Lately, the debate over Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, Don’t Pursue has been heating up— letters from retired generals on both sides of the issue have been printed in national newspapers, and Defense Secretary Gates has been questioned regarding it. To the joy of the policy’s opposition, President Obama appears ready and willing to fulfill a campaign promise to overturn it.
This issue is of particular interest to me, both as a former college student and current member of the Army National Guard. I first became interested in the issue because of a forum at my university, but it was my experience in the National Guard that really formed the basis for my opinion on the matter.
Regarding my military service, we had a homosexual in one of my old units, and it was widely known that he was gay. Most of us in the unit were against gay marriage and not fans of the gay lifestyle – but you wouldn’t have known it from the way we treated him. For example, one of the least pro-gay guys in the unit had to be in a tent with the gay soldier, and he bought a Playboy magazine and taped it above the guy’s bed as a joke. According to the gay soldier, all parties had a good laugh. Also, when he decided not to re-sign his contract, almost everyone in the unit practically begged him to come back.
Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell is a good policy because it is designed to keep relationships and assaults to a minimum so the mission will be complete, no matter when or where the mission. We separate males and females in barracks because of the threat relationships pose to unit cohesiveness — where would we put gay people?
Many civilians misunderstand Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. The policy has very stringent guidelines designed to protect soldiers. For example, a soldier may go to a gay bar and participate in gay parades on his or her private time. The policy also prevents unit harassment by soldiers against those accused of being gay, and the policy can only be enforced by company commanders- all of which means there is a lot more protection for homosexuals than the gay activists would want to hear about in the military.
In short, the military thrives on its ability to have a single mission and a single mind. To get rid of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell would compromise the military’s mission to protect this country, but not for the reasons many on the left think.
17 responses so far
1 esurience // Apr 20, 2009 at 9:36 pm
So you had a gay soldier in your unit and everyone knew he was gay, and that wasn’t a problem. And you’re arguing this is a reason for keeping the policy of DADT? How?? Your argument and evidence is in support of the opposite conclusion that you have reached. I urge you to reconsider. 23 out of 26 NATO nations allow gay people to serve without forcing them to lie. So does Israel. It’s time for the US to join the rest of western civilization and end this policy which 75% of Americans think should be gotten rid of.
2 esurience // Apr 20, 2009 at 11:13 pm
For a more substantive and contrary opinion from an Iraq war veteran, see: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/09/opinion/09west.html?_r=2
3 mlindroo // Apr 20, 2009 at 11:47 pm
Are the delicate sensibilities of the American soldier really so important that “compromises” such as this one are still needed…? No other Western democracy still ban gays from serving in the army.
Widely respected American allies such as Britain or Israel do not discriminate against homosexuals, after all. Can you point to any evidence that “unit cohesiveness” is a problem in the armed forces of those countries?
> Many civilians misunderstand Dont Ask, Dont Tell.
> The policy has very stringent guidelines designed to
> protect soldiers. For example, a soldier may go to a
> gay bar and participate in gay parades on his or her
> private time. The policy also prevents unit harassment
> by soldiers against those accused of being gay,
Very well then. I do not see how those rules are incompatible with dropping “don’t ask don’t tell”.
MARCU$
4 esurience // Apr 21, 2009 at 12:05 am
“The military has booted 12,500 servicemembers under ‘don’t ask, don’t tell.’ Annual discharges peaked at 1,273 in 2001. Discharges have declined sharply since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The Pentagon discharged 627 servicemembers last year.”
http://www.usatoday.com/news/military/2008-07-21-Dont-ask_N.htm
58 Arab Linguists kicked out over DADT:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,275095,00.html
How, exactly, are these examples of the DADT policy “working?” How can we afford to be losing capable soldiers, including those in mission-critical positions at a time of war? And of course the discharges understate the issue because they don’t include those who decide not to re-enlist, or decide not to enlist at all because of the policy.
And if discharges are _dropping_ during a time of war (as they are), is that not an example of the policy actually harming our military’s wartime effectiveness?
5 Bulldoglover100 // Apr 21, 2009 at 6:27 am
O.K Sooooooo we are suppose to cater to the lack of maturity of grown men, with guns, while we shame other grown men??? Really? and this makes sense to you? Amazing.
IF these soldiers are unable to control their actions around gay people? Then they have no business being given a fire arm. Sorry. Mature men? would be able to do so and understand that just because everyone is not like you? Does NOT give them the right to behave like animals.
God judges, NOT man but I have a feeling some won’t learn that lesson until they stand in front of him. As a mature adult? They have my pity but NOT my vote.
6 Tenek // Apr 21, 2009 at 6:42 am
I completely agree that the military shouldn’t be run based on political correctness, and if it works better without gays then that’s fine with me. All I ask is for the supporters of DADT to acknowledge that the soldiers are homophobic twits. Any takers?
7 sinz54 // Apr 21, 2009 at 7:12 am
mlindroo: Britain and Israel don’t have our Red-Blue divide, in which the Red 40% of the nation regards homosexuality as morally repugnant and an affront to God’s natural order. And it’s the Southern Red States who have traditionally been the strong supporters of the military. Those Blue State liberals who want the policy changed, would never dream of walking into a recruiter’s office and signing up for the military they’re trying to mold in their own image.
And if the policy is changed, it’s going to be harder to convince anyone from a Christian evangelical family in the South (who are currently among the military’s strongest supporters and participants) to enlist in the military.
So while the policy needs to be changed, I believe that there will be a drop in enlistments from the Red States. For this reason, the change in policy should be coupled with an aggressive drive to get more young folks, especially liberal young folks, from Blue States in the military. Obama, being a Blue State liberal, is uniquely positioned to ask folks from the Blue States (including his own state of Illinois) to volunteer.
8 gopwriterguy // Apr 21, 2009 at 9:40 am
you should pick up Unfriendly Fire by Nathaniel Frank. I think it will give you a little more realistic view of what this policy has done than the fuzzy good feelings you might have seen
http://www.amazon.com/Unfriendly-Fire-Undermines-Military-Weakens/dp/0312373481/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1240331938&sr=8-1
9 Jonas.Stankovich // Apr 21, 2009 at 11:33 am
Fox News Channel’s Colonel Hunt strongly disagrees with don’t ask don’t tell:
“Col. Hunt: I want the best we have to serve, I do not care how they have sex, or go to the bathroom. The British and French (good military and spies, terrible governments) allow gays to serve, as does Israel…we need talented and dedicated men and women, and I think excluding people because they make some of us nervous is crazy. We once prevented blacks from serving in wars or with whites, which was wrong, and it is my opinion that preventing gays to serve is just as wrong. The “dont ask, dont tell” policy is a cop out. In this war on terror we must be willing to accept or at least tolerate things in others that make us nervous or that we do not agree with in order to kill bad people who want to kill us.”
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,279480,00.html
10 rand // Apr 22, 2009 at 8:46 pm
By your own admission, you have no problem serving with an openly gay soldier. So what’s the point of DADT, then?
Did you ask your gay friend whether DADT works for him? I can assure you that it doesn’t. While you can talk about your girlfriends and screwing women, he has to remain silent about his boyfriend and screwing men. In other words, he has to keep from you a huge part of his life, something that isn’t asked of hetero soldiers.
DADT doesn’t ‘keep relationship and assaults to a minimum”, the military code does that.
Sure, there are pretections for gay soldiers, but they aren’t always followed. There have been many gay soldiers who were kicked out of the miltiary who actually kept quiet — the problem is that the military DID pursue them. Searching their emails, seeing if they participate in a gay parade, and so on.
None of the arabic linguists said anything about their sexual orientation, but a dozen or so have been kicked out. Why? I don’t see how that harms anything, but it certainly does harm our ability to keep track of our enemies communciations. I guess it’s more important to kick out the gays than to translate the next terrorist attack!
The following countries allow gays to serve openly: Israel, Britian, Canada, New Zealand, Australia and several other NATO allies. How are they harmed, if at all?
The fact is that the Army Navy College did a report several years ago that reviewed the entire issue and concluded that there were almost no problems in allowing gay soldiers to serve openly in any of these foreign militaries. In Brtiain, for instance, all soldiers were given the option of a full and honorable discharge if they believed that they could not serve next to an openly gay soldier. A total of three servicemen took the option, which hardly crippled the forces.
A full 70% of Americans believe gays should serve openly in the military.
11 rand // Apr 22, 2009 at 9:10 pm
I guess what really bothers me is your statement that most of your unit was ‘not fans of the gay lifestyle.’
Please tell me: What IS the gay lifestyle? How is it different from yours? Did you ever discuss that with your gay friend? Perhaps if you actually talked to him like you did your other buddies, you might have realized that being gay isn’t a choice. Who would want to be gay and risk getting kicked out of the military if it were?
Since it doesn’t appear that you are currently in the military, I have a suggestion. Call up your buddy and ask him HIS opinion of DADT. Ask him what it’s like to be gay and closeted in the military. Ask him his thoughts and experiences. Ask him if he were to serve openly if it would detract from the single mission and single mind of the military.
You might actually get to know the guy. Who knows? You might actually learn what it’s like to be gay in the military.
12 rand // Apr 22, 2009 at 9:18 pm
Finally, I would suggest that you contact the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network at http://www.sldn.org. You will find plenty of case studies there were DADT did NOT work — where gay servicemen and women received no protections under DADT, where they were pursued, where they did get harassment, and where their careers ended through no fault of their own. I know, because I used to do some volunteer work for them.
Just because you saw no harassement doesn’t mean that it didn’t occur. In fact, it happens far too often. Since it’s implementation in 1993, over 12,500 people have been discharged. Over 800 of them are mission-critical, meaning they were pilots, intelligence analysts, medics, and linguists. This, at a time when we are having a difficult time with recruitment, and are reduced to giving waivers to criminals.
It’s really unbelievable that an army would prefer to have a wounded soldier go untreated than have him treated by a gay medic. If you were injured, would you really care?
In this way, it is the DADT policy that detracts from the single minded mission of the military — instead of focusing on getting the job done, they are focusing on identifying gays in their midst and getting rid of them. I say, focus on the mission and the other issues fade away.
13 sinz54 // Apr 23, 2009 at 5:56 pm
Jonas.Stankovich: I’m still concerned that it’s going to be a lot harder to get Christians from the Red States to enlist in an army in which they have to sleep in the same close quarters with gays (or lesbians, if they’re female enlistees).
And yet, traditionally, it’s Red State Christians who have provided a lot of our troops. You don’t find a lot of Blue State liberals rushing to sign up. And all those Blue State liberals who want the policy changed, want it changed to affect others; I haven’t seen one of them yet say that they will enlist themselves because it makes our armed forces more attractive to them.
So if we admit gays openly, will it be harder to recruit non-gays?
14 rand // Apr 23, 2009 at 8:01 pm
We already admit gays. They just can’t be open about it. As Dustin notes, not everyone in his unit approved of gays, yet somehow they all got along.
Your comment, sinz54, could have applied to the army of the 1950s: So many of the enlistees came from the south — how would they figure in an integrated army? They did, and they do.
If being anti-gay is more important that serving your country, then you aren’t good army material to begin with.
15 Jonas.Stankovich // Apr 23, 2009 at 11:06 pm
sinz54: “I’m still concerned that it’s going to be a lot harder to get Christians from the Red States to enlist in an army in which they have to sleep in the same close quarters with gays”
I hope that you are joking with your comment. That is probably the most absurd thing I have ever heard. The good Christian soldiers are too good to be in the presence of gays; maybe they’ll “catch” the “gay”, maybe just being near a gay person will cause God to be so angry that he will strike them dead with a bolt of lightening! Oh my goodness!
Our men and women have the courage to fight Al Qaeda, but not be in the same room as a person who happens to live with someone of the same gender back at home?
That, my friend, demeans our country’s finest. Stop putting words in the mouths of our soldiers, and stop making them look like ignorant bigots, because that is anything but the truth. They are some of the brightest and most understanding people in our great nation.
“Everyone knows that gays have served honorably in the military since at least the time of Julius Caesar. They’ll still be serving long after we’re all dead and buried. That should not surprise anyone.” “You shouldn’t have to be straight to be in the military; you just should be able to shoot straight.” -Barry Goldwater
16 MikeD // Jun 4, 2009 at 1:43 pm
Dustin,
If you’re objective is to keep gays out of the military, then the policy is working. Yet even by your own scenario, the law as we know it, is useless. If everyone in your unit knew your fellow soldier was gay then that is not any different than if we had no law against gays.
In fact the military uses DADT when it is convenient for them. And there is much disparity among the services regarding its implementation.
I am one of the nearly 13,000 men and women discharged under DADT. Not because I was “caught in the act”, or because I made a statement. The military searched my private emails in Iraq to find whatever “evidence” they could to throw me out. I was served as an officer, leading nearly 200 men and women in Iraq. Shortly before I was fired I was named one of the top officers in my career fied. Yet despite this I was fired from this job, my clearance was suspended and I was given a police escort off the base on my last day of active duty. After 13 years of service I was thrown out, losing all future pension benefits. Is that what you mean when you say the policy is working? The same fate could just have easily happened to your fellow soldier.
Why don’t we substitute the word gay with black, Jew, Japanese, Catholic, Irish, etc, etc or any other group that has faced discrimination in our nation’s history?? Discrimination is ugly, expensive, and hurts us all. Even the proverbial dreaded “shower” scenario that straights love to use to drum up homophobia was used to keep blacks racially segregated from whites. One need to look no further than the racially segregated South in the 1950s with their seperate water fountains and restrooms for blacks and whites.
Learn the full extent and damage of the law before you naively post that it’s working.
An officer who has served his country with distinction
17 travis22 // Jul 14, 2009 at 3:37 pm
Dustin- Your performance on OnPoint today was a total embarrassment. Listen to yourself on the podcast and see if you find anything to like or admire in the immature, unwordly inarticulate bigot on display there.
Then keep the recording around to listen to 10 years from now when, hopefully, you have grown up.
Pathetic.
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