I suppose the next social media explosion will be “pornbook” or something equivalent thereof. It’s a good thing that all of this twitter, tweeter, e-mail, sexting and texting, as well as ‘burner’ phones wasn’t available during any of the world wars or even during the Korean “conflict” or the Vietnam “era.” What a bunch of crap. The stories of Mamie Eisenhower running around the Pentagon trying to find the person who could bring Dwight home and “away from that woman” are legend around the five-sided Mickey Mouse headquarters.
If you, as a civilian without much exposure to the military, have ever seen a general officer preening around with a chest full of medals, two stripes on his pants, shoes so shiny that a good Catholic school girl wouldn’t get too close, and one, two, three, or four bright shiny things on his shoulders, you just haven’t lived. I had the privilege of being briefed by General William Westmorland at one time. His fatigue uniform had razor creases in the shirt and on the pants that might have been considered as dangerous weapons. He exuded a similar arrogance that I have seen in most general officers…which numbers maybe a dozen.
The fact that General David Petraeus got caught with his hand in the honey pot isn’t all that much of a big deal. The man has had a remarkable and honorable military career. It’s not difficult to understand how another West Pointer, a major no less, who spent hours and hours with him as official biographer could find her head turned from admiration to something a bit more than…despite a really bad comb over. In addition, despite all the talk of how humble General Petraeus might or might not be, Major Paula Broadwell may best be described as a “head turner.”
Let’s face facts. The male libido is the male libido, especially in a profession such as the military, so long dominated by men. The old expression, ‘rank has its privileges’ is not an exaggeration and there are plenty of military officers who take advantage of what they have on their epaulets; it’s sad, but it’s true. Why do military people cheat? Hell if you could answer why people cheat, you could put all of those TV doctors back on the unemployment line. I’ve always thought that men cheat because they think they can. You hear excuse after excuse but it all boils down to the fact that too many men probably just don’t understand the words, “…and forsaking all others.” Or maybe they don’t even put that in the wedding vows these days.
Please don’t get me wrong; I’m not some holier-than—thou preacher hell bent on condemning the latest military sex scandal…and Lord only knows it is just the latest in a long line…from Tailhook to the unreported rapes that occur almost daily at foreign postings. I’m just someone who worked in the Pentagon for a while and who observed some of the hijinks that went on there.
Maybe it’s the whole idea of rising to a position of such prominence that one begins to think of himself as better than others; that rules of behavior belong to others, but not to them. Sex seems to be a three-letter word that can fuck up just about anything – from the Roman Catholic Church to state government; from the halls of Congress to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue; from high school classrooms to the highest ranking officers in the military. Wow, and I thought four-letter words could be bad!
Dick Bishop
Dick Bishop's Blog 