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.
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. 
No comments:
Post a Comment