The Very Sensitive Admiral Has Ordered...

Feb. 14, 2012 - The Associated Press
Navy bomb school told to remove unofficial motto

The school where bomb technicians from all branches of the U.S. military learn their craft has been ordered to remove the unofficial motto "Initial Success or Total Failure" from its classroom walls.

"The motto itself holds 'potential' insensitivities and implies that our fallen and wounded EOD Warriors have somehow failed," Tillotson, who is based in Norfolk, Va., said in a memo to the Florida school.

Somehow failed? What failure could that have been? If failure is to be dismissed for the sake of supposed dignity for the mortally wounded, why not ask the perished what standard would best serve living EOD practitioners?

Make no mistake. Rear Admiral Michael P. Tillotson is certainly a distinguished and exceptional sailor, and every U.S. citizen must be grateful for his dedicated service heretofore:

He has earned designation as an Explosive Ordnance Disposal officer, Surface Warfare officer and naval parachutist.

What else might RADM Tillotson "potentially" be?

A sensitive admiral?

Well, RADM Tillotson is certainly not a Fleet Admiral Admiral Nimitz. Nimitz married Catherine Vance Freeman on 9 April 1913, in Wollaston, Massachusetts. Nor is Tillotson apparently of the mold of Fleet Admiral William "Bull" Frederick Halsey, Jr., whose wife Frances Grandy Halsey, is buried with him. We won impressively with Nimitz and Halsey did we not?

RADM Tillotson may 'potentially' be (we certainly cannot know for certain) among the new breed of flag officer whose ranks have been elevated and encouraged by the end of DADT during Obama's pro-miilitary administration. Did we say that sensitively enough?

Submarines are always silent and strange.