I remember when I was a battery commander in the Army and we had just moved into our new buildings/barracks. All the soldiers that lived in the barracks basically decorated their rooms the way they wanted to. For those that don't know, barracks are not like what you see in the old movies, they are step up like hotel rooms/college dorms now. So these guys could pretty much decorate their walls with what they want to, so long as it's not lewd or offensive.
A bunch of the black soldiers and a few hispanics came to me with concerns about the "white boys" having rebel flags on their walls. They saw it as racist and offensive. I looked up the regulations and it said nothing of the confederate flag being offensive. But I did tell them, I would raised it up through the chain of command. So, I along with the other unit commanders (their soldiers went to them too) told the battalion commander and he said he would take it up with the chain of command and ask the brigade commander what the policy was. The brigade commander then took it up with the Post commander Gen. Sherfield (who happend to be black/SU grad btw) and he had his staff look into it. So what basically ended up happening, is that the Army basically catered to the lowest common denominator and told the soldiers that the only flags they could display on their walls were the American flag! After that verdict, all the soldiers that had Jamaican, Cuban, Hatian, and Mexican flags displayed basically said it was o.k. for them to have the confederate flags and they wanted to rescind what they had put forth into motion. But it was too late then. I told them they should have thought about that before. BTW, they also had to remove them half naked women off the walls too because according to the Army...they would offend female inspectors that came into the living quarters.
I keep telling people....be careful what you wish for.
:tup:
