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Colombian Prostitutes - Good Times or Career Enders?

phrogdriver

More humble than you would understand
pilot
Super Moderator
As we've seen in this thread, and I think we all know, patronizing prostitutes used to be very common in the military. It was just what happened on deployment. It was MORE common the farther one goes back in time. On the home front, it was just one of those things that was tacitly accepted and just left unsaid. The military has come out against it. I would like to think that this was in response to legitimate concerns about sponsoring human trafficking, but I think it was indeed more in response to civilian concerns about morality. In places where it is legal, the trafficking issue is less of an issue, and in my opinion solicitation should be allowed, but the rule is what it is.

The servicemen are SCREWED. I know they probably thought this was just a good deal det and a good time, but they picked the wrong time and place, and this is not going to go well for them. The Secret Service agents are screwed times two. While they all should have shown better SA, I have a lot more sympathy for the military personnel--I can practically visualize the chain of events leading up to this. The SS guys....well, they had to know the score on this stuff--this is what they do for a living.

I think the faux outrage from the media and Congress is bogus, though. Treat it for what it is--a party gone awry, not some huge scandal.
 

HAL Pilot

Well-Known Member
None
Contributor
As we've seen in this thread, and I think we all know, patronizing prostitutes used to be very common in the military. It was just what happened on deployment. It was MORE common the farther one goes back in time.
When I was a student at the Naval Air Training Unit, Mather AFB (Sacremento), CA in 1984, we actually had semi-official ranch (whore house) runs to Reno.
- The NATU had a Reno Air Race by day / Ranch party by night weekend organized by the non-married staff instructors with the CO giving everyone 96 hour liberties.
- The O Club had monthly single officer events called Junior Officers Counsel (Jock) nights. When the Air Force squadrons sponsered the monthly Jock night, they would use Air Force rec services buses to go around to the local colleges to bring girls to the O Club. When NATU sponsered Jock night, we used the same buses to take the single officers to the Reno ranches.

As far as today goes, I see little difference in liberty activities despite the threat of career-ending retribution for doing what military guys have always done.
- We have a lot of Hawaii Guard pilots at Hawaiian. They all talk about their PI and Thailand dets and the shanigans they have there.
- The military puts up a lot of Army and Air Force personnel on various PI dets in hotels in the same area of Manila as the Hawaiian crews stay. We see them all the time with their LBFMs at the bars and hotels.
- On Oahu, whenever a carrier group is in town, you can see the Sailors and Marines basically lined up at the karaoke bars and message palors (i.e. whore houses) as you drive down Kapiolani Blvd. behind the Ala Moan shopping center; as well as arm-in-arm with the legions of hookers that appear on Kuhio Ave in Waikiki.

Patronizing prostitues is still very much a common practice with the military.
 

usmarinemike

Solidly part of the 42%.
pilot
Contributor
Doubt it's just gonna blow over for the military guys involved- it may be a common notion that stuff like this happens on the mil side of the house, but they got caught being involved in something that is being given national media attention and is an embarrassment to the White House.

I didn't say that they weren't going to get their peepees chopped off. We're just not going to feel any higher order effects from this whereas this is going to be a giant pain in the ass for the Secret Service for a long time. We do other exotic stuff like throw puppies off cliffs and pee on dead people to get our negative media attention. I'm not saying somebody didn't get peed on in this case, but we have bigger things to worry about than some Sergeants getting serviced in South America.
 

pilot_man

Ex-Rhino driver
pilot
That definitely makes it a good idea, right?

Since when do you feel like you deserve the right to tell me what to do? If it's legal, then why do you get to tell me what's ok for me to do on my spare time? Let's take Nevada for example. If it's legal in the state, then why is it that you feel you can tell me it's illegal to do something that is perfectly legal?
 

GroundPounder

Well-Known Member
I've worked with the USSS on several occasions for Presidential, Vice-Presidential, and also major candidate visits to this area, and what is going to get the agents is how they treated the information concerning the visit. Each time that I have dealt with an advance team, they have time schedules that are to the minute for a visit that may be two weeks away and they treat those as highly sensitive documents. It matters not if the local press says that AF 1 will be landing at the airport at 0900, the advance packets that they have saying that it is a 0858 arrival are accounted for at the end of a briefing, and there are details that they do not divulge to us until a day or so before the arrival.

From reading the press reports, the agents in this incident left their advance paperwork unsecured in their rooms while the consorts were there, as well as advertising who they were, and what they were there doing.
 

Homer J

I'm with NAVAIR. I'm here to help you.
I loved the quote from General Dempsey, "I can speak for myself and my fellow chiefs: We're embarrassed by what occurred in Colombia, though we're not sure exactly what it is,"
 

xj220

Will fly for food.
pilot
Contributor
I've worked with the USSS on several occasions for Presidential, Vice-Presidential, and also major candidate visits to this area, and what is going to get the agents is how they treated the information concerning the visit. Each time that I have dealt with an advance team, they have time schedules that are to the minute for a visit that may be two weeks away and they treat those as highly sensitive documents. It matters not if the local press says that AF 1 will be landing at the airport at 0900, the advance packets that they have saying that it is a 0858 arrival are accounted for at the end of a briefing, and there are details that they do not divulge to us until a day or so before the arrival.

From reading the press reports, the agents in this incident left their advance paperwork unsecured in their rooms while the consorts were there, as well as advertising who they were, and what they were there doing.

That would make more sense than just a prostitution case gone wrong. The truth of the matter is, and this goes for pretty much everything, there's usually more to a story than we get to see or hear. A lot of people like to grab what little information they know and run with it for sensationalism. Big headlines make big money. In the end, there's almost always a perfectly good reason for something being done. That being said, I wasn't there so it's all a matter of speculation.
 

Brett327

Well-Known Member
None
Super Moderator
Contributor
I find it interesting that the same crowd who feels more closely aligned with the religious right, who generally have no problem telling people what they should and shouldn't do in their own bedrooms, have suddenly all lost their moral compass on this issue. In my view, it doesn't matter whether we feel that soliciting prostitutes is right or wrong. As service members, we have an obligation to behave in a manner that the American people would be proud of, avoiding even the appearance of impropriety. That's not a left-wing PC conspiracy, it's not being a "yes man," it's just doing your duty. It's just one of the sacrifices we're asked to make in this business. We shouldn't feign indignant outrage when people want to hold us to that standard.
 

helolumpy

Apprentice School Principal
pilot
Contributor
If it's legal, then why do you get to tell me what's ok for me to do on my spare time? Let's take Nevada for example. If it's legal in the state, then why is it that you feel you can tell me it's illegal to do something that is perfectly legal?

There's lots of things that are "legal" that you can't do in the military, even in your spare time. The whole First Amendment issue (and social media) that was debated here last week is a perfect example.

The Services have determined that visiting a brothel or engaging the services of a prostitute are against the military's values. Therefore, the Navy has told you don't do it.

Whether you agree with the direction the Navy (and the other Services) has taken is a different argument. But as of today, the military has said it's against the rules, so it is.
 

insanebikerboy

Internet killed the television star
pilot
None
Contributor
As service members, we have an obligation to behave in a manner that the American people would be proud of, avoiding even the appearance of impropriety. That's not a left-wing PC conspiracy, it's not being a "yes man," it's just doing your duty. It's just one of the sacrifices we're asked to make in this business. We shouldn't feign indignant outrage when people want to hold us to that standard.

I would argue is that the image you are referring to has changed as a function of that PC "conspiracy".

Case in point, Anchors Aweigh talks about drinking "to the foam". Now we have "Right Spirit".

I also remember the stories my grandfather, who was on the Maryland during Pearl Harbor, talking about going overseas and the shenanigans they pulled with the women in port. He was an enlisted gunner but the officers on the boat were right there. Now we have incidents like this getting blown to bits.

What I'm saying is that this image you are referring to has in fact changed due to the uber-PC nature of society. Saying it hasn't is ignoring the reality of what has happened.
 

Pags

N/A
pilot
When I was a student at the Naval Air Training Unit, Mather AFB (Sacremento), CA in 1984, we actually had semi-official ranch (whore house) runs to Reno.
- The NATU had a Reno Air Race by day / Ranch party by night weekend organized by the non-married staff instructors with the CO giving everyone 96 hour liberties.
- The O Club had monthly single officer events called Junior Officers Counsel (Jock) nights. When the Air Force squadrons sponsered the monthly Jock night, they would use Air Force rec services buses to go around to the local colleges to bring girls to the O Club. When NATU sponsered Jock night, we used the same buses to take the single officers to the Reno ranches..

I'd imagine that if somehow these practices had made front page news in 84 then heads would have rolled then as well. It's not that all of a sudden in the last decade the squares of the world have decided that whores are bad; in fact I'd hazard a guess that polite society has always "officially" looked down upon the practices of the worlds oldest profession.

To those of us in the business the only thing that is shocking about sailors and marines going to whores is that anyone is shocked about it, but to the rest of the world it is at the very least being sold as a shocking realization. Some of it being billed as "shocking" is that it sells papers and i guess this is a better story then the GSA blowing a lot of money for what sounds like a kind of lame party.

No one With service experience should be surprised that leadership is taking the moral high ground when the public is looking. They have public support, votes, and tax dollars they need to buy us all of our cool toys and to pay for the per diem that we'll all deposit in the local church's collection plate during the Saturday evening mass, because thats where all good Sailors are found on liberty.
 

MasterBates

Well-Known Member
I got sick of the service trying to ram false morality down my throat.

I've had a CO tell me I'm going to hell, and he'd ruin my career if I got a divorce.
I had a recent Navy boss tell me it's WRONG for me to "live in sin" with my girlfriend, and that I should get married to her or make her move out, since I am setting a bad example for our "younger sailors".

Neither of the above are outside of America's social norms. People who get divorced are not ostracized, and in all but the most conservative communities, nobody bats an eye about two divorced people living together.
 

Brett327

Well-Known Member
None
Super Moderator
Contributor
I would argue is that the image you are referring to has changed as a function of that PC "conspiracy".

Case in point, Anchors Aweigh talks about drinking "to the foam". Now we have "Right Spirit".

I also remember the stories my grandfather, who was on the Maryland during Pearl Harbor, talking about going overseas and the shenanigans they pulled with the women in port. He was an enlisted gunner but the officers on the boat were right there. Now we have incidents like this getting blown to bits.

What I'm saying is that this image you are referring to has in fact changed due to the uber-PC nature of society. Saying it hasn't is ignoring the reality of what has happened.
Times change, as they always have. I'm sure the activities of 18th century Sailors would have been abhorrent to the WWII generation. Is that PC too? Using a catch-all label like PC to encompass everything you don't happen to agree with is just intellectual laziness and absolves that person from the burden of actually thinking in critical, nuanced ways. So, call it what you will.
 

Fallonflyr

Well-Known Member
pilot
Since when do you feel like you deserve the right to tell me what to do? If it's legal, then why do you get to tell me what's ok for me to do on my spare time? Let's take Nevada for example. If it's legal in the state, then why is it that you feel you can tell me it's illegal to do something that is perfectly legal?

It is legal to smoke "medical" marijuana in California, go for it.
 
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