For the life of me, I have no comprehension in any measure for people who give a crap about how other people live their lives when it has absolutely no bearing on them or anybody else.
Today there was a story in The New York Times about two Army captains who are Apache helicopter pilots that just got married at West Point (which I can't link to because it's behind a pay-wall...
Right now most people are probably assuming that one of the pilots is a man and the other pilot is a woman.
Not so much, no.
It's two guys who fell for each other during the "Don't Ask Don't Tell" era circa 2009 and couldn't even go on a date until it was repealed in 2011 else they'd be risking their entire careers...
And, thanks to times being slightly more enlightened than past years (albeit temporarily, apparently), they have indeed just been married at West Point in full ceremony along with the only people who matter at a time like this... their friends, family, and brothers in arms...
Now, you would think that everybody would be all "Congratulations! Best of luck! Thank you both for your service!"
Not so much, no.
I mean, a lot of people are saying that... but, of course, there's a chunk of people who have nothing but venom to offer two men who pay taxes, risk their lives serving their country, and just want their slice of American happiness that everybody here is supposed to be guaranteed by our fucking Declaration of Independence. And yet somehow them getting married is destroying society... the military... this country... and the entire earth?
Jesus.
Anyway...
I'm not much of a romantic, but the Arch of Sabers wedding tradition at West Point is one that gets me every time. I saw it in a movie or television show once, and have been transfixed by it ever since. Not sure if the saber-smack on the rump for the bride is still a thing... or if that's going by the wayside now... but it's all so classy AF (the protocol is online at West Point's official website).
And so... Congratulations! Best of luck! Thank you both for your service!
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When my sister and brother-in-law, who was active Army at the time, were married 20+ years ago they had the saber arch. It was so awesome and I always wished I could have one when I married. But the husband wasn’t in the military so no arch for me.
For the life of me, I can’t recall where I saw it. I want to say it was a television series… but it might have been a movie. It’s beautiful.
If you put keywords in a google search (pilots, apache, married) the NYT article pops up. For a while you couldn’t read them, but now you can. On the same Google page there are a lot of articles from other papers, sometimes just copying the NYT, sometimes a different article on the same incident. I imagine you could link to these, but I haven’t tried, I just use it so I can see more of the article than the brief summary on the NYT webpage.
The problem with linking to a Google Search is that it only works for so long. As time passes, the stories change around certain keywords. Since my “reads per month” with NYT had already maxed out, I didn’t want to link to the original story since I never know if the people reading have maxed out their article reads. So… I linked to Newsweek, since the basics of the story were there.
Sorry, my point was that currently, if I go to google to link to a NYT story, I can read it even if I am over the monthly 7 article limit.
Huh. That’s how I found the original article was on Google. It wouldn’t allow me on my laptop or my iPhone.
When I was active duty Air Force we had some coworkers that everybody “knew” were gay. Two specific examples came to mind, one being our Detachment Commander. Nobody really cared, even though I was in an all-male combat career field and it was during the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” period. The Major ended up losing…well everything over being gay. Well, that technically isn’t true. He lost his career, retirement, etc. because he had an improper relationship (Fraternization) with a subordinate. He would have been in the exact same boat if it was a heterosexual relationship because it is the senior ranking individual that suffers most of the consequences.
The other guy was a supply troop who we all knew was gay & living with a “roommate” off post. Again, nobody cared and it was an open secret.
That’s what I don’t get. Nobody should care. What possible bearing does it have on your life? None. I have gay friends that mean the world to me. I care about them, which means I care about their relationships… but what they do in bed or who they fall in love with or who they marry has absolutely zero affect on me… except I’m happy if it makes them happy, because I want only happiness for my friends. Other than that, who cares? I’ve pondered it over and over. You don’t want to have a same-sex marriage, then don’t get one! I dunno… maybe these homophobes are dealing with their own sexuality and projecting it onto others (which so often ends up being the case with politicians), but how does that translate into treating tax-paying citizens as second-class citizens when it comes to their rights to have what everybody else has? Bizarre. That being said… the rules should apply to everybody. Fraternization with a subordinate should carry the same weight on everybody, regardless of what sex they are. This is not about giving people special rights… it’s entirely about treating everybody the same.