The White House is standing by the decision of U.S. Navy leaders to “modernize” the service’s enlisted ranking system after thousands of individuals petitioned President Obama to roll back the changes.
The Navy announced in September that it would eliminate its 91 enlisted ratings titles, subjecting sailors to job classification similar to the the Army, Marine Corps, and Air Force. The review of the service’s job titles was ordered by Navy Secretary Ray Mabus, who wanted to ensure that the Navy and Marine Corps titles are gender neutral.
The new enlisted rating system sparked massive criticism from current and former service members on social media, with more than 100,000 individuals signing onto a White House petition demanding the Obama administration restore the 240-year-old enlisted ranking system.
The White House responded to the petition this week, standing by the Navy’s argument that the new system will allow sailors to more easily enter the civilian workforce after retiring from the military and describing the outrage as “friction” typically caused by cultural changes.
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4 comments:
There's still no explanation of specifically how these changes will facilitate moving to civilian occupations after military service.
Airman corpmen etc..utter nonsence.not air person or corp person
It's corpsman, pronounced (for the benefit of BHO) kôrmən.
They'll do away with the names altogether, and assign a four digit number and a word identifier.
I served as a U.S. Navy Hospital Corpsman with the Marines for almost three decades, from Viet Nam onward. The Marines took care of their Corpsmen, and the Corpsmen took care of their Marines. I knew that if the s**t got deep, any one of those guys would take a bullet for me to keep me going to take care of the rest of them. And they knew that I would risk my life (which I did) to render aid to each of them.
When I heard the call "Corpsman up!", it was a call to me to be there, often under fire, to save one of my brothers from death or further injury. They depended on me. I was their "Doc". They were my protectors. I was theirs.
The Navy, pushed by their big boss, can diddle with the name changes all that they want in deference to political correctness, and pretend that it's all in the name of creating post-service opportunity, but the Marines will always use the phrase "Corpsman up!" to call for us.
I retired from the Navy 10 years ago after doing over 20 years. All I can say is this is the stupidest thing I have ever heard out of the mouth of a Secretary of the Navy and I am glad I'm not in anymore.
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