Carronade The Yankee Sailor Carronade

The Sea is a choosy mistress. She takes the men that come to her and weighs them and measures them. The ones she adores, she keeps; the ones she hates, she destroys. The rest she casts back to land. I count myself among the adored, for I am Her willing Captive.

FLASH TRAFFIC:
I've relocated to a new Yankee Sailor.

Saturday, June 04, 2005

Newspeak of the Week?

Big Navy has issued another directive regulating Sailor's speech:
R 031503Z JUN 05 PSN 331772K23
FM CNO WASHINGTON DC//N00//
TO NAVADMIN
BT
UNCLAS //N04500//
NAVADMIN 121/05
MSGID/GENADMIN/CNO WASHINGTON DC N00/-/MAY//
SUBJ/ACTIVE-RESERVE FORCE INTEGRATION//
GENTEXT/REMARKS/1. WINNING THE GLOBAL WAR ON TERRORISM REQUIRES SEAMLESS TEAMWORK THROUGHOUT OUR TOTAL FORCE-ACTIVE AND RESERVE. CURRENT ACTIVE-RESERVE INTEGRATION INITIATIVES ARE PAYING GREAT DIVIDENDS FOR OUR SERVICE, PRODUCING IMPROVED WARFIGHTING CAPABILITY IN THE GLOBAL WAR ON TERRORISM.
2. TO FURTHER THAT EFFORT, ON 29 APRIL 2005 THE COMMANDER IN CHIEF REDESIGNATED OUR RESERVE COMPONENT FROM NAVAL RESERVE TO NAVY RESERVE. THIS IS MORE THAN JUST A NAME CHANGE. IT MORE ACCURATELY DESCRIBES OUR ALIGNMENT AS ONE NAVY, AND I WANT IT TO INFLUENCE INTEGRATION BETWEEN OUR ACTIVE AND RESERVE COMPONENTS.
3. IT IS NOW TIME FOR THE NEXT STEP. EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY, WE WILL REFER TO ALL OF OUR SAILORS, ACTIVE AND RESERVE, AS UNITED STATES NAVY SAILORS. THIS SHARED TITLE WILL STRENGTHEN THE BOND BETWEEN OUR ACTIVE AND RESERVE COMPONENTS, AND ENHANCE THE CULTURE OF INTEGRATION NEEDED TO MOST EFFECTIVELY DELIVER DECISIVE POWER FROM THE SEA.
4. OUR NAVY WILL CONTINUE TO DELIVER POWERFUL CAPABILITIES IN THE NATION'S DEFENSE, FUELED BY THE INTELLIGENCE, INNOVATION, AND ENERGY OF ALL SAILORS. WORKING TOGETHER-SEAMLESSLY-THE ACTIVE AND RESERVE COMPONENTS WILL CONTINUE TO FIELD COMPLEMENTARY SKILL SETS AND RESOURCES THAT PROVIDE POWERFUL AND FLEXIBLE OPTIONS ACROSS THE FULL SPECTRUM OF COMBAT AND NON-COMBAT OPERATIONS.
5. OUR TASK IS TO DO WHAT WE CAN EVERYDAY TO MAKE OUR NAVY BETTER. START BY ENSURING THE NAMETAGS OF ALL OUR SAILORS READ USN AND TAKE POSITIVE STEPS TO ENSURE ALL MEMBERS OF THE TEAM UNDERSTAND AND APPRECIATE THE CONTRIBUTIONS THAT SAILORS THROUGHOUT OUR NAVY MAKE TO OUR INTEGRATED TOTAL FORCE.
6. RELEASED BY ADM VERN CLARK, CNO.//
BT

The short-term upshot of this is that no Sailor is immediately identified as a reservist by his or her nametag, orders, or other correspondence, which sounds like a good thing to me. I remember when I was in the reserves, you were immediately hamstrung when you were recalled or doing your annual training, because everyone assumed you were an incompetent boob so long as you had that "USNR" hanging off the end of your name. Now, reservists on active duty will have to prove themselves to be incompetent boobs before they're despised.