Petraeus Aide Sgt. Maj. Marvin Hill: If You Can’t Serve With Gays, Get The Hell Out Of the U.S. Armed Forces
—Command Sergeant Major Marvin Hill, a senior aide to NATO’s Afghanistan commander David Petraeus (pictured R-L), in an interview that airs tomorrow on Washington Watch. If Don’t Ask Don’t Tell was a way to rid the military of openly gay soldiers, its repeal is a way to rid the military of openly bigoted soldiers. [via]
Why are you insulting this good man by addressing him with an officer’s rank? He is a senior NCO, a SERGEANT Major, and works for a living.
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If this *AFRICAN-AMERICAN* man were opposing our rights, there would be an entire page of comments about how blacks are all a bunch of homo-oppressing thugs.
Too bad this article doesn’t fit neatly into their stereotype. The Sergeant Major is a man of great character and deserves our praise.
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@On The Road: And let the race baiting begin….
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He’s speaking common sense. If you can’t do your job because of your religion or your personal issues, we don’t want you in the military.
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“…Command Sergeant Major, is the senior enlisted advisor to the commanding officer and carries with it certain ceremonial functions such as caring for the unit’s colors (flag). Additionally, they serve as monitors of, and advocates for, the enlisted men in the command. Because the Command Sergeant Major represents all of the enlisted soldiers in the command, he or she does not wear the collar insignia of his or her career specialty (e.g., infantry, quartermaster, intelligence, inter alia), but instead wears the Command Sergeant Major collar insignia.” -Wikipedia
As the Command Sergeant Major, CSM Marvin Hill is an important and influential voice within the US expeditionary force in Afghanistan’s command staff as the enlisted troop’s advocate and the representing the enlisteds’ perspective and point-of-view in personnel and living-conditions.
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@On The Road: Ya know what, I didn’t even notice the colour of his skin when I was reading the article – I don’t really pay attention to things like that. What I do pay attention to is pettiness and narrow minded opinions – those come from all skin colours….and seems the whites are pretty damn good at it.
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@Mark: Understood, but it’s enormously frustrating to servicemembers when civilians don’t understand very simple differences such as the officer-enlisted delineation. Can we call this a learning moment?
Regardless, this guy is a champ. He’s the command Sergeant Major for the entire ISAF force, which means that he’s the senior enlisted man for all American and coalition forces in the battle-space. Good reading on him at the ISAF website:
http://www.isaf.nato.int/about-isaf/leadership/command-sergeant-major-marvin-l.-hill.html
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bravo Maj. I’ve been waiting for that for sometime now, instead of excuses that it’s too hard or too complicated to enact. It’s the role of leadership to lead and implement change as well as management, if you can’t do it than don’t be in the leadership position.