As many of you have probably read, the Commanding Officer of the USS Kitty Hawk was recently relieved of his command. However, if you read the Times (of London), you were done a grave disservice. The article began reasonably enough, with a recounting of the factors that led to his dismissal. However, the article devolved into an absolutely inexcusable trashing of the US Navy, with a willful ignorance of the facts. Dodd Harris, at Ipse Dixit (and a former sailor himself), fisks the moron who wrote the article, and clears the air. It is required reading for those who still think of all sailors as knuckle-scraping deck apes who possess room-temperature IQ's and never see the sun. The inexcusable attempts to portray the navy as racist are laughable coming from the British, who as a society are far more racist than the America of the 21st century. I have spent four years (actual days, not approximations) aboard our aircraft carriers, and what the writer describes is *not* even close to the truth.
**UPDATE: 05Sep/1400A comment at Cut on the Bias from John Anderson, quoting a marine, eloquently captures my feelings on the subject of the military.
posted on September 05, 2002 10:40 AM
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