DjCav
Ask a Hipster — Advice you didn't know you needed
Big Screen — Movie commentary
Blurt — Music's inside track
Booze News — San Diego spirits
Classical Music — Immortal beauty
Classifieds — Free and easy
Cover Stories — Front-page features
Drinks All Around — Bartenders' drink recipes
Excerpts — Literary and spiritual excerpts
Feast! — Food & drink reviews
Feature Stories — Local news & stories
Fishing Report — What’s getting hooked from ship and shore
From the Archives — Spotlight on the past
Golden Dreams — Talk of the town
The Gonzo Report — Making the musical scene, or at least reporting from it
Letters — Our inbox
Movies@Home — Local movie buffs share favorites
Movie Reviews — Our critics' picks and pans
Musician Interviews — Up close with local artists
Neighborhood News from Stringers — Hyperlocal news
News Ticker — News & politics
Obermeyer — San Diego politics illustrated
Outdoors — Weekly changes in flora and fauna
Overheard in San Diego — Eavesdropping illustrated
Poetry — The old and the new
Reader Travel — Travel section built by travelers
Reading — The hunt for intellectuals
Roam-O-Rama — SoCal's best hiking/biking trails
San Diego Beer — Inside San Diego suds
SD on the QT — Almost factual news
Sheep and Goats — Places of worship
Special Issues — The best of
Street Style — San Diego streets have style
Surf Diego — Real stories from those braving the waves
Theater — On stage in San Diego this week
Tin Fork — Silver spoon alternative
Under the Radar — Matt Potter's undercover work
Unforgettable — Long-ago San Diego
Unreal Estate — San Diego's priciest pads
Your Week — Daily event picks
Will and I got married for the extra $1452 Navy pay
Ladies and Gentlemen of the USS Higgins, Please for the sake of your good image stop. I am a Veteran of the Us Navy and cannot sit idly by while you all air dirty laundry about who said what or how to whom. Maggie, while I believe your impression of the nature Naval policy and organization to be flawed, it is your impression. I cannot change or alter your experiences. I can say that your attitude and actions appear to have caused some ill will among the crew with which you worked. This and not the navy as a whole is probably what led to your investigation. I say investigation because the outcome appears to be based on your confession to allegations that could not have been backed up and proven in a court marshal. Your marriage for whatever reason was legal in the state in which it was obtained. You did not according to your article have an extramarital affair. And the only apparent cause of your punishment was that you were not willing to stand up for your own rights as a married sailor. As for the actions of your shipmates, if they violated the trust of their marriage or their commitments to those they left behind then they are wrong, but that is a moral issue for them to deal with. I promise that the navy as a whole does not tolerate extramarital affairs. That having been said they will not go out of their way to research or discover them either. This double standard is based on simple ideas like those that govern the business world. If the navy has proof of infidelity they may take action to maintain good relations with sailors and spouses, but unless the act is publically apparent then they will willfully ignore it and continue to operate as if there is nothing amiss. The reason is simple; the navy doesn’t need sailors to be faithful to their husbands and wives. It does need sailors to be sober, alert, willing to follow orders, and fearful of the repercussions of not obeying the chain of command. To the rest of the crew who want to set the story straight, or let their side be heard…don’t. Let it go as a footnote in history that at one time you may have served with a person who didn’t quite fit in with the rank and file of navy life. Maggie’s story may not be the whole truth, but it is her truth. She comes off as the victim of a situation of her own making and as such must deal with her own failings. The navy is an organization manned by real people in the real world, and as such will suffer from all of the pitfalls and foibles that we all suffer. The navy didn’t make people bad, it just has to deal with people who have all of the vices of any human population. ET1/SS— May 16, 2008 2:54 a.m.