Say Anything Blog

Over and over again (and I am a former Navy Corpsman, so this is biased from a Squidly point of view) I speak with my oldest son about the military.  Every single time a Marine Corps commercial comes on, I make sure to point out the Marine Dress Blues and reinforce that they are the single finest, best looking, classiest and most distinguished uniform anywhere at any time anyplace.

And dress blues for your average Marine holding that distinction does not even consider how much finer the Red Dress Blues of the Marine Corps Band uniforms are than that.

You earn a set of Dress Blues.  I earned my Crackerjacks.  You don’t put them on unless you earn them and that was a lesson that we got during Boot Camp.  You spend the entire time never getting to wear them except for pictures and even then, that is just the top of the uniform so that they can shoot you from the waist up.  It is an honor to wear them because you earn them.  And that is Navy Boot Camp.  We march around and learn little Navy things like how to tie ropes and how to swim.  MARINES LEARN TO KILL PEOPLE.  THEY LEARN HOW TO AVOID BEING KILLED.  We give the rides in our nice grey boats. 

And civilians that have not earned the uniform march around and yell “Free Speech” when they spit on them.  And disrespecting the Dress Blues by not earning them and worse, by not even getting the damned insignia right, is probably worse than spitting on a Marine coming home from overseas in my mind.  The uniforms are a singular representation of every single Marine that ever lived and their sacrifices.

Lighten up.

it just bothers me.  Using the uniform as a fashion statement is one thing.  But to do so and on top of it, get the insignia wrong…

You don’t fly the American flag upside down or put it at a lower level than other flags or put it on the left side of other flags.  We have ettiquette about uniforms and flags and symbols.

Flag burning is just a simple disposal of a piece of cloth if not for the significance attached to that specific item.  The same with the uniform.  It is just some cloth, except for the meaning.

Either she ignored the meaning of the uniform, was completely uninformed in which case her handlers and fashionistas backstage should have corrected her, or simply chose to wear it as a calculated political move out of disrespect for the USMC.  There is no other explanation.  And it was the ignorance or calculated political moves, the fallback is always to say--oops, I didn’t know it was offensive.  Ask Cameron Diaz how to deal with bringing Communist symbols into Peru.

It offends people and they have a right to be offended.  Especially those that have served in the military.  The Marines is all about symbolism.  Semper Fi has a meaning to them and so does history.  Don’t take it away from them by ignoring it or disrespecting it, because Woof, you have not earned the right to even have an opinion on the matter.  That is the left’s Chickenhawk argument.  Are you a veteran, especially a USMC veteran?

Is it okay for strippers to wear a USMC uniform?

Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.

Is it okay for strippers to wear a USMC uniform?

Again, it is significantly less wrong if they at least get the damned insignia right.  A stripper is not on national TV and doesn’t have handlers and an agent and prep people and fashion advisors.  It is no more wrong than a stripper wearing panties and pasties that are colored like the American Flag or people wearing the flag as a bandana.  I don’t think that is the issue.

The problem here is that she descrated it by using it as a prop to publicly display it in a most disrespectful way.  Again, there are still only the three above explanations of why that I listed.  I am more inclined to give the stripper a free pass on being ignorant, plus most strippers are not going to be wearing it for an hour straight like she did… or else they aren’t worth a damn as a stripper. 

The most respectful thing a stripper can do in a situation where she finds herself wearing a proper marine uniform or even a mistakenly sewn one is to as rapidly as possible dispose of said uniform and pay homage to perhaps the single best tradition of the Marine Corps--that being of taking Liberty after a 6 month cruise--by using her naughty parts appropriately and allowing any Marines in the audience to administer appropriate punishment.

I agree with you Justin.
and Woof, if you notice those uniforms you posted do not have insignias on them. Not only that but those people were proudly entertaining the military people while dressed like that.

LOL, ok wait a minute. When I said I agreed with you Justin it was to your prior comment. I hadn’t seen your latest comment

I don’t know if I agree about the liberty or punishment but I believe the least a stripper should do is remove the uniform as quickly as possible ... out of respect for the Marines and all.

and Woof, if you notice those uniforms you posted do not have insignias on them.

That is an important distinction. 

Tell me this wasn’t intentional.  And this was during an episode where they had 10 “antiwar dances” in the lineup.

I’m a 6 year Navy veteran, the son of a 30 year Marine Warrant Officer. Two brothers were Marines, one other was also a sailor.

Wearing the uniform carelessly shows a real problem with civility. Wearing it carelessly when you don’t rate wearing it at all is similar to giving obscene gestures to strangers. However, in this case, it’s probably more like using a gesture you don’t understand. In the Phillipines, I used to wave people over to my table at a restaurant. I was eventually told the gesture was “calling a dog”, and shown the appropriate way. A pity no one instructs civics in school anymore.

My, whatever that is it sure is ugly.

The Debate is over!  Global Whining has been confirmed.

If Mia Michaels (in picture in last post) showed up at a party to work as a stripper, it would be twice as offensive as in either the original story about the TV show or the stripping incident.

