{"id":184888,"date":"2011-12-21T20:20:00","date_gmt":"2011-12-22T01:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2011\/12\/21\/yes-this-is-a-change-for-the-better\/"},"modified":"2011-12-21T20:20:00","modified_gmt":"2011-12-22T01:20:00","slug":"yes-this-is-a-change-for-the-better","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2011\/12\/21\/yes-this-is-a-change-for-the-better\/","title":{"rendered":"Yes, this is a Change for the Better"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>One of the things that happens in the US Navy is that, after a long deployment, there is a passionate reunification on the dock.<\/p>\n<p>Well, the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.msnbc.msn.com\/id\/45753034\/ns\/us_news-life\/#.TvK-DfL4WuJ%5C\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">end of Don&#8217;t Ask, Don&#8217;t Tell has caught up with this<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote style=\"color: blue;\"><p>A Navy tradition caught up with the repeal of the U.S. military&#8217;s &#8220;don&#8217;t ask, don&#8217;t tell&#8221; rule on Wednesday when two women sailors became the first to share the coveted &#8220;first kiss&#8221; on the dock after one of them returned from 80 days at sea.<\/p>\n<p>Petty Officer 2nd Class Marissa Gaeta of Placerville, Calif., descended from the USS Oak Hill amphibious landing ship and shared a quick kiss with her partner, Petty Officer 3rd Class Citlalic Snell of Los Angeles. The crowd screamed and waved flags around them.<\/p>\n<p>Both women, ages 22 and 23 respectively, are fire controlmen in the Navy. They met at training school and have been dating for two years.<\/p>\n<p>Navy officials said it was the first time on record that a same-sex couple was chosen to kiss first upon a ship&#8217;s return. Sailors and their loved ones bought $1 raffle tickets for the opportunity. Gaeta said she bought $50 of tickets. The Navy said the money would be used to host a Christmas party for the children of sailors. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/img207.imageshack.us\/img207\/3853\/111221navyhomecomingkis.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The happy couple.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One of the things that happens in the US Navy is that, after a long deployment, there is a passionate reunification on the dock. Well, the end of Don&#8217;t Ask, Don&#8217;t Tell has caught up with this: A Navy tradition caught up with the repeal of the U.S. military&#8217;s &#8220;don&#8217;t ask, don&#8217;t tell&#8221; rule on &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[971,1030,1006],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-184888","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-civil-rights","category-lgbtq","category-military"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184888"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=184888"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184888\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=184888"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=184888"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=184888"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}