It's Wednesday morning around 10:30 when the Oak Hill finally comes into view, its steel-gray bow peeking out from behind a grove of green trees at Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek.
It's been three months since the dock landing ship left home for Central America, and all of the usual fanfare is waiting to greet its crew: crowds of cheering families, toddlers dressed in sailor suits, and the lucky, excited woman who's been chosen to take part in a time-honored Navy tradition - the first homecoming kiss.
In this case, that woman is 22-year-old Citlalic Snell. She's a sailor herself, assigned to the destroyer Bainbridge, but today she's in civilian clothes - jeans, boots and a stylish leather jacket. Watching pierside as the Oak Hill pulls into port, she absentmindedly twists the small diamond ring on her left hand.
A uniformed liaison who is with her explains how it's going to work: Snell's sailor will be among the first off the ship, and when it's time, Snell will be escorted onto the pier for the kiss.
The liaison asks whether she's nervous.
"Sort of," Snell admits.
As it starts to drizzle, the brow is finally lowered. A handful of top officers are first off the ship, and then comes a young woman in dress blues, Petty Officer 2nd Class Marissa Gaeta.
Snell cracks a wide smile.
"That's her," she says.
When Gaeta spots her, she smiles, too. They embrace. With all eyes watching, they keep the kiss short, and the crowd cheers.
As the rest of the crew begins to file off the ship, Gaeta and Snell slip away for a few moments alone before speaking to a group of news reporters.
They say they're both a little embarrassed by all the attention, but they understand it.
"It's a big deal," Gaeta says. "It's been a long time coming."
They explain that they've been dating for a little over two years, about as long as they've been in the Navy. They met right after boot camp. They were roommates at their first training school, where they both became fire controlmen.
Until September, when the military's ban on openly gay service was lifted, they worked hard to keep their relationship secret. When Snell came home from her last deployment in August, kissing on the pier wasn't an option.
"This is the first time we can actually show who we are," she says.
Adds Gaeta, "It's nice to be able to be myself."
While she says she already considers Snell her wife, they're planning for a wedding down the road.
And how were they chosen for the first kiss?
As is usually the case, it was decided in a raffle. Gaeta bought 50 tickets at a dollar apiece. While she suspects her division might have bought a few more on her behalf, she says she knows of sailors who bought more than a hundred, so she was surprised to learn Monday that one of hers had been drawn as the winner.
Snell looks at Gaeta and shrugs.
"I think it was meant to be," she says.
I was just as disappointed in the rest of you at the lack undisciplined servicemen and mass resignations.
Yeah, I've always taken the subtext of the Birther movement to be, "The rules don't count here! This is different! HE'S BLACK! BLACK, I SAY! ARE YOU ALL BLIND!?
- Raw Shark
Destiny and fate are for those too weak to forge their own futures. Where we are 'supposed' to be is irrelevent.
Aww. No comments? I wanted to read all the mouth-breathing conservotard screeching and see the trolling responses in hopes of one of them having a heart attack at the keyboard. The chance at endless amusement for the non-braindead neanderthal portion of the human race is lost.
Great to see a happy family reunited after a long stint overseas. This vid made me smile.
Never underestimate the ingenuity and cruelty of the Irish.
As is usually the case, it was decided in a raffle. Gaeta bought 50 tickets at a dollar apiece. While she suspects her division might have bought a few more on her behalf, she says she knows of sailors who bought more than a hundred, so she was surprised to learn Monday that one of hers had been drawn as the winner.
As is usually the case, it was decided in a raffle. Gaeta bought 50 tickets at a dollar apiece. While she suspects her division might have bought a few more on her behalf, she says she knows of sailors who bought more than a hundred, so she was surprised to learn Monday that one of hers had been drawn as the winner.
Over 100 tickets at $50 a piece
Who is profiting from this raffle ?
Wow, you totally misread that. It's $1 per ticket, not $50 per.
bilateralrope wrote:
Who is profiting from this raffle ?
Ship's MWR.
"The rifle itself has no moral stature, since it has no will of its own. Naturally, it may be used by evil men for evil purposes, but there are more good men than evil, and while the latter cannot be persuaded to the path of righteousness by propaganda, they can certainly be corrected by good men with rifles."
