June 13, 2007: The U.S. Navy has tightened up its
fraternization policy. By fraternization is meant too cozy off-duty
relationships with subordinates. In the navy this not only means officers and
Chief Petty Officers (those in the top three of the nine enlisted ranks)
dealing with lower ranking enlisted personnel, but also relationships between
senior and junior officers. Historically, fraternization meant partying or
gambling with subordinates, or borrowing money from them. But in the last three
decades, as more women joined the navy, and better paid sailors could afford to
maintain their own apartment or house off base, so fraternization came to
include who you shared living quarters, or had sex, with. The new rules include
members of other services, to deal with the thousands of sailors who are
working with the army on the ground in Iraq. Also covered now are relationships
between recruiters and new recruits (usually young women) they have just signed
up.Â
The fraternization rules insure that a proper
social distance is maintained between those who give the orders, and those who
take them. This is because, in the military, those orders can often have
life-or-death consequences.
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