Tuesday, January 16, 2007

Michelle Manhart, Time to Go into the Blue!

You know, I've seen a lot of stuff posted about the Air Force Staff Sergeant, Michelle Manhart, who posed nude for Playboy magazine...

A lot of it is generally wrong, as a Staff Sergeant, she is not an "officer" but rather a non-commissioned officer, and the lowest ranked one you can be in the Air Force...she is an E-5....the first four E-ranks (1-4) are called "Airman" (no Airperson, it is a general term intended to be gender neutral), so she's been in 13 years and has only gotten as far as Staff Sergeant...there's nothing particularly wrong with that mind you, but an E-5 isn't exactly rolling in dough, (yes, being an instructor at Lackland probably got her some sort of bonus stipend, but its nothing special)....

If you want to make a case from the "people who've seen her naked" won't respect her angle...well I got news for you...if men don't respect her, it would probably stem from something a little more misogynistic than having seen her naked...we've all seen our wives and girlfriends naked (I hope), does that mean we've lost all respect for them?? In my experience, there is one overriding equation in the military: RANK...HECK, she teaches at BOOT CAMP people...ever been there? I have, and I can tell you most of the folks in boot camp are just trying to survive their 6, 8, or 12 weeks....and nobody, and I mean NO ONE wants to piss off anyone (an E-5 might be a dime-a-dozen in the real Air Force, but at Lackland AFB, an E-5 drill instructor is like a little miniature deity wandering the premises. Finally, are we all still that narrow-minded? If someone does dare to give her guff about it, isn't it on her shoulders (smooth and well-defined as they are, see below) to correct that behavioral deficiency? For those interested in investigating what got the Air Force all riled up, check out this blog, links are provided there...I know its a tease, but this is about all I can show here since I like to keep this a respectable blog, but I did compliment her shoulders just now, so I wanted y'all to know I wasn't kidding....

I don't have any problem with what she did, the folks that do probably need to take the cork outta their butts and relax a little bit, there are more important things to worry about in this world, like, oh, IRAN, North Korea, our broken borders, the continued exportation of US jobs overseas, etc, etc....

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