Where are their families? Why aren't they on fire?!
In more seriousness: It's heartening to see there was...no outrage. No screaming or waving guns around, and it seems like the crew actually supported her.
Holy shit. Weren't servicemen supposed to feel uncomfortable around gay comrades in arms?
JULY 20TH 1969 - The day the entire world was looking up
It suddenly struck me that that tiny pea, pretty and blue, was the Earth. I put up my thumb and shut one eye, and my thumb blotted out the planet Earth. I didn't feel like a giant. I felt very, very small. - NEIL ARMSTRONG, MISSION COMMANDER, APOLLO 11
Signature dedicated to the greatest achievement of mankind.
MILDLY DERANGED PHYSICIST does not mind BREAKING the SOUND BARRIER, because it is INSURED. - Simon_Jester considering the problems of hypersonic flight for Team L.A.M.E.
PeZook wrote:Weren't servicemen supposed to feel uncomfortable around gay comrades in arms?
I guess that is only for when men do the kissing. Woman do get different treatment.
Good for them, and a good for the Navy that they let it happen. I'd have bet on that her lottery tickets had miraculously not made it into the draw.
A minute's thought suggests that the very idea of this is stupid. A more detailed examination raises the possibility that it might be an answer to the question "how could the Germans win the war after the US gets involved?" - Captain Seafort, in a thread proposing a 1942 'D-Day' in Quiberon Bay
Good for the brave couple. As for the mass resignations well the goverment want to cut the numberof troops. Use those against the number they want to cut
The Army is preparing to launch in March a five-year, nearly 50,000-soldier drawdown, using a combination of accession cuts and voluntary and involuntary separations, similar to the post-Cold War drawdown of the 1990s, according to Lt. Gen. Thomas P. Bostick, service personnel chief
Lagmonster wrote:Are we going to pretend that they wouldn't be more comfortable with it because it was two young women kissing and not two young men?
don't know how things go there, but here is significantly more "wrong" to be a male homosexual than female homosexual (opinion of the homophobic part of the population).
must have something to do with ideas about male virility or somesuch.
I'm nobody. Nobody at all. But the secrets of the universe don't mind. They reveal themselves to nobodies who care. -- Stereotypical spacecraft are pressurized. Less realistic spacecraft are pressurized to hold breathing atmosphere. Realistic spacecraft are pressurized because they are flying propellant tanks. -Isaac Kuo -- Good art has function as well as form. I hesitate to spend more than $50 on decorations of any kind unless they can be used to pummel an intruder into submission. -Sriad
Lagmonster wrote:Are we going to pretend that they wouldn't be more comfortable with it because it was two young women kissing and not two young men?
Why does it matter? Obviously they want the 'first homosexual kiss' to be a photogenic one, so they put up a cute couple rather than an ugly one as well. So what? A few years ago if they'd done something like this the navy girl would have been shitcanned.
That's if you're cynical. It's also possible she won the raffle fair and square.
PeZook wrote:Holy shit. Weren't servicemen supposed to feel uncomfortable around gay comrades in arms?
This is the Navy we're talking about. You know, the branch of the armed forces with the deepest and most extensive institutional understanding of what it's like to be hundreds of miles from an actual woman for months at a time? And if hiring the Village People to write a song for a recruitment commercial isn't a sign of being pro-integration before it was fashionable, I'd like to know what is!
And don't look at me like that, you were all thinking it.
There are hardly any excesses of the most crazed psychopath that cannot easily be duplicated by a normal kindly family man who just comes in to work every day and has a job to do.
-- (Terry Pratchett, Small Gods)
Replace "ginger" with "n*gger," and suddenly it become a lot less funny, doesn't it?
-- fgalkin
Highlord Laan wrote:Aww. No comments? I wanted to read all the mouth-breathing conservotard screeching and see the trolling responses in hopes of one of them having a heart attack at the keyboard. The chance at endless amusement for the non-braindead neanderthal portion of the human race is lost.
Contrary to popular belief, not all "conservotards" subscribe to the insane beliefs of its extreme right-wing religious nut case portion .
Highlord Laan wrote:Aww. No comments? I wanted to read all the mouth-breathing conservotard screeching and see the trolling responses in hopes of one of them having a heart attack at the keyboard. The chance at endless amusement for the non-braindead neanderthal portion of the human race is lost.
Great to see a happy family reunited after a long stint overseas. This vid made me smile.
Not sure what you mean, there are TONS of 'comments' on the main link, some of them quite precious:
History was also made thousands of years ago in Sodom and Gomorrah. Could this be history repeating itself? This has nothing at all to do with hate, just like you said "this is history in the making".
Time to go back to school. No matter how many degrees you have you evidently never went to Sunday school. Thats where some of us "unenlightened" get our direction of what was in the original plan for men and women. Why is it right for you to hold your opinions of what is accepted or unaccepted behaviour as factual and our opinions as fictional? I believe that there was a Sodom and Gomorrah just like I believe there is a Norfolk. You can find all these cities in books of History. Like you, I can also see History being made right here in Norfolk, just from a diffrent perspective then how you see it.
Praying is another way of doing nothing helpful
"Congratulations, you get a cookie. You almost got a fundamental English word correct." Pick
"Outlaw star has spaceships that punch eachother" Joviwan Read "Tales From The Crossroads"! Read "One Wrong Turn"!
Crossroads Inc. wrote:Not sure what you mean, there are TONS of 'comments' on the main link, some of them quite precious:
Yup:
This is not about "freedom" or "equality" or any of the other cover words being used. This is about the media (VA Pilot and others) trying to advance the liberal agenda. Agree or disagree with the repeal of the military's "Don't ask, Don't tell" policy, this should be a non-issue. After all, weren't we told that the gay and lesbian community just wanted to be treated like everyone else?
OK, policy repealed. Why then is it a big deal that this couple has a first kiss on the pier (agree it was staged)? Does the pilot run a story on every first kiss from every returning ship? No, but we have to have this glorified when it should be just another kiss on the pier.
Can't you just feel the ?
I guess that guy doesn't understand that it's a big deal because this demonstrates in practice that the policy has indeed been repealed. Nor that the "first kiss" is a Navy tradition, and hence not "just another kiss on the pier". Oh, well.
CotK <mew> | HAB | JL | MM | TTC | Cybertron
TAX THE CHURCHES! - Lord Zentei TTC Supreme Grand Prophet
And the LORD said, Let there be Bosons! Yea and let there be Bosoms too!
I'd rather be the great great grandson of a demon ninja than some jackass who grew potatos. -- Covenant
Dead cows don't fart. -- CJvR
...and I like strudel! -- Asuka
iborg wrote:Gay navy sailor's called Gaeta.
When real life goes beyond fiction !
(reference to nBSG, in case anyone missed it).
Everyone got it, you twerp.
"The rifle itself has no moral stature, since it has no will of its own. Naturally, it may be used by evil men for evil purposes, but there are more good men than evil, and while the latter cannot be persuaded to the path of righteousness by propaganda, they can certainly be corrected by good men with rifles."
I just love the comments from people who think this isn't newsworthy because "they just want equal treatment, so they should get it!"
An unjust policy has been repealed, and the media dare report on the first, most visible effect?!
Holy shit, the world is so unfair! The media are reporting "news" about "new" stuff!
JULY 20TH 1969 - The day the entire world was looking up
It suddenly struck me that that tiny pea, pretty and blue, was the Earth. I put up my thumb and shut one eye, and my thumb blotted out the planet Earth. I didn't feel like a giant. I felt very, very small. - NEIL ARMSTRONG, MISSION COMMANDER, APOLLO 11
Signature dedicated to the greatest achievement of mankind.
MILDLY DERANGED PHYSICIST does not mind BREAKING the SOUND BARRIER, because it is INSURED. - Simon_Jester considering the problems of hypersonic flight for Team L.A.M.E.
Phantasee wrote:Is it just me or do the ladies of the Navy have the ugliest hats?
You should hear them when they bitch about looking like airline stewardesses.
"The rifle itself has no moral stature, since it has no will of its own. Naturally, it may be used by evil men for evil purposes, but there are more good men than evil, and while the latter cannot be persuaded to the path of righteousness by propaganda, they can certainly be corrected by good men with rifles."
? 
-- Asuka
