In Reversal, Navy Won't Scrap Traditional Job Titles

In the Navy, a corpsman will still be a corpsman.

Navy leaders are dumping a plan announced in September to eliminate dozens of enlisted sailors' job titles, some ending in "man." They said sailors' anger over the changes had become a distraction and they will look for other ways to modernize the system.

"The bottom line is, we're going to preserve all the good, we're going to throw all the distractions overboard and we're going to move on, stay on course," Navy Adm. John Richardson, chief of naval operations, told sailors gathered in the Pentagon on Wednesday. "You showed us the way forward. ... Thanks for teaching us that lesson."

The Navy's reversal brought widespread praise on social media Wednesday:

Jack McCain, a Navy helicopter pilot who is the son of Arizona Sen. John McCain:

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