You guys are being too harsh. You all know the way it goes. The President/SECDEF/SECNAV sees these statistics. They ask the Commandant what he's doing about the problem. The Commandant asks his staff what they're doing about it. Somewhere down the line, a field grade officer comes up with another policy/restriction, and it gets sent back up with beaming approval, because it means that we're now "doing" something about the problem. Nobody enjoys writing this crap any more than we enjoy being burdened by it. Same with drunk driving. Same with suicide awareness. Same with countless other programs that are now in effect as a purely reactive measure.
How can one be proactive about it? Reducing the reasons that a Marine would want to take his bike at 90mph, or drive drunk, or attempt suicide. Make his job challenging, but in a good way. Make it suck less by reducing the bullshit he must endure. And yes, making sure that the NCOs, the trusted older brother to the junior enlisted Marine, encourages them to do the right thing.
We could start by having an officer with a set of balls tell his boss...."Sir, we are at the frictional level here. There is nothing more that we can do to realistically lower this rate. We can shout at the rain all we want to, but this rate is NEVER going to decline appreciably."*
OR.......we could actually DO something drastic. For instance, we could
BAN MOTORCYCLES OF ANY KIND, REGARDLESS OF TIME/DATE/PLACE DUTY STATUS.
This, of course, is of dubious legality and would create an uprising bordering on mutiny on a grand scale........but it would probably lower the rate
some. It
would NOT make it zero.
We would have to use the LOD/misconduct deal here to enforce it. Really. Seriously.
phrogpilot73 said:
I'll be interested to see how the Commandant's message that came out a while back, something with a snippet of "this will be used in a line of duty determination." Compares with the JAGMAN that states that merely violating an order does not make you not in the line of duty/due to your own misconduct. When I did the LOD investigation for a motorcycle, the CO tried to tell me that I was wrong and that he should have been non in the line of duty - since he violated the order about PPE. The Lawyers told me I was right, and that just violating an order is not enough.
I just graduated from the Senior Officers Legal Course (please.....hold your applause). Let me be the first to tell you that they will never, EVER, seriously find significant numbers of folks out of the line of duty or due to their own misconduct for stuff like this.
NEVER.
It "hurts the families", and even then, as you pointed out, the JAGMAN makes it nearly inpossible to find in that regard. Even if you did, it would be reversed by higher authority anyway. Believe it.
That whole threat is just that; a threat. An empty one at that. Lots of RPM and no traction.
No General wants to tell the wife of a Cpl. with 3 kids that his medical care won't be covered as he lies in a coma. It looks bad.
Maybe if we actually did that, a few of the
other knuckleheads would learn by example.
*This is a very painful and hazardous plan of action. The face sanding you will endure will last awhile and will reflect on you in your fitreps. Trust me....I "know a guy who did this".
