Thursday, November 20, 2008
You think I'm kidding? Make it two months paid vacation. The pirates have won: Australia 'shuts down' navy for Christmas
Australia's navy gets a big Christmas gift this year: two months paid vacation for most sailors that will ease the effects of a recruiting slump but make the service Down Under look something like a part-time operation.
The navy hopes that by making life on the sea more family-friendly, it will attract the extra 2,000 sailors it needs achieve its target strength of 15,000.
Critics say the so-called shut down, which inspired a front page newspaper headline Tuesday: "Navy Closes For Christmas," will worry Australia's major defense ally, the United States.
"Mothballing your ships for two months sends totally the wrong message to our region and to our allies," opposition defense spokesman David Johnston told The Associated Press. "I've never heard of anything like this. I'm flabbergasted."
All 55 navy ships and submarines that are not on operational deployments have been ordered home for Christmas, and the number of sailors who stay aboard docked ships as sentries will be reduced to skeleton crews...
...Defense Minister Joel Fitzgibbon told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio that the two months break for sailors, which begins Dec. 3, is "just a way of saying thank you and encouraging them to stay in the service."
Fitzgibbon said a shortage of troops was the biggest challenge facing the Australian Defense Force and making their jobs more family friendly was part of the solution.
"The family-work balance is a very, very important part of the equation," Fitzgibbon said...
Duty? National defense? No, a jobs program.
Listed below are links to blogs that reference this entry: Australian Navy Shuts Down For Christmas.
TrackBack URL for this entry: http://www.solomonia.com/cgi-bin/mt4/mt-renamedtb.cgi/15781
1 Comment
Leave a comment to: Australian Navy Shuts Down For Christmas
Comment Info and Policy:
1) You must have Javascript enabled in your browser in order to comment (blame the spammers). If you don't know what that is, you're probably fine.
2) HTML is on, so basic html should work. Raw links will be made auto-clickable, too, so even if you don't know html you can just paste in the link and it should work fine. Keep the "http://" in it.
3) Comments are generally unmoderated, which means I don't necessarily agree with the tone and tenor of everything posted. In fact, sometimes people post things they don't really mean just to make other people look bad. The internet is an anonymous place for the most part. That said...
4) I welcome you to post here. I'd love to have your input, agree, disagree or just offer a different data point, really. If I didn't want any participation, I'd turn off comments. Be aware, however, that this blog and the comments section exist for my entertainment. Therefore, I reserve ALL RIGHTS here, including the right to remove any or all comments on nothing more than a whim. Please don't even bother complaining. I'm the one providing the space and the free news and thought buffet. I don't owe anyone anything.
Anyone who posts here will be treated as my guest. That means I'm happy to be polite as a default, but if anyone is rude to the host they'll be unceremoniously shown the door.
It may pay to recall a famous line from the Tom Selleck magnum opus, Mr. Baseball: "Jack-san, you want Yoji's advice about the babes, you come to Yoji with respect."
5) Enjoy your stay!
.
This is a joke, right? Don't let the Dems find out about this.