Sailors: Some liberty rules too restrictive

[unhappycamper]

Officials say liberty rules are needed because sailors must conduct themselves properly in a foreign port. Here, sailors step ashore in South Korea for liberty.


Sailors: Some liberty rules too restrictive
By Gidget Fuentes - Staff writer
Posted : Monday Nov 2, 2009 6:46:01 EST

SAN DIEGO — Ah, liberty call. You’ve waited weeks, if not months, for those sweet words and can’t wait to get down the brow and absorb some of that international culture that partly hooked you into the naval service.

~snip~

Getting off your ship — even for an evening or a weekend in an exotic foreign port — isn’t the serene recruiting image you envisioned when you signed up. There’s always that asterisk denoting official rules and exceptions. It’s a reminder that your free time in the Navy isn’t exactly freedom and that liberty ashore is often complicated by security threats, fragile U.S.-foreign relationships and occasional missteps by off-duty U.S. service members.

Since 2007, high-profile incidents involving sailors — not just minor offenses, but allegations of rape and murder of locals — prompted top Navy officials in Japan to crack down on liberty, ordering early curfews, banning alcohol consumption and requiring command approvals for most sailors venturing off their ship or outside their base. Violations can draw swift punishment, from bad evals to fines and busts in rank. Similar rules, though not as severe, have taken effect for travel into Mexico and other places including the Middle East and, to a lesser degree, Europe and South and Central America.

Officials say the rules are needed because sailors must conduct themselves properly when living in or visiting any foreign port. But for many sailors accustomed to walking off the brow with impunity, the crackdown on their off-work time was akin to Big Brother poking into their personal lives.

So Navy Times asked sailors what they like or dislike about the direction the Navy’s liberty policies are heading. Of the 57 e-mails received, the majority of junior sailors and petty officers lashed out at the tightening of restrictions over the past two years. The rules are ridiculous and ineffective and hurt morale, they said.


Rest of article at: http://www.navytimes.com/news/2009/11/navy_liberty_110209w/

[Another Bill C.]

1. Hey, look at these guys!

They're going ashore in civvies and they just got off of a covered launch. I'll bet they don't sleep on those chain racks any more, either. These guys are being pampered.

[Submariner]

2. Wow...the rules have truly changed

There was no way, no how, we could EVER have civilian clothes on board the boat. Navy uniforms only. PERIOD..end of story.

If the rules have done a one-eighty requiring civvies instead of dress blues be worn off-base, then the U.S. must have developed a real sh*tty in foreign ports.

Let's give some credit where credit is due. Thanks 5 deferment Cheney. Thanks AWOL-boy.