Ordinary Sailperson

Vincent J. Curtis 

9 Oct 20

It’s quite amazing how often senior command tries to crush morale in the ranks.  Years ago, the Royal Canadian Navy had some truly great toasts of the day, inherited from the Royal Navy. Then, senior brass changed them into something Presbyterian.

How would you like to toast, “To a bloody war or a sickly season.” (Began when the only way to get a promotion was for one’s superior to die.) “A willing foe and sea room.” (An Irishman must have thought of that one.) “To our wives and sweethearts – may they never meet!”?  These are great toasts.  These morale boosters were replaced with: “our nation,” “our navy,” and “our families” respectively.  What Ottawa priss needed to be placated that badly? Was sea duty not that important anymore?

Having been left alone for a while, it’s the navy’s turn to take another morale-crushing blow, with the institution of gender-neutral ranks.  Now, given the grip of Gender Identity Theory on the minds of progressive thinkers, you might wonder if Ottawa believes changing to gender neutrality better reflects the true, hidden, gender-fluidity among sailors.  Man, I feel like a woman, today!  Maybe this is their answer to the problem of getting more women in the navy – to abolish gender altogether and get enough sailors to identify as women.

Somehow, I don’t think navy brass is that clever.  Nevertheless, the new rank names go from ordinary seaman, able seaman, leading seaman, and master seaman, to ordinary seaperson, etc.  What?  Did I get that wrong?  Oh, yeah, its sailor third class, second class, first class, and master something.  Can’t you feel your morale rising there, sailor?

The funny thing is, these changes may have been implemented illegally.  Now, that would raise morale.  According to Rory Fowler, a retired light colonel and former military lawyer, the method of promulgation, a CANFORGEN, lacks the legal authority necessary to implement the changes.  Fowler claims the changes in rank designations has to be done by Order in Council, i.e. the Governor-General upon the advice of the cabinet has to order the changes.  It can’t be done on the say-so of a mere CDS or some bloke service commander.

An old naval saying goes, “When in trouble, make smoke.”  When word of the changes got out, grumbling began in the ranks.  Some aggrieved persons may have criticized them as political correctness run amuck, and the demise of another naval tradition.  Overheated naval brass exploded, bellowing, “There is no place in the service for sailors who subscribe to hateful, misogynistic, or racist beliefs.  If you cannot live by or support the values of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, then you cannot defend them.”

Er, those values include (Section 2b) freedom of thought, belief, and expression; but the Deputy Commander who slammed a particular set of beliefs, thoughts, and their expression, I doubt, is about to follow his own reasoning to its logical conclusion.

In contrast, the army maintains that it is their job to protect democracy, not to practice it.

One wonders what Nelson at Trafalgar thought of the French.  Did he entertain hateful, racist beliefs, or did he just kill in cold blood?  What about those sailors escorting convoys to Britain against German U-boats?  You know, the Boche, Huns, Krauts, Fritz?  In those days, Germans, French, English, Irish, Scots, Welsh, Czech, Slovak, Hungarian, Swede, Finn, Russian were all different races.  Was racism in those days acceptable, or do we pull down the statue to Harry DeWolf because he was mean to Germans?  Killing them, in fact.

Most sailors I know love women.  Wives and sweethearts, may they never meet, remember?  What they don’t like is something out of place.  Having had beaten into them the right way of doing things, it runs against the grain to be told that they are now wrong, and it’s the new way or the highway.

Morale crushing changes are relieved by the incompetence with which they were carried out.

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