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Letters

Riding clubs a bad idea

I think the idea of starting riding clubs at Marine installations and requiring Marines with motorcycles to join them is a bad one [“2-wheel tragedies: Corps moves to slow rate of motorcycle fatalities,” Sept. 17].

The idea is that younger Marines would get advice from older Marines, but what if the younger Marine is the more experienced rider? Having been an 18-year-old private with 13 years of riding experience under my belt, I did not want to spend my riding time with senior Marines, and I’m sure that if I had, they would not have listened to any riding advice I might have given because of my age.

Not to mention that some riders, like myself, don’t like to ride with more than two or three other riders because they feel uncomfortable riding in large groups, especially when those riders are of various skill levels.

As for Marines buying too much bike the first time, the engine displacement really doesn’t have a lot to do with what could be too much bike. For instance, most new Harley-Davidson motorcycles have a 96-cubic-inch engine, but are slower than a Honda Goldwing in a 0-60 mph, 60-100 mph roll on, the standing 1/4-mile and top speed. I’m not trying to offend Harley riders here, but the old gramps riding across the U.S. would smoke them in a race.

Many new cruisers are between 1300cc and 2300cc, which are large engines, but performance-wise they are lead sleds. However, sport bikes are coming out every year faster and lighter than the previous year, and most of them have the power to literally be taken straight to the track and raced.

If the Marine Corps wants to build a riding program, maybe it should tailor it to groups that have similar styles of bikes and riding instead of lumping everyone together in one group and forcing them to ride together.

Trying to deploy

I read Marine Corps Times (in addition to Corps-wide messages) to educate myself about future uniforms, gear, pay, etc. I have never read a better letter written to you than the one by Master Sgt. Jonathan White [“Everyone should deploy,” Sept. 24]. It was short, sweet and to the point.

Like he so eloquently put it, if you have not done your time, you should not even be considered for promotion. I’ve done three Operation Iraqi Freedom deployments, and look forward to another shot. If you didn’t sign up for this, you got on the wrong bus.

In Master Sgt. Jonathan White’s letter, “Everyone should deploy,” he states that everyone who has been in for 36 months or more should have deployed, otherwise they’ve been avoiding and shouldn’t be promoted.

I’ve been in for 36 months, been to two units, submitted administrative action forms for individual augmentee billets, and still have not deployed. But I guess I’ve been avoiding, right, even though I’ve made an honest effort to try to go to the fight? And I shouldn’t be promoted, even though I know my job and perform it well.

I don’t mean any disrespect to the master sergeant, but I’ve tried to go, so do you honestly think I should be punished by not getting promoted and labeled as an “avoider” because our Corps has chosen not to send me yet?

The position of Leslye Arsht, deputy undersecretary of defense for military community and family policy, in the article “Anti-porn groups decry exchange sale policy” [Sept. 17] simply defies logic.

The article correctly cites the 1996 Military Honor and Decency Act prohibiting the sale of “sexually explicit material” in military exchanges. It further quotes the definition of sexually explicit material as having “as a dominant theme the depiction or description of nudity.”

Arsht wrote in response to complaints by more than 40 anti-pornography groups that the board reviewed Celebrity Skin, Penthouse, Perfect 10, Playboy, Playboy’s College Girls, Playboy’s Lingerie, Nude, Nude Playmates and Playmates in Bed, “and determined that based solely on the totality of each magazine’s content, they were not sexually explicit.”

As such, their sale in military exchanges “is permissible,” she wrote in a letter to the groups.

You have got to be kidding. Are you suggesting that Nude Magazine and Nude Playmates do not have nudity as a dominant theme? That is ridiculous. Perhaps those magazines focus on current events and political debates; after all, isn’t that why they are wrapped in dark plastic and kept on the top shelf away from the rest of the reputable magazines?

Let’s follow the absurdity of this reasoning to its logical conclusion: If Penthouse and Playboy are not sexually explicit, then one would assume they could be openly displayed in a workplace or viewed from a government computer. Perhaps they could be placed in the hospital waiting room next to Time magazine and the children’s books?

Be consistent. If they are sexually explicit, and they are, then ban the public display and sale of the magazines everywhere on base. If they are not sexually explicit, then you must allow them everywhere on base, which is obviously absurd.

Using situational ethics to consider them sexually explicit in one arena but not in another is inconsistent and should be rejected by our senior leadership. If you still take exception, read the Military Honor and Decency Act; it makes it clear that those types of publications are precisely why our elected representatives passed the bill. It was made a law for a reason: to maintain decency on military bases.

And, after all, we are in the business of defending the law.