Drudge linked to a story today titled Navy Will Inspect Its Bathrooms for ‘Degrading’ Images of Women. There isn’t really anything new about military policy in the basic article; women wanted in and the final mopping up operations of marking the territory are pretty much on schedule:
“If there is doubt as to whether material is degrading or offensive,” the memo says, “the individual conducting the inspection shall remove the material from the workplace to ensure a professional work environment.”
What did interest me however was towards the end of the article where it explained that the Air Force has made an exception for historic WWII nose art on planes in the National Museum:
According to a December 2012 Dayton Daily News report, paintings of voluptuous women will not be removed from the nose cones of old planes at the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.
Following to the Dayton Daily News story I found a quote from Col. Cassie Barlow, commander of the 88th Air Base Wing:
I think the tradition and history at the Air Force museum is just that…
That’s our history. We’re not going to go back and change those things because that’s part of our history and that’s an important part of our organization. I think the museum will keep the displays that they have just as they are.
One plane from when the Air Force was an organization of men was so troubling to the Dayton Daily News reporter (or perhaps editor) that it couldn’t even be named:
The museum’s collection has several aircraft with nose art of pin-up models. For example, a World War II-era B-24D Liberator bomber on display shows a pin-up model reclining in a blue dress and a profanity used in the name of the plane.
I have no expertise when it comes to the topic of nose art, but I did some searching and I believe this is the B-24D which must not be named:
Unfortunately this terribly un PC B-24 isn’t entirely out of the woods yet. The article references “complaints” which have been made about some of the planes and quotes a statement provided by the Air Force National Museum:
At such time when an inspection is complete, the museum staff will make a reasonable assessment before any actions are taken…
Some aircraft and artifacts contain historical art, which the museum is professionally obligated to accurately represent as part of Air Force history.
Strawberry Bitch photo licensed as Creative Commons by Christopher Paulin.
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