14. The Navy’s Backhanded Apology

Whether a fauxpology, a non-apology apology, or a backhanded apology, it’s a type of apology not offering remorse and assigns blame to the person receiving the apology. Faux is fine for leather or fur, but not apologies.

Giving someone a backhanded apology is the equivalent of not respecting or acknowledging the feelings of the person who is telling you that you’ve caused them pain. Now, this is the Navy I’m up against, but kindness and compassion from the entity who prides itself on “taking care of our (choke) own” as many Navy Programs boast, should be able to offer this to a member of a Navy family without questioning the validity of what I’m saying. (Side note: I still prefer what Secretary Austin says, which is taking care of our “Service Members and their families.”)

In my initial June 2021 email chain with the Navy Gold Star Program “representative,” as I am unclear if I am legally permitted to use her name, she wrote these three fauxpologies—

1. “We apologize if someone inaccurately told you or your spouse that tributes are created by individual research via Google, they are not and have never been.”

2. “I want to apologize again to you for any offense our Tribute post last year may have caused you or your family, it was unintentionally done.”

3. “Again, we are sorry for any harm you feel you incurred but I am unsure what more, specifically, we can do on this matter at this time.”

In her non-apology apologies, she adheres to Public Relations 101, never accept responsibility and place blame on the other person. If this were an apology she would not belittle me with “We apologize if,” “may have caused,” or “you feel you incurred.”

This Navy civilian employee, is a ”mean-girl.” I’m still uncomfortable saying I was bullied. This representative behaved like a bully. Relational aggression is subtle. Some Aviator friends of Allison’s used to not look at me when introduced, or acknowledge my presence in conversations. In the military when someone does this it’s intentional. It’s psychological. It’s bullying, no matter how subtle.

What makes her a mean-girl, relationally aggressive, a bully?

The military affiliation she has per her job, is enough to illustrate that she should understand military culture and context. She writes about it often. Yet, she did not treat me as though I was part of the “Navy Family”—

1. In the Navy, when you don’t know the person with whom you are emailing, you typically close out all emails with, “Very Respectfully.” She closed her emails to me with, “Respectfully.” In Navy culture when one does this, it is a backhanded slight. Most every other civilian I emailed with signed off emails with, “Very Respectfully.” I did the same with them.

2. She wrote me off from the beginning. I sent a detailed message and she didn’t look into it sufficiently. She started with: “We took immediate action at the request of your spouse to remove his name from the tribute when it was released last year and have further honored his request to not outreach him or associate his name with any future tributes.” I wrote back and said that he had already in writing instructed the NGSP that he did not want to be part of the program. She responded by saying, “In a recent review of case notes, we verified that we do have record of ******** requesting no further contact with our program in 2016. Based on this, it may have been an oversite that his first name was included on the original tribute, but it has since been removed at his request.” In fact, this was a gross oversite that violated several policies.

3. She referred to Allison by her rank and full name, and despite knowing Colter was still part of the Navy with a rank of Commander, she only called him Mr.****. Now, out in the world, so what, right? I’m with you on that, but in the military, this was a slight.

I understand the mission of the NGSP. However, as the spouse of an active duty Service member, as someone who overlooked every prior slight by the Navy and its Aviators because of who I married, as someone who has mourned the deaths of loved ones, bullying and rudeness at the hands of the Navy was unnecessary, and hurtful.

This Navy employee in not replying to my query with the respect and time it deserved showed me that I’m a military spouse who doesn‘t deserve to be treated like any other military spouse. Is this because she works with the families of the fallen? Do policy violations not matter because of who I married? If so, she would be allowing herself to be driven by subjectivity, her individual opinions, and not Navy or DoD Policy.

Stay tuned, the bullying from CNIC HQ employees did not end here…

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