Army declares new spelling of "Family"

[Nords]

Sometimes the U.S. military is its own worst enemy. Somebody clearly has their heart in the right place and wants to do good for our troops, but here's how it came out:

"The Director of the Army Staff has declared that, effective immediately, the word "Families" will be capitalized in all Army correspondence. In the Army in Europe, this rule applies to all documents in all media, not just correspondence. This includes but is not limited to briefing slides, correspondence, executive summaries, forms, information papers, publications, and websites. This requirement applies only to new documents. Existing documents, such as current Army in Europe regulations and forms, will not be revised solely to incorporate this change. The change, however, will be made when the publications and forms are otherwise revised."

You staff veterans will appreciate that this policy was only arrived at after countless late nights & weekends of debate, political maneuvering, behind-the-scenes planning, and the preparation of thousands of PowerPoint slides showing spelling alternatives.

I'm not trying to engage in partisan Army-bashing (although it's certainly pathetically easy to do so this week). Next week I'm sure the Navy will be pulling out all the stops to overtake the Army's silliness... and maybe even catch up with the Air Force!

[yakers]

This has nothing to do with the Al Franken thread, right?

[samclem]

This is now surely a bullet on somebody's FITREP.

It won't say: MAJ Smith's staff paper recommending capitalization of the word "Families" in all Army correspondence has made us a laughingstock of the English speaking world"

It will say : MAJ Smith's well-reasoned point paper brought a longstanding problem to the attention of the ACoS--got immediately results Army wide. Promote Immediately!


So, now we'll have gems such as "The tactical vehicle Families consist of three types with two subclasses . . ."

Hey, the Army is going to an Air Force blue service dress soon. What next--Navy going back to those beards of the 70's?

[Mwsinron]

LOL Ill show this to my cousin who is an Army recruiter. He might get a kick out of it.

[Nords]

Quote:

Originally Posted by samclem What next--Navy going back to those beards of the 70's?

We can only hope. It wasn't pretty when the nuclear engineers had to reveal what little there was of their clean-shaven chins...

[lets-retire]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nords Next week I'm sure the Navy will be pulling out all the stops to overtake the Army's silliness... and maybe even catch up with the Air Force!

OH PUH-LEEESE! Nothing can match the Air Farce in the area of silliness.

[donheff]

The Federal Style Manual has long required that government be spelled with a capital G (e.g., Government regulations).

[FinallyRetired]

Quote:

Originally Posted by samclem Hey, the Army is going to an Air Force blue service dress soon. What next--Navy going back to those beards of the 70's?

You're kidding. That means the Barry Manilow music piped into the barracks can't be far behind.

Had an Army buddy on an Air Force Station that became an Air Force Base, and he told me that happened when the Barry Manilow music was piped in.

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nords We can only hope. It wasn't pretty when the nuclear engineers had to reveal what little there was of their clean-shaven chins...

See my sig.

We had weeks worth of meetings to argue over the name of a program once. Some guys had done something similar a few years before but hadnt gotten management buy-in and it flopped. Now that someone else was doing something vaguely in the vicinity, they wanted the project to have the old name they picked out.

After three days of solid meetings over this, many started referring to the program as "bob" to avoid the violent reactions. I didnt consider the name choice to be a particularly good sign.

In the end, to stop the political wrangling (at least thats what they called it, I referred to it by its proper name of "BOOOLSHEEET!"), we went with the "original" name, threw out or gave away tens of thousands of dollars worth of internal promotional materials with the "new" name on them. For the next few weeks we thoroughly confused dozens of people who thought this newly renamed program was somehow different from the original, so nothing got done during the confusion. And then several months later the project was canceled in a cost cutting phase.

Given the military love of bureaucracy, I see they've raised the stupidity to newer levels. Great motivation to ER if you ask me...

[Mwsinron]

"There is no chin under Chuck Norris' beard...just another fist!"

About spit my coffee out this morning.

Chuck Norris had a heart attack the other day.



The heart lost..

[unclemick]

I don't think you can blame it all on the Army and this was long ago (1960's) and far away - so Clinton DIDN'T do it - at least I don't remember seeing him at the meeting.

We were developing and qualifying a new airplane primer for all our commercial jets - so the lead engineer was presenting to about 50 engrs/managers a review of the qual program for the new 'corrosion resistant adhesive primer:

C.R.A.P.

After about 3-4 flip charts into the presentation - the senior manager, Harold stood up from the back and interupted the pitch - "A.J. I'm going to make a senior level non technical decision. We are not going to put any crap on Boeing airplanes. From now on - it's CIP - corrosion inhibiting primer."

I believe I may have mentioned this back in my webtv days. Anywise once qualified it got a boring BMS number.

heh heh heh - and no Harold couldn't keep a totally straight face. 8)

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mwsinron Chuck Norris had a heart attack the other day.

That cannot be true. Chuck Norris's heart is not foolish enough to attack him.

And of course, he has no heart. Just ANOTHER fist!

[Arif]

Before I left the Army they decided to do the samething with the word "Soldier". That was the brain child of the SMA (highest enlisted soldier). Seems like too much time on their hands. Somethings never change.

[d]

perhaps they're just trying to get even with all those english teachers who keep telling us how to run the military