As part of a “thank you” tour to wrap up his time in the Obama administration, Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus lauded his own social engineering accomplishments Wednesday in front of Marines at Camp Pendleton.
During his tenure, Mabus has directed the Navy in a much more progressive direction, beginning with efforts like the repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell” and the push to open all combat jobs for women, USNI News reports.
Mabus was also instrumental in upending the old job title system in the Navy, so as to push for more gender equality. For Mabus, retaining “man” in the job title essentially constituted a form of segregation. Specifically relating to the Marines, Mabus aggressively targeted Marine Corps officials following the publication of a study that indicated women are less capable at ground combat tasks than men. Mabus accused officials who ran the study of biasing the outcome from the start. A female Marine who participated in the study said Mabus’ comments were like a “slap in the face.”
He has also attracted heat for naming a warship after Harvey Milk, whwas the first openly gay elected official. Milk also had a penchant for young men, and who lied and said he was kicked out of the Navy for being gay, when in reality he received an honorable discharge.
His far-reaching decisions have prompted calls for his resignation in the past for having “openly disrespected the Marine Corps as an institution.”
While he acknowledged during his speech at Camp Pendleton that his decisions have garnered a lot of criticism, he didn’t back down from them for a second.
“I’m absolutely convinced that the decisions that have been made and the actions that have been taken have substantially changed the Marine Corps but also have significantly strengthened the Marine Corps going into the future,” Mabus said.
Mabus told reporters after the speech that it’s natural for people to fear change and added that he takes heavy criticism as a sign of success.
“One of the ways I measure how well I’m doing is how much criticism I’m getting,” he said.
“As I look back, I don’t look at obstacles,” Mabus added. “I look at accomplishments… Yeah, we’ve had some rough patches and you take some incoming fire from time to time.”
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