Navy Man Gets His Panties in a Wad Over "Offensive" Call Sign

Ask yourself. Do really need this guy on that wall (obscure Few Good Men reference)?

A pilot who struggles to fit into his flight suit can be dubbed "Shamu." But as barriers to the once insular, made-up-of-white-men world have fallen — first to minorities, then women and, maybe soon, openly gay personnel — what's an edgy call sign to one person could be seen as an offensive epithet by another. (See pictures of the U.S. Air Force.) That's what led Ensign Steve Crowston to complain, he says, after Navy aviators in Strike Fighter Squadron 136 in Oceana, Va., considered many humiliating call signs for him before settling on "Romo's Bitch," a reference to their suspicion that the fan of Dallas Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo was gay.

 Crowston says the various options had been written on a whiteboard for an Aug. 17, 2009, "call-sign review" in the unit's ready room, where more than a dozen officers would decide which one would be most appropriate for several new squadron members. "I saw my name at the top of the board, and I saw 'Gay Boy,' 'Fagmeister,' 'Romo's Bitch,' 'Redskins,' 'Cowgirl' written underneath. I was stunned and shocked that I was sitting in the ready room with those kinds of words up on the board," Crowston says. "The commanding officer and executive officer" — the unit's top two officers — "were voting members, and they allowed the whole room to vote on my call sign. They went line by line, word by word, and they voted, and the one that got the most votes was 'Romo's Bitch.' "