That is called a “fe-mullet”.  She looks like she drove to the show in a 1978 Camaro with four different colors of primer on the outside.  Take your bitchy anti-war ass back to the trailer park.  She looks like she belongs in an episode of Cops on Fox when her husband in a wife beater gets his meth lab raided.

I guess if she is sporting the mullet, ignorance may be an excuse.  But come on.

For some reason the picture won’t stay up on this post.

Anyway, the question about the stripper is asinine.

A stripper basically humiliates herself for a living (some will argue that point) so anything they wear becomes cartoon, a parody.

For someone who claims to occupy a chosen place in the universe like so many of our Hollywood dunces, the wearing of a uniform that they didn’t earn is deliberate insult, not cartoon parody.

In this clown’s case the insult was probably incidental to being cool, a thoughtless fashion fauz paux.

Strippers can wear what they want. Nobody takes them seriously, even themselves. Get my point?

Election ‘08 - We Are So Screwed

Also, woof…

the two pictures you show, Gomer Pyle and the Andrews Sisters, are all wearing the uniform properly. The women are`wearing the woman’s army uniform of the time - and wearing it with respect and not in parody.

Gomer’s blues are on properly. Nobody is belittling the military in either picture.

Your simile falls flat.

Election ‘08 - We Are So Screwed

Gomer Pyle and the Andrews Sisters, are all wearing the uniform properly.

In addition, Jim Nabors was an actor portraying a Marine. He was not showing disrespect to the uniform.

Those who think the party or the country, will be “taught a lesson” by handing the levers of power over to the liberals will learn a lesson, but it will be at the expense of our country and her liberties. And there are no guarantees that the party or the country will come out stronger, more conservative or better positioned to win elections against the incumbent liberals.

My, whatever that is it sure is ugly.

At first glance, I thought it was Michael Jackson!

Those who think the party or the country, will be “taught a lesson” by handing the levers of power over to the liberals will learn a lesson, but it will be at the expense of our country and her liberties. And there are no guarantees that the party or the country will come out stronger, more conservative or better positioned to win elections against the incumbent liberals.

The Andrews sisters were also actors, as well as singers. That photo could be from the “Private Buckaroo” time frame. There were no disrespectful movies made by the Andrews Sisters about the military.

I doubt the ‘person in question’ (I SO wanted to say ‘redneck in drag’, but I must be civil) was showing respect.

My mistake- “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy” publicity still.

Pilgrim, I fixed the picture.

The recent it didn’t show up is because you “hotlinked” it from Michelle’s site.  She hast hotlink protection on (images hosted on her servers only show up on her site) and it’s in bad form anyway.

In the future, save the picture to your hard drive and then upload them on the post screen.

The war against illegal plunder has been fought since the beginning of the world. But how is… legal plunder to be identified? Quite simply. See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them, and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime. Then abolish this law without delay … If such a law is not abolished immediately it will spread, multiply and develop into a system.

Frédéric Bastiat, The Law

Rob’s recently listened-to songs:

This would be me, albiet a while ago. I was quite qualified to be wearing the standard issue Marine Corps utility uniform. Actually, that may have been a set I was issued in Boot Camp.

Where, you ask? Why, it’s a little island in the Pacific called Iwo Jima. We spent two days there, and it is my favorite place of any place I’ve been. It’s not very often you get to walk on a piece of World War II history.

Pilgrim, when were you in? Drop me a line if you want to swap stories.

Lighten up my arse.

And Rob, that Javascript keyword ad thing you have installed slows SeaMonkey down something terrible. It’s evil.

I forgot to add that it was January 1990 when that picture was taken.

And speaking of military uniforms, does anyone look for problems in movies? Has anyone seen BASIC with John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson? There’s a scene where Jackson is wearing the rank of Specialist (teardrop), but he’s supposed to be a SFC or something. Quite annoying.

Aren’t there more important things to be upset about.  Maybe we take offense too easily.

Steve said:

There’s a scene where Jackson is wearing the rank of Specialist (teardrop), but he’s supposed to be a SFC or something. Quite annoying.

I hate it when I see something like that in a movie. Ruins the whole thing for me.

And in answer to your question I was in from 1971 to 1978, first aviation electrician school (NAS Jax), from which I was given the heave-ho for being too willing to stay up and party at night and too unwilling to stay awake in class during the day. Aviation guarantee went up in a puff of irresponsibility.

Went to 2nd Mar Div at Lejuene (0311 grunt) from there, and Marine Barracks Morocco from there. Back to 3/2 from there. Still grunting all the way.

I earned my damn blues. So for those of you out there telling me and all the rest of us who earned our uniforms to lighten up - pound sand.

Election ‘08 - We Are So Screwed

I pointed this out to Wifey the night it ran, she is a fan of such shows.

She can not watch most movies with me, I tend to hack them apart on such points. Period pieces, documentaries, all kinds of stuff on HistoryChannel. I filet PBS and Discovery with merry abandon.

Una Salus Victus Nullam Sperare Salutem