For those of you who haven't served, the military uses the term "Jody" to refer to the pasty civilian dude back home who might come sniffing around your girlfriend (or, I suppose, boyfriend, these days - the name works either way) while you're deployed. It's a derogative term, an insult, and a taunt one might fling at another soldier about what his girl and Jody are doing back home.
But now we learn that, while one can be a Jody in the United States and suffer no more than a shiner and a few loose teeth, in China, being a Jody will get you some jail time.
A man in China has been sentenced to 10 months in prison for destroying a “military marriage” by dating and cohabiting with the wife of a serving People’s Liberation Army (PLA) soldier.
China’s Criminal Law stipulates that anyone cohabiting or marrying another person knowing that he or she is the spouse of a PLA soldier will face imprisonment of up to three years.
The punishment is so harsh because the state is obliged not only to give special protection to the marriage of a soldier but also to respect and protect the honour of serving members of the military, according to China’s National Defence Law.
Granted that China's justice system is a little harsher than ours, but honestly, in this case, my sympathies are with the soldier. I've known too many guys who, while deployed in some dusty, unpleasant craphole, have gotten a letter or a call from a buddy letting them know something bad was happening at home.
Apparently this Chinese Jody, whose real name is "Ma," got off easy. Why? He came clean in court. Credit, I suppose, for 'fessing up.
Ma’s admission of the crime in court meant he was given a more lenient sentence, the report said.
An editorial in the People’s Court Daily said soldiers generally live far away from home and can not take care of their families. Therefore, it is “immoral and criminal” to take advantage of their absence to destroy their marriage.
“With their marriage jeopardised, soldiers’ mindset will be affected and the army’s fighting capacity will be weakened,” the editorial said.
I'm not a fan of the Chinese Communist Party, or how bellicose the People's Liberation Army has become, but when it comes to common soldiers, the troops on either side often have more in common with each other than with the order-generating REMFs (Rear Echelon Military Folks) who send them out. So in this case, I can't feel too bad for this Chinese Jody.
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Incidentally, another little Army-ism is that the shouted cadences used to mark time while marching or running are often referred to as "Jody calls," probably because so many of them follow the themes of loneliness and longing for home, as well as wondering just what the heck might be going on back there while the soldier's out training to administer 66th-trimester abortions to the bad guys.
Our own Army Times also reported on this story. One has to wonder, was this presented as a cautionary tale for deployed troops? Perhaps to encourage them to keep tabs on what's going on back on the block? We can only speculate.
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