Posted on 05/01/2014 9:45:30 PM PDT by Jet Jaguar
A Kentucky National Guard soldier with aspirations of joining a U.S. Army special operations unit wants a federal judge to overturn the military's new regulations concerning soldiers with tattoos.
Staff Sgt. Adam C. Thorogood of Nashville, Tennessee, said the tattoos covering his left arm from the elbow to the wrist aren't harmful, but the Army is using the body art against him and stopping him from fulfilling a dream of joining "The Nightstalkers," the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment at Fort Campbell, Kentucky. Thorogood's attorneys said the new rules are preventing their client from seeking appointment as a warrant officer.
Thorogood, 28, sued Thursday in U.S. District Court in Paducah, Kentucky, seeking to have the new rules declared unconstitutional. He is seeking $100 million in damages.
The regulations went into effect in March cover a variety of appearance-related issues including hair styles, fingernails, glasses and jewelry. The rules ban tattoos below the knee or elbow. Soldiers who already have the ink are grandfathered in. Under the new regulations, any soldier with tattoos is barred from seeking a promotion to warrant officer or commissioning as an officer.
"You've got a soldier who is about as gung ho as you get ... then you've got this regulation you read about on Facebook and you don't have a career," said Robin May, a Kentucky-based attorney who represents Thorogood. "That would be a blow."
May said the new regulations violate a constitutional ban on laws that retroactively change the legal consequences or status of actions that were committed before the enactment of the law. The ban also infringes upon Thorogood's free speech rights, May said.
An Army spokesman did not immediately return a message Thursday. In an online video posted in March, Sgt. Maj. of the Army Raymond F. Chandler III addressed why the changes were made, saying appearance matters and should "be a matter of personal pride" to soldiers.
"The Army is a profession, and one of the ways our leaders and the American public measure our professionalism is by our appearance," Chandler said. "Every soldier has the responsibility to understand and follow these standards. Leaders at all levels also have a responsibility to interpret and enforce these standards, which begins by setting the example."
Tattoos have long been a part of military culture, but as they have become more popular, and more prominently displayed on the body, the various branches have been regulating them in to try to maintain a professional look. The Air Force bans tattoos covering more than a quarter of an exposed body part, under regulations revised in 2011. In 2006, the Navy announced that forearm tattoos could be no wider than a hand's breadth.
The Marine Corps has been cracking down on tattoos for years. In 2007, the Corps banned sleeve tattoos and those covering the leg below the knee.
Thorogood spent 10 years on active duty in the Army as a decorated soldier and sniper before switching to the Reserves, a move that allowed him to pursue a degree in aerospace at Middle Tennessee State University and pursue certifications in flying planes. Attorney Ken Humphries said Thorogood's goal was to submit an application for an appointment as a warrant officer, which are usually technical leaders and specialists, and become a helicopter pilot.
Thorogood has 11 tattoos, including three on his left arm featuring a three-member sniper team, a second of skulls and the sniper logo of a serpent and spear and an ambigram of the words "Fear Is the Mind Killer." After the tattoo regulations took effect, body art that Thorogood had before the regulations could get him charged with a military offense if he even applied for the position.
"It disqualifies a candidate for cosmetic reasons," Humphries said.
This is from Matthew Henry on Lev 19:27,28,29, the section including body markings.
Matthew Henry wrote in the 1700’s, I believe.
3. There was a superstition even in trimming themselves used by the heathen, which must not be imitated by the people of God: You shall not round the corners of your heads. Those that worshipped the hosts of heaven, in honour of them, cut their hair so as that their heads might resemble the celestial globe; but, as the custom was foolish itself, so, being done with respect to their false gods, it was idolatrous.
4. The rites and ceremonies by which they expressed their sorrow at their funerals must not be imitated, v. 28. They must not make cuts or prints in their flesh for the dead; for the heathen did so to pacify the infernal deities they dreamt of, and to render them propitious to their deceased friends. Christ by his sufferings has altered the property of death, and made it a true friend to every true Israelite; and now, as there needs nothing to make death propitious to us (for, if God be so, death is so of course), so we sorrow not as those that have no hope. Those whom the God of Israel had set apart for himself must not receive the image and superscription of these dunghill deities.
Lastly, The prostituting of their daughters to uncleanness, which is here forbidden (v. 29), seems to have been practised by the heathen in their idolatrous worships, for with such abominations those unclean spirits which they worshipped were well pleased. And when lewdness obtained as a religious rite, and was committed in their temples, no marvel that the land became full of that wickedness, which, when it entered at the temple-doors, overspread the land like a mighty torrent, and bore down all the fences of virtue and modesty. The devil himself could not have brought such abominations into their lives if he had not first brought them into their worships. And justly were those given up to vile affections who forsook the holy God, and gave divine honours to impure spirits. Those that dishonour God are thus suffered to dishonour themselves and their families.
This is Calvin in the 1500’s, iirc:
19:28 Ye shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor print any (l) marks upon you: I [am] the LORD.
(l) By whipping your bodies or burning marks in them.
It boils down to this Snake Eater: for years they gave them permission to do this, and then they punished them for doing what they’d been given permission to do.
It is unethical, and in my opinion it’s illegal since the only way the soldier can comply is through self mutilation.
Or their careers can simply stagnate. For no reason other than some CSMs changed their minds. It's cowardly, pure and simple. The Army is sending a very bad signal here. I remember when visible neck tattoos were a controversy, but those guys who had them really wanted to serve, so the Army relented and changed the policy. Why do that when you're going to toss them aside as soon as it's convenient? What does that tell potential future recruits when the SHTF overseas again?
I agree. The decision says “We don’t care about you, and we don’t care about justice.”
That is a sure-fired formula for losing the best and the brightest. As one who helped in building the NightStalker Memorial at Ft Campbell, I guarantee you that this SSG who wanted to be a NightStalker aviator is a top notch soldier. Even those who DON’T make it are outstanding troops.
It is immoral...even hateful...to give permission to do something and then to punish your troops for doing what you’ve given them permission to do.
Also the act passed in the same session for establishing the Roman Catholic religion, in the province of Quebec, abolishing the equitable system of English laws, and erecting a tyranny there, to the great danger (from so total a dissimilarity of religion, law and government) of the neighboring British colonies,...
To promote these designs another measure has been pursued. In the session of Parliament last mentioned, an act was passed for changing the government of Quebec, by which act the Roman Catholic religion, instead of being tolerated, as stipulated by the treaty of peace, is established, and the people there are deprived of a right to an assembly, trials by jury, and the English laws in civil eases are abolished,...
...and by another act the Dominion of Canada is to be so extended, modeled, and governed, as that by being disunited from us, detached from our interests by civil as well as religious prejudices, that by their numbers daily swelling with Catholic emigrants from Europe, and by their devotion to an administration so friendly to their religion, they might become formidable to us, and, on occasion, be fit instruments in the hands of power to reduce the ancient, free, Protestant colonies to the same state of slavery with themselves...
This bei ng a state of facts, let us beseech you to consider to what end they lead. Admit that the Ministry, by the powers of Britain and the aid of our Roman Catholic neighbors, should be able to carry the point of taxation, and reduce us to a state of perfect humiliation and slavery...
In the last session of Parliament, an act was passed...and establishing an absolute government and the Roman Catholic religion throughout those vast regions that border on the westerly and northerly boundaries of the free, Protestant, English settlements;...
In 1785, a Catholic bishop named John Carroll reported on the state of Catholicism and numbered Catholics in America then at about 25,000. That was about 6/10ths of a percent (0.6%) of the population of the thirteen original colonies in 1790 (about 25,000 out of 3,939,000).
http://www.census.gov/prod/www/decennial.html#y1790
A look at some letters from George Washington to early Jewish congregations can also be informative (Jewish Virtual Library).
That’s conservatism in America. Early America was a much more friendly country for Jewish people than Europe. Sadly, that’s been changing with European hordes flooding into coastal cities.
So how about it? Italy, Spain, Greece, the U.K, or the U.S.A.? The world doesn’t end at the Hudson River or the east border of California.
So how about it? Italy, Spain, Greece, the U.K, or the U.S.A.? The world doesn’t end at the Hudson River or the east border of California.
Take a look at America's demographics now and projected in 40 years.
That is a fair and consistent answer xzins. I accept that and make the distinction you are drawing. Thank you, and also thanks for the elaboration in posts #81 and 82.
I pray for you to have a blessed Lord’s Day, SkyPilot.
Isn’t normalization of mental illness on of the communist goals for America?
Great classic video and it reminded me. The Left spent every breath pushing nuclear winter and convincing us that we couldn’t survive a nuclear war. Their goal is apathy and they win with every quitter.
You are full of all kinds of wisdom. It is criminal and premeditated. Every plan I’ve seen, including recent ones, have the elites being saved and protected first, including government first responders in the wake of a mass terrorist NBC attack.
The vermin needn’t know anything in that scenario.
If he were gay there would be no problem.
You might enjoy some links to information on the real effects of a 10 Mt strike (much less than advertised by special interests). It’s highly unlikely that the enemy would use weapons with so much yield. Much smaller and more accurate ones are all the rage these days.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/3152400/posts?page=31#31
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