘40s is the difference between a bar scene now and one back then.
Girls back in the ‘70s wouldn’t be right going into a bar with drinking post deployment military guys. My kids would have a strict rule, and would be taught to think clearly enough to know that is a trouble situation.
My father snuck around and followed his daughters at night and had boys checked out by his police detective golfing buddies. And he was Naval Academy. I cringe to think what he and his classmates would have done listening to a lecture from this man who left SEALs behind in Libya.
The women who go out to bars when their husbands deployed in our circle were to be avoided. That is a very troublesome situation, and that is not around a base where a lot of ground troops are hanging around after deployment.
NO.
The way this scandal is headlined, and I read up on it, not having read anything about it, is a few anecdotal tales.
Drinking women hanging around drinking soldiers is a scandal only in that it’s a behavior that does not cry to the president, this president, for some kind of flimsy lecture to the hardest working students in the country.
That there is a favoritism in claiming he said she said, and defending the military member or even the guy, ok, that is something that used to be.
But my question is what is going on in the dorms, on base in the parking lot after work, on deployment? That’s what this is made out to be.
If it’s not a safe place for a woman minding her business and acting like a professional military enlisted or officer, then there is a story. And if there is one, it needs to be told.
It will be quite a change to learn that
Sounds pretty out of control to me.
And I think women in combat is the worst idea going back to before Homer’s Iliad and the Odyssey.
Women have always served in hospitals on deployments, but in rear echelons with wounded soldiers off the field.
Not as field medics.
There is a problem when gender identification gets confused and men are discouraged from protector and women are pushing around where men need to be with other men.
It’s one thing for women to go to the officers club as other officers, wives together, or guests. And it’s another thing when they’re out late, drinking too much with drinking men. It’s a different thing.
It’s not new and I don’t think it’s going to change.
But to go to a conclusion that women are being raped in massive instances, I want to know what goes on.
Amen
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.