A new breed of sailor is steadily rising from the ranks of those who’ve graduated from “A” school. A new breed that understands quite a bit more about professionalism than those who came before and in whose tentative footsteps of the past they now forcefully tread.
This new breed stands tall in my eyes. Very tall.
Who are these sailors? Surprisingly, a growing number of women who’ve recently joined the Navy.
In the past, I’ve expressed harsh opinions about female sailors. I’ve taken them to task for proving to be little more than unnecessary problem-makers and incompetent burdens to their commands. Using their offspring or subsequent personal difficulties to shrewdly manipulate the system to their advantage. In many cases, successfully managing to escape their own military obligations from day to day altogether.
Females who essentially considered the Navy to be, to put it plainly, glorified welfare.
Not all female sailors, of course. But enough of them for those, like me, to draw such extremely negative assumptions about their performance.
Yes, I’ve been disappointed over the years – at times, downright ashamed – by the attitudes of female sailors in general. They, after all, not only serve for themselves but also represent “us”: The rest of their own gender as they raise their right hands to wear that uniform.
All I’ve ever wanted was for the rest of us to be able to be proud of these women. For the males they work with to be proud of them as well, rather than merely tolerating the “female faction” as so many have termed the women at their commands.
While we haven’t quite reached that point where women in the Navy universally deserve respect and recognition for their performance – some are still carelessly getting pregnant, not meeting PRT and weight standards or learning their jobs and instead relying on the system to carry more “dead weight” – this new breed currently working its way up through the ranks tells me that we’re definitely getting there.
