Sunday, April 30, 2017

Extra Credit: Marines United Scandal

Marines United Scandal
            The United States military has guidelines and expectations for its service members; veterans, reservists, and active duty personnel pride themselves on camaraderie. The feeling of unity and a sense of belonging is a major component of why citizens join or stay in the armed forces. The military has provided the foundation for an embodiment of trust among each member; the dangerous career field tends to bring people together. Social media sites are a breeding ground for limitless potential; many of which are used by military personnel. Different pages are created online to create a common ground for people in support of individual branches or specific viewpoints on a topic. Marines United is a private Facebook group created to provide a support structure for Marines suffering from PTSD; many members have been involved in aiding their fellow comrades to help prevent suicide. However in the past year it was discovered that a small minority inside this support group was sharing explicit nude photos of their female service members, spouses, and ex-girlfriends.
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            Once this crude behavior was discovered by an unknown Marine, he/she reported it to their superiors and word spread to the public. This violation of trust and unity brought negative attention to the entire Marine Corps; many Marines who were not sharing photos, but were still in the group immediately left out of fear of being associated. This brings up an important integrity issue among the entire United States military; despite this specific instance being only the Marine Corps, this hasn’t been the first time this has happened in the armed forces. The situation is very complicated and difficult to control with the vast amount of people sharing photos and posts daily online. The Marines United Facebook page would still be sharing illicit images and videos if that one person didn’t take action.
            Personally, I believe this whole situation is a major blow to the concept of integrity of the United States military. The career field these men and women are involved in is very dangerous and requires full focus to be efficient at ones job. Military personnel who’ve been involved or victimized in this event are more than likely to feel violated and have this affect their daily lives. When they’re deployed or back home they’ll have this negative event glooming over them; if deployed this could be detrimental to their emotional or mental health, therefore affecting their job performance and possibly putting themselves or others at risk.

            Have you ever been at school or work, and have something from your personal life distracting you from what you should be doing? This question is to open the eyes of the general public to realize the severity of the situation; sharing illicit photos of people is immature, but in a dangerous career field that relies on trust and integrity this is devastating to morale. A person’s ethos could refer to how they represent themselves; for example their posture, how they dress, how they speak, etc. Ethos is important for credibility when trying to persuade, convince, or attain a level of trust from somebody or something. The ethos of the Marine Corps, and the U.S. military as a whole has been negatively impacted by a small minority in their ranks. Events like these can be harmful for attaining new recruits, but most importantly it’s harmful towards the image in the public eye. Once one incident like this occurs, there’s high probability that backlash from the entire country (United States) would soon follow. People would begin to generalize the military as whole; thus the ethos of the armed forces is questioned, and forgiveness from the public possibly takes months, years, or it never is. Not just the military, but in everyday life people need to consider their actions; this could’ve effected any business, school, etc. This is why it’s important to be careful with trusting others with delicate information; especially in a fast acting digital age we’re all in now.
Here's a link to two of the articles I found to be the most interesting online. This first containing general information on the specific issue. The second taking a different approach from the women specifically victimized or their family members involved. Both are great short reads and I recommend each one to get a better understanding of the entire issue. Image result for marines united scandalImage result for marines united scandal


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