Handwritten ‘no girls aloud’ sign spotted outside Joint Chiefs’ treehouse

For more than a decade, we've deployed pitch perfect satire to service members around the world.

Join thousands of troops, veterans, and defense insiders who read Duffel Blog before breakfast.

“A must-read for national security nerds.”

—The Daily Beast

Free. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.

14years publishing

4,200+dispatches filed

20,000+readers briefed

THE PENTAGON — Defense officials today confirmed the discovery of a handwritten sign taped to the entrance of the Joint Chiefs of Staff’s treehouse that reads “No Girls Aloud” [sic], with the R in “girls” written backwards for emphasis.

The treehouse — known to insiders as “The Clubhouse” — sits in the Pentagon’s back garden and serves as a retreat for the Joint Chiefs when they need a break from running the world’s most lethal military. Originally built in 1967 at the height of the Vietnam War, it has since been upgraded with ballistic armor, secure comms, and the ability to function as a SCIF.

With the recent firing of Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Lisa Franchetti, observers suspect the sign is meant to suggest women are not welcome in the treehouse, or more broadly within within the Joint Chiefs at all. Linguists have pointed out that “aloud” appears to be a homophone mix-up by the sign’s author.

Investigators briefly opened a probe, but the effort was quickly shut down after the sign turned out to be an Amazon box with part of the shipping label still attached. Officials declined to say why the letters “gseth” was visible on the torn package.

The Clubhouse has long been a magnet for mischief. In 1990, pranksters toilet papered the tree with unused psyop leaflets meant for Iraqi soldiers. Then in 2017, after Marine Gen. James Mattis was appointed Secretary of Defense, a full-color paper mâché Keebler sign bearing the Marine Corps eagle, globe, and anchor was found hanging from a branch.

During the height of the Global War on Terror, groundskeepers routinely found reflective PT belts lashed around the trunk, along with empty Rip It cans and Copenhagen tins scattered nearby.