Mel Gibson

Mel Gibson and I differ on many things; one being the Second Amendment and another his possible feelings about Jews. However, the man was drunk. After serving in the US Navy for 30 years and being in law enforcement for another 15 years full-time plus a few years part-time I have interacted with more than my fair share of drunks. I can also admit that sometimes I was the drunk.

Drunks embarrass themselves, their famly and friends. Their tongues may be a little looser and their inhibitions fall by the wayside.

During my last five years in the US Navy, I was assigned to the Department of Defense Equal Opportunity Management Institute (DEOMI). At DEOMI we interacted with males, females, enlisteds, and officers of all of the miltary services plus the US Coast guard. Although their were only token Marines because they tried to convince everyone they only saw Marine green.

This was a school that had started as the Race Relations Institute back in the early 1970s if I am correct on the time. I arrived in early 1987. During this period that school with all of those fine instructors could not teach anyone to like another person of the same or different race, gender or religion. In fact, by the time I arrived that was no longer their goal. The goal was to put facts in front of people that caused those people internal dissonance. Once the seeds of dissonance were sowed and the facts were conflicting with their thoughts it was up to them to decide how they wanted to handle what they had experienced.

They left knowing the military rules and regulations that governed their behavior.

In my opinion, many folks went completely through the course and neither understood nor agreed with anything put forward to them. However, they knew what was required of them if they wanted to complete their military careers. These folks retained their pre-DEOMI beliefs and basically went underground.

Another smaller group understood some of the topics better than others, perhaps racism but not sexism. These folks were making efforts to comply and tried to learn how to understand their internal dissonance and grow by challenging some of their previously held beliefs. I often visualize many of thse folks, two or even three years later, going: "Aha, now I understand what they were trying to tell or show me in%2