Armed Polite Society
Main Forums => Politics => Topic started by: Leatherneck on September 20, 2011, 07:09:53 PM
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DADT ended today. There were the predictable exhibitionists who publicly married in Vermont at midnight, etc. But when I left the Pentagon tonight, chaos did not reign and we continued to accomplish our various missions. I confess to a jarring sensation when the young woman just now said "I am a United States Marine, and I'm a lesbian." I must be old-fashioned, but I fear failures to come. What say you?
TC
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Heck, I'm just happy to see you back. =)
And I imagine the net result will be lots of NJP's for folks saying un-PC things in front of the easily offended, and the increased drama experienced by male/female units occassionally being felt by male only units. But lets face it, I imagine there'll be about as many gay folks signing up for the grunts as there currently are Muslim ones: not enough to really be significant.
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Not sure if you do "social media" or not, but if you are on Facebook, check out "Awesome *expletive deleted* My First Sergeant Said"
Restores my faith in military, especially the NCO corps, and reminds me that the more things change the more they stay the same.
1SG: "Pvt, you know how you can tell if someone is gay?"
Pvt: "No 1SG."
1SG: "Me neither. So figure it out...poke em in the ass or something!"
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I only wish I could track down an old friend of mine who was infantry E7 in the 90's & used to always give me grief for having lived in San Francisco, this guy loved verbal gaybashing - he didn't really care one way or the other - but he loved verbally messing around.
The radlibs are happy today but if the draft comes back they'll be sorry, they won't be able to claim exemption from the foxholes. In the sixties lots of guys avoiding the draft simply claimed to be gay.
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I just wish the military could make its own decisions about these things, without a lot of interference from the agendas of "radlibs" on the one hand, or my co-religionists on the other. The truth is, as Balog said, the number of homer-sekshuls in the military will still be rather low. That won't stop certain people of my acquaintance from talking about some massive influx of teh geys into our armed forces, as if they were all just desperate to sign up. :facepalm:
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During the draft for Vietnam I knew a couple of guys that tried to get out of the draft by claiming they were gay, it didn't work.
The Times They Are A Changin'.
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the only thing that's changed is that we can now ask.
We already could tell.
Anyone in a modern military unit knows there's gays in it, and they know who they are.
I reminded my soldiers that we're still soldiers. And decorum and conduct rules are still in place.
I.e. if i catch anyone prancing around at a gay pride parade in uniform: I'll UCMJ the *expletive deleted*ck out of them, because political rallying of any kind is still verboten in uniform
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Panetta proclaims zero tolerance for anti-gay discrimination. Will he extend the same zero tolerance for conduct unbecoming?
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the only thing that's changed is that we can now ask.
We already could tell.
Anyone in a modern military unit knows there's gays in it, and they know who they are.
I'm not in the military, never really thought about joining, and I don't spend much time thinking about DADT and such, but....
It was still against the rules to BE gay while in the military, wasn't it? That was the problem with DADT. We won't ