President Obama & Army wedding ... your thoughts?

PO2 Crowder, those of us still in uniform take an oath to obey the orders of the President of the United States. We do so without prejudice. Our loyalty lies with the office itself, not the person. Disrespecting that office is an affront to all those who put their lives on the line to defend it. As for the world being a far more dangerous place in the cold war, I disagree. it is neither safer nor more dangerous, just different. However, we have had forces deployed at war for 13 years now, at a very steep cost in terms of lives, limbs, and post traumatic stress. No one here is lobbying to quell free speech, we are simply asking you to do so in a polite and respectful way that your brothers and sisters in arms deserve. On at least three occasions you have asked other Servicemembers including me whether we are threatening you. No one is threatening you. We are simply asking you conduct yourself as the professional we expect from our fellow Servicemembers.

I appreciate your response Aaron. I have recently found myself questioning the value of RP as it (generally) appears more like a forum ripe for petty bickering and trolling than one geared towards professional development and/or expansion of one's professional network.

Thanks for the feedback, MAJ (Join to see) -- we are perpetually working to make the site's experience better for all who engage with it. We'd love to hear from you directly, actually. Are you interested? :)

Sure CPT Aaron Kletzing, it's an honor to participate.

Below is the relevant statute:

Use of the internet to threaten “the person of another” constitutes a violation of 18 U.S.C. § 875 ( interstate communication of threat to injure) If it is communicated interstate, federal jurisdiction is created.

Please see the statute at the following link:

http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/18/875.html

To constitute "a communication containing a threat" under Section 875(c), a communication must be such that a reasonable person (1) would take the statement as a serious expression of an intention to inflict bodily harm (the mens rea), and (2) would perceive such expression as being communicated to effect some change or achieve some goal through intimidation (the actus reus). A message is a "threat" if a reasonable recipient would tend to believe that the originator of the message was serious about his words and intended to effect the violence or other harm forewarned, regardless of the speaker's actual motive for issuing the communication.

Any person who willfully threatens to commit a crime which will result in death or great bodily injury to another person with the specific intent that the statement made verbally in writing or by means of an electronic communication device is to be taken as a threat even if there is no intent of actually carrying it out which on its face and under the circumstances in which it is made is so unequivocal unconditional immediate and specific as to convey to the person threatened a gravity of purpose and an immediate prospect of execution of the threat and thereby causes that person reasonably to be in sustained fear for his or her own safety or for his or her immediate family's safety.

It is not necessary for the victim to actually be placed in fear of imminent serious bodily injury or for the accused to have the capability or the intention to actually carry out the threat. The offense is completed if the accused, by his threat, sought as a desired reaction, to place a person in fear of imminent serious bodily injury.

PO2 Crowder, I to am a retired member and I also have negative thoughts about our current President. However, this site is seen by many members that are currently serving who cannot speak freely about the President or any other elected official. Instead of coming out speaking against our current members and all and out being a ******bag. Why don't you actually help mentor these folks. Unless you have something to say that will help these folks progress in their careers and make our Armed Services better, stay off the boards and let the rest of us do what you SHOULD be doing.

LTC Yinon Weiss This was an image we could capture before he went back deleting all his threads. Still looking for survivors.......

Disparagement is a false or malicious statement. Criticism is an unfavorable judgement or analysis and is protected speech in an environ such as this. It is fair to line up the behavior of this president and view it in light of past presidents. Should a round of golf interrupt two scheduled weddings? I think not.

Well all respect to you SGT J Brainard. You are correct I looked further into it. The couple invited the president hours before this happen to the wedding he declined then this happen I think he only apoligized to save face with the public. Or it could have been someone didn't show him the invite and said he would be to busy but the two captains said they had invited him so it's all words from there. But I hope he was sinsire about the apology.

I did look into it a little further, it seems it was the Golf Course manager who made the decision not to tell the Presidents staff that the course was booked. As for sincere apology or not? Who am I to judge?

SSgt (Join to see) CW5 (Join to see) SPC (Join to see) Reminds me when I saw a post on Facebook "President lowers flags to half staff for Whitney Houston". I think it was just after Shirley Temple Black passed away. And the rage was they weren't lowered for her but he did for Whitney. Raised a lot of hate and discontent. It's no secret I am a conservative but instead of joining the rage I researched the event. What I found was the state of New Jersey lowered the flag by order of Governor Christy. He ordered it for the death of Whitney because she was from Jersey.

The moral of the story read the story and research before reacting to the headline.

EXACTLY!!!! I'm no fan of our current President, and think he's doing a lot of things wrong, but the media and certain right-wingers will use ANY excuse to criticize him, and it's solely because of the (D) after his name.

Politics is tribal, it's not rational.