Saturday, June 25, 2011

Is “G.O-1” a Verb?


Central Command put a regulation into effect here, General Order 1, known as G.O.-1, which governs behavior in-theater.  Among other things, consumption of alcohol is completely prohibited, as are conjugal relations between service members out here.  Which makes me wonder why one can buy a box of condoms in the Exchange.  But that’s a topic for another post.

What really grinds my gears is the ban on alcohol consumption.  Go to Herat, where the Italians and Spanish run the show, and there is wine available in the DFAC to accompany lunch or dinner.  Go to Mazar-e-Sharif, and I suspect the Germans have beer.  But God help the U.S. soldier who is caught imbibing.  When I jokingly discussed going to Herat to check out our operation there, and maybe have a glass of vino with my pasta at the Italian DFAC, our OIC said, “You do and I’ll D.O-1 your ass out of theater!”

I’ve long complained about the butchering of the English language.  Watch the Olympics, and you’ll see athletes and commentators alike using “medal” and “podium” as verbs.  I cringe every time someone says “like”” in the wrong context.  One can’t “say” something, but how often do you hear, “I was like, dude, I’m out of here,” or words to that effect.  So it goes with verbifying G.O.-1.

But I digress.  Although I’m enjoying the help that this no-beer-zone has had on my weight loss, I’m a big opponent of total bans.  Josephus Daniels, the Secretary of the Navy who banned alcohol onboard Navy ships, is my idea of the anti-Christ.  I’m convinced that sailors often go out and get stupid drunk in liberty ports because the ships are dry and their first instinct after walking down the brow is to find a bar and pound down a beer or two … or more.  They do in excess what they couldn’t do at all while at sea.  Indulge in the forbidden fruit.

The ban on alcohol here irks me as a matter of principle.  Are we afraid of soldiers getting drunk on duty?  Make it a leadership challenge, not a total ban.  Hold officer and NCOs responsible for the behavior of their troops.  Restrict all members of the QRF – Quick Reaction Force – from drinking alcohol while on call to do short-fuzed missions outside the wire.  Active-duty military pilots can’t drink within a set timeframe of being scheduled to fly.  But a total ban???

I don’t know if the issue is fear of drunk soldiers, or a fear of offending our Islamic hosts.  America seems to be displaying a sad mix of political correctness and Puritanical instincts.

I sure would like a couple fingers of single malt with my Saturday night cigar, or maybe a cold brew.  That’s not going to happen … but at least they haven’t tried to take away the cigar smoking.

1 comment:

  1. Josephus Daniels, the Secretary of the Navy, (speaking of Nouns) . . .is where you get your "cup of Joe" from.

    Daniels not only banned alcohol, he took away the daily ration.

    Nothing new about the contradictions:

    My all-time favorite in the forbidden alcohol in America story, was when the American farmer was told he could not sell his barley crop to the brewers after WW I, because it was the wrong thing to turn a food into alcohol when Europe was starving. The farmers argued that barley was almost exclusively used for beer. So when they couldn't sell it to American brewers, where did it go?

    It went to England, and Germany (the guys we just defeated) to make: Beer.

    ReplyDelete