Sorry over the puppet show. Update to this story.
If Steven Mayne could do it all again, he would not have posted the video that went viral and led to the forced retirement of a Tennessee Air National Guard colonel for allowing a re-enlistment ceremony that included a dinosaur hand puppet.
“For the part I played in this, I truly am sorry,” Mayne wrote in guest column on Military.com Sunday. “I’m unsure if there is any good that can be done here, but I ask the adjutant general to reconsider these actions now that the fog of war has lifted and the media interest has waned. We need to make this right.”
Air Guard Col. Kevin Blaser administered the oath on April 18 for Master Sgt. Robin Brown while she wore a dinosaur puppet on her raised right hand as it mouthed the oath she recited.
After Mayne posted the video on his “Air Force amn/nco/snco” Facebook page, it went viral and sparked outrage among some viewers who thought the ceremony was conducted in an undignified manner. The video was picked up by myriad media outlets and garnered millions of views.[…]
Mayne wrote that he doesn’t know when a particular video on his site might go viral, but he feels remorse over this one doing so.
“Being shared on my page probably caused it to go more viral than it might have done,” he wrote. “And if I had the chance to do it over again, I would not have shared the video.”
Mayne said he hopes Haston will reconsider and allow Brown to re-enlist and continue her career, reinstate Blaser as colonel and waive punishment of the first sergeant.
Mayne told Stars and Stripes in an email Monday that he had gotten no response from the Tennessee Air National Guard to his column, which was essentially an open letter to the chain of command.
“I figured for the part I played, I had to do something even if it meant some folks being mad at me or my page,” he wrote.
Meanwhile, the 53-year-old Blaser recently told Military.com he made a poor decision for the oath.
“I should have probably stopped the ceremony,” he told the site. “That was bad judgment, I one hundred percent admit that.”