The Saudi aviation student who opened fire at Pensacola Naval Air Station, murdering three U.S. sailors and wounding eight, had posted a short manifesto on Twitter decrying the actions of the “crusaders” — the United States and Israel — and encouraging jihad. But this episode of Right Angle focuses an a smaller aspect of the story — the shooter’s reaction to being dubbed “pornstache” by an instructor. Bill Whittle tells of his personal tactical call sign ceremony, as we consider the culture clash between the U.S. and many other lands, as well as the mystical male bonding fostered by derogatory nicknames.
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19 replies on “Culture Clash: Pensacola Shooter Felt Bullied by “Pornstache” Nickname”
My husband and I are involved as volunteers at the language school where those international military troops receive their English training before going to whatever military training that they are here to receive. What Bill said about Americans’ mutual trust got my attention because it reminded me of a student from an Eastern European country. He had been in the States for nearly two years and had loved every minute of it. He said to me, “The thing that I am going to miss the most about being here is the fact that I could have friends with whom I could talk about pretty much anything and not worry that they were looking for a way to use that against me. No one was looking for a way to further their own interests by putting me down. That is not the way it is in my country.” I told him that it is that way here because we have a foundation of mutual trust, and we have opportunity to make a life for ourselves without having to push someone else out of the way to get it. It all comes from our Christian foundation that says for us to do unto others as we would have them do unto us.
Such a large portion of the world operates on honor/shame or power/fear, and those both preclude mutual trust. And the shooter’s Saudi culture operates on both of those perspectives–a deadly combination. There is little room for humor, especially the self-deprecating kind as that would mean shaming oneself and then living in fear of being found lacking in honor and in power.
The hard thing now is that as our culture is being torn apart by people who have no concept of our real foundation, we are losing that wonderful trait of mutual trust. It is a terrible price to pay for what the fools among us are promoting, a loss of something intensely valuable that has set us apart for a long time.
Gentlemen, I was very impressed with the tone of your discussion in avoiding trigger words and use terms like “not compatible”, “fragile pride”, “hostile religion”, “particular ideology”, “honor and shame culture”.
However, I disagree that “Pornstashe” was intended to be a term of endearment; a “good natured” insult to bring him into the “family.” If you’re going to “trash talk” a religion, and especially this man’s religion, “Pornstashe” stabs at the heart of what it means to be a Muslim. “Pornstashe” undoubtedly believed his religion was being insulted and didn’t care if it was an act. He wasn’t going to take it anymore.
Yahweh is a God of grace, mercy and forgiveness. Allah is a god of vengeance, revenge and retribution. This is the unbridgeable gap between our two cultures.
Your final statement is the reason why they don’t belong here — they cannot/refuse to assimilate. The verbal and physical hazing is an intrinsic part of the early military life as I understand it. If one cannot handle it, then he has no business in our midst.
This notion also applies to the stereotypical millennial snowflake who cannot bear to hear “offensive” words and ideas and cannot bear to perform requisite work for a task. This reminds me of a story my daughter told about the students in one of her college economics classes. The instructor asked the students how the class could be improved, given many of them did poorly on a writing assignment, which they’d been given a semester to complete. Many of the students, not including my daughter, essentially complained about the workload being too difficult and it needed to be broken into more assigned deliverables. The teacher stated something along the lines of their generation requires an exceptionally large amount of hand-holding. My daughter said that she had a hard time not laughing at the lazy students who were unwilling to perform as expected. All they needed to do was start earlier and better manage their allotted time to succeed, but they preferred to have the assignment made easier.
Basically, my premise to those in this country is adapt and assimilate or get the H377 out!
P.S. — Before anyone gets wadded panties, know that I’m no boomer — rather I’m the proud son of two boomers who taught me from a young age that name calling is something that cannot harm me. One must own the names and deprive the bullies of power.
You are spot on about the inability/unwillingness to adapt and assimimlate. But the Saudis are the worst of all about this. We have very little association with them at the language school. And they have a very bad reputation there and in the surrounding community in San Antonio–prideful, disrespectful of all that is America. We have been “mom and dad” to the Afghans for 15 years, and they are not at all like the Saudis–far more humble and thankful and respectful. But in both cases, their religion is at the root of all the problems in their countries–no freedom of speech to say the truth of the situations so no freedom to see the truth. (And BTW, I know quite a bit about that religion–have to in order to do what we do as volunteers with students from all over the world. Have been told by some that I know more about it than they do.)
And you are right, too, about the millenials and Gen Z–such fear of truth and hard work that we will be holding theis little baby hands all their lives unless we actually start treating them as adults and expecting them to become such.
By the way, I am a boomer, raised by two amazing people from the Greatest Generation. Some boomers were the hippies (and now college profs), but some of us were trained with character to see and do rightly. And we raised our kids that way, too–as you have clearly done, too.
My girlfriend was a naval flight officer (on a hawkeye). She’s a vegetarian, and you better believe that her call sign was a delicious piece of edible meat that tastes great grilled or breaded. She took it with typical naval good humor, ’cause she’s a red-blooded American, dammit!
The slave that stood behind the honored Roman General at his own Triumph and whispered in his ear, “You are mortal”.
Part of the coronation ceremony for the pope included a clergyman holding a burning, smoking bit of flax with a reed. Three times, he was to say “sic transit gloria mundi” (thus passes the glory of the world). Everybody needs that kind of reminder, and much more frequently than we get them, it seems.
My dad knew a guy in his Navy flight school, a black guy, that he spoke highly of. The Guy was known as Ens. Boone the Supersonic Coon. Boone ended up flying fighters. My dad got relegated to P-3s.
My AFROTC training flight was changed from ‘Cobra” to ‘The Mighty Cone-Heads’ by the other eleven flights.
Bills description of the differences in the Iraq and American army was spot on… That describes our failures in Vietnam (broad based statement) – Just sayin’
“Eat thou this leek…” Soldiers giving each other the business over racial stereotypes is depicted among the “Four Captains” in Shakespeare’s “Henry V”. Indeed, the Bard’s depiction of Fluellen’s Welsh dialect is pretty much equal to a cliche “Pat and Mike” vaudeville/music hall rendering of how the Irish speak.
No doubt the Intersectional Left will castigate our culture for this incident but it was really up to Pornstache’s people at home to prepare him for our cultural ways, including hazing from comrades.
When in Rome, do as the Romans do…
How many 9/11 pilots did we train here in the USA? How many more in the future? What is going on here?
The fundamental difference between American culture and Islamic culture is that we overcome self-imposed problems by telling you to get a life, while they tell you to take a life.
Death often comes to those who invite the wolves into their midst — especially wolves with overwhelming insecurities.
Then, considering who invited these guys, we should bring in a lot more Saudi nationals. And make them personal staff for the DOD Brass, Representatives and Senators.
Cause, sure as hell, those Jr. Birdmen didn’t invite them in.
I’d rather do our own dirty work than assign it to any third party characters who have a tendency to kill us all gleefully and indiscriminately while screaming the name of their pagan god.
This really illustrates the differences in our cultures – cuz I think Pornstache would be an awesome callsign…
Right, that was my first thought, too. I read yesterday that this guy actually complained (bullying, in flight training, if you can believe that) up the chain and the instructor was prohibited contact. Then through a scheduling error they got together. Just that, no more “teasing” and he went off.
Are the Saudi’s really just a bunch of snowflakes after decades of wealth pulled from the ground?
When I look at the photo in the video thumbnail, I see “Pajama Boy” with a costume mustache and dead eyes.