Gays in the Military and DADT

[MicroBalrog]

As we know, dictionaries track usage.  They don't inform very well on proper usage. 

Proper usage changes.

[Perd Hapley]

Yes, of course.  I reserve the right to sit in judgment on which changes sound right.  "Gays" sounds really, really stupid. 

[makattak]

RD, I am not trying to squeeze your shoes here, but I gotta tell ya: these same issues apply in the civilian workforce.  Leaving around skin magazines or making gender-, ethnic- or orientation- based jokes in the wrong setting is going to get you counseled or fired after you return to civilian life.  So from that standpoint, I am hard-pressed not to think that the US military, whether point of the spear or in the tail, should not be held to the same standards as the rest of American society.

Wait, WHAT?

We want these men to go out and kill and destroy things and you want them to be "civilized"!??

I'm sorry, I don't want men in the military worrying about the crap that most people have to do in our handcuffed society.

I want them to worry about killing the enemy and avoiding being killed themselves. Period.

But of course, we need a "kinder, gentler" military. It's only civilized, of course.

[MillCreek]

^^^ I don't want members of the US military raping and pillaging, either.  And your post fails to mention the women in the military.  Which I bet was just an oversight, since they wear the uniform, too.

[MicroBalrog]

We want these men to go out and kill and destroy things and you want them to be "civilized"!??

Yes. I do want them to be civilized. I was civilized when I served in the military.

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

GREAT GOOGLY MOOGLY!

i here i stand agreeing with micro and mellestad et al.
i was a fence sitter till the grand kids went in and i met some of the friends they served with.  what special problems would arise from someone being open about being gay that don't already arise with the flagrant open display of heterosexuality? specifically what problems that couldn't be dealt with as behavioral issues.  it seems that a lot of whats being tap danced around is that some level of homophobic fear would result in some folks being unconfortable.

and we know that that fear has cost us.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=12738695

http://www.gaymilitarysignal.com/history.html

http://jonathanturley.org/2009/05/20/dont-ask-dont-tell-hero-pilot-discharged-for-being-gay

[taurusowner]

The last thing we need is for some front line troops to come back from a 12 hour mission, start unloading the gear out of their ASV and then when some NCO walks up and says he needs 4 privates for latrine cleanup, if one of them says something like "this is gay"; he's standing in front of some Sergeant Major or Colonel getting docked pay because some fobbit got upset at his "hate speech".  That crap already happens with regards to females, and it's ####ing stupid.  That's not a slight against females being capable of serving.  It IS  criticism of all the touchy feely "don't offend anyone" attitude that is part and parcel with trying to be more inclusive or politically correct.  Real front line soldiers are being hampered from doing their duties and even being punished because people get upset of trivial crap like that.  We don't need it anymore.  Bottom line, 100% of a soldier's focus needs to be on avoiding stepping on IEDs, and not avoiding stepping on some overly sensitive person's toes.


I'm totally fine with homosexuals being in the military.  But the moment even one squad's combat effectiveness is lessened because they have to be concerned with a homosexual's feelings of being welcome, it's not worth it.  This is combat.  Your feelings are not a primary concern, or even secondary.  Or tertiary for that matter.  Your emotions and how welcome you feel should rank about 59,457 out of 60,000 in a list of priorities for a fighting force.

[Blakenzy]

Bottom line, 100% of a soldier's focus needs to be on avoiding stepping on IEDs, and not avoiding stepping on some overly sensitive person's toes.

Well then, the solution is not denying the existence of a certain class of person that already exists in the Army, but correcting the Army brass' overly PC attitude that preoccupies itself with micromanagement and censorship of common human verbal expression. Petition your congresscritter to tell them to stop focusing on "grunt small talk" and there should be no trouble.

As far as "flaunting" themselves, any self respecting serviceman, woman, or anything in between, who takes their service seriously, will be loyal to their unit first and foremost, and won't behave any less uniformly because he/she/it no longer has to deny the fact that they see persons of the same sex when they are off duty. Acceptable behavior and dress code won't change. There won't be approval or tolerance of a machinegunner and his assistant prancing down the field holding hands or getting it on in the showers. They won't be allowed to wear any lipstick, flashy jewelry or walk around in cut down ACUs with a bare torso smeared with baby oil. Just because you are of a given political persuasion doesn't mean you get to sow on a "F' Bush/Obama" shoulder patch; just because you are a Muslim doesn't mean you get to wear a burkah over your face either. Every one gets squared away the same, regardless of their right to be whatever. For the most part, the evidence that people are homosexual would be letters to and from their SOs, and perhaps pictures in their wallets.

BTW, sexual orientation doesn't seem to correlate with military prowess. One of the greatest military characters in history was so light in the sandals, that he probably did pick up more men than a Chinook helicopter. That didn't stop him from killing a lot of people and taking over most of the known world.

[Dannyboy]

So the Dems in power want to eliminate Don't Ask, Don't Tell as a policy which, if violated, causes one to be summarily discharged with an Honorable Discharge. I personally have no problem with allowing gay people who mind their manners to serve openly and honorably in the armed forces of their country.

But I think it will cause some significant and ugly consequences. I don't want that to happen right now. The Service chiefs agree. General Conway (CMC) has testified to Congress most vocally of all of them that now, with the military under terrific stress from repeated deployments to places where they get killed, is not the time. I agree with them.

What say you?

TC

My sentiments, exactly.  Social experiments with the military in wartime fall into the category of "Very Bad Things."

[Balog]

Social experiments with the military in wartime fall into the category of "Very Bad Things."

Pretty much this.

[mellestad]

Wait, WHAT?

We want these men to go out and kill and destroy things and you want them to be "civilized"!??

I'm sorry, I don't want men in the military worrying about the crap that most people have to do in our handcuffed society.

I want them to worry about killing the enemy and avoiding being killed themselves. Period.

But of course, we need a "kinder, gentler" military. It's only civilized, of course.

I think you do want soldiers to serve in an environment that is not totally different, in some ways, from civilian life, don't you?  You are taking civilians, making them soldiers, then most of them go back to civilian life eventually.  Having an environment where 19 year old kids spend a few tours without any regard to being 'civilized' sounds like a bad idea.  They have enough to worry about without creating new problems with reintegration once they are out.

I agree that the rules should be different, they have to be.  But they can’t be 180 degrees off either.

The last thing we need is for some front line troops to come back from a 12 hour mission, start unloading the gear out of their ASV and then when some NCO walks up and says he needs 4 privates for latrine cleanup, if one of them says something like "this is gay"; he's standing in front of some Sergeant Major or Colonel getting docked pay because some fobbit got upset at his "hate speech".  That crap already happens with regards to females, and it's ####ing stupid.  That's not a slight against females being capable of serving.  It IS  criticism of all the touchy feely "don't offend anyone" attitude that is part and parcel with trying to be more inclusive or politically correct.  Real front line soldiers are being hampered from doing their duties and even being punished because people get upset of trivial crap like that.  We don't need it anymore.  Bottom line, 100% of a soldier's focus needs to be on avoiding stepping on IEDs, and not avoiding stepping on some overly sensitive person's toes.


I'm totally fine with homosexuals being in the military.  But the moment even one squad's combat effectiveness is lessened because they have to be concerned with a homosexual's feelings of being welcome, it's not worth it.  This is combat.  Your feelings are not a primary concern, or even secondary.  Or tertiary for that matter.  Your emotions and how welcome you feel should rank about 59,457 out of 60,000 in a list of priorities for a fighting force.

Two things.  First, it doesn't sound like your problem is with DADT, it is with the way the military enforces interpersonal discipline.  Aren't those separate issues?  Why would issues with homosexuality be any different than the sexism/racism/religion/etc. issues that the military already has systems in place for?

Others have said it very well…homosexuals already serve in the military.  The military has not collapsed.  Why not remove the axe over their heads and treat them with the same discipline that seems to be working for everyone else?

Second, I am not a military man but I imagine the emotional state of your fighting force actually is rather important isn’t it?  I could be wrong, but I doubt “rub some dirt in it” is a good long term policy for the mental health of soldiers on the battlefield.

[mellestad]

GREAT GOOGLY MOOGLY!

i here i stand agreeing with micro and mellestad et al.
...

We agree on many things, and you always act shocked when it happens!

[roo_ster]

I think you do want soldiers to serve in an environment that is not totally different, in some ways, from civilian life, don't you?  You are taking civilians, making them soldiers, then most of them go back to civilian life eventually.  Having an environment where 19 year old kids spend a few tours without any regard to being 'civilized' sounds like a bad idea.  They have enough to worry about without creating new problems with reintegration once they are out.

You do realize that .mil service is essentially a form of militant indentured servitude?  There is nothing like it in the civilian world.  Nothing. 

Also, just which "civilian life" are you writing about, anyway?  Sounds like office drone work for some diversity-whipped corporation.  Well, not all civvie life is predicated on taking place in a cube farm.  There are whole segments of society where the hyper-feminized/bureaucratized office-drone sensibility does not hold sway(1).  I'd wager a majority of the population lives in such segments.  And a whole lot of of enlisted men come from these yet-to-be-PC-blandified segments of society.

Two things.  First, it doesn't sound like your problem is with DADT, it is with the way the military enforces interpersonal discipline.  Aren't those separate issues?  Why would issues with homosexuality be any different than the sexism/racism/religion/etc. issues that the military already has systems in place for?

These are separate issues, but one is intractable and another is entirely optional.   Choosing to increase the suck found in .mil...

No, scratch that.  Having some corporate/academic/political weenie seek to impose yet another burden of suck on those who do the heavy lifting is grotesque. 

"You already get crapped on for all sorts of reasons, great & small in the .mil, why is getting crapped on one more time a big deal?" is a very weak justification for playing social engineer with people's lives.

Which is really what this is all about: The neutered/feminized SWPL(2) segment seeking to impose its sensibility on the .mil for no other reason than because it can.


(1) Just ask those outraged by California's Prop 8.  It wasn't the "Mormon Vote" that casued it to pass by blow-out margins.
(2) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SWPL

[MicroBalrog]

Having some corporate/academic/political weenie seek to impose yet another burden of suck on those who do the heavy lifting is grotesque. 

Am I a corporate weenie? Or an academic weenie?

[makattak]

Am I a corporate weenie? Or an academic weenie?

What's your desired profession, again?

[mellestad]

You do realize that .mil service is essentially a form of militant indentured servitude?  There is nothing like it in the civilian world.  Nothing. 

Also, just which "civilian life" are you writing about, anyway?  Sounds like office drone work for some diversity-whipped corporation.  Well, not all civvie life is predicated on taking place in a cube farm.  There are whole segments of society where the hyper-feminized/bureaucratized office-drone sensibility does not hold sway(1).  I'd wager a majority of the population lives in such segments.  And a whole lot of of enlisted men come from these yet-to-be-PC-blandified segments of society.

These are separate issues, but one is intractable and another is entirely optional.   Choosing to increase the suck found in .mil...

No, scratch that.  Having some corporate/academic/political weenie seek to impose yet another burden of suck on those who do the heavy lifting is grotesque. 

"You already get crapped on for all sorts of reasons, great & small in the .mil, why is getting crapped on one more time a big deal?" is a very weak justification for playing social engineer with people's lives.

Which is really what this is all about: The neutered/feminized SWPL(2) segment seeking to impose its sensibility on the .mil for no other reason than because it can.


(1) Just ask those outraged by California's Prop 8.  It wasn't the "Mormon Vote" that casued it to pass by blow-out margins.
(2) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SWPL

Ok.  Good luck getting the world to roll back to "When men were men".

[MicroBalrog]

What's your desired profession, again?

An academic? Not yet. A weenie? Never. I'm certainly not scared of these icky gay people.

And I note that in the military in which I served, gays are drafted along with everybody else. It hasn't caused any of these fictional problems so far.

[Balog]

Because there is no difference between the US and Israel, and everything that works for one country works for all others equally...

[MicroBalrog]

Because there is no difference between the US and Israel, and everything that works for one country works for all others equally...

So clearly we can't know anything for the experience of foreign countries?

[Balog]

So clearly we can't know anything for the experience of foreign countries?

You're a bit defensive there aren't ya Micro?

And my point needs no hyperbolizing thank you, it stands as I wrote it. Saying "But but but [/random country's] .mil does X, so obviously the US can and should too" is specious on it's face.

[MicroBalrog]

That's not what I said and you know it. What I said is this:

"The militaries of several foreign countries allow gay servicemen to perform their duties without any DADT-equivalent policy. They have not suffered any problems or detriments to their forces performance resulting from this. This is an important, and pertinent, piece of information."

[makattak]

That's not what I said and you know it. What I said is this:

"The militaries of several foreign countries allow gay servicemen to perform their duties without any DADT-equivalent policy. They have not suffered any problems or detriments to their forces performance resulting from this. This is an important, and pertinent, piece of information."

Objection, assumes facts not in evidence.

[MicroBalrog]

Objection denied. None of these countries have suffered the sort of widespread problem people are alleging here as a result to the introduction of gays.

[mellestad]

A quick Google of "Gays in UK military service" brought up plenty of papers, articles and reports on homosexual integration into the UK service.  I don't see any that report serious detrimental findings.

The UK service is not identical obviously, but they are a roughly similar military currently engaged in combat, with a recent change to their policy on gay service members.

[makattak]

A quick Google of "Gays in UK military service" brought up plenty of papers, articles and reports on homosexual integration into the UK service.  I don't see any that report serious detrimental findings.

The UK service is not identical obviously, but they are a roughly similar military currently engaged in combat, with a recent change to their policy on gay service members.

And, is the UK military better or worse than the American military?

If better, how?

If worse, to what measure is it worse because of politically correct dictates of their politicians?

If we are unable to make that statement, by what logic can we then apply the observations of the British military experience to a superior American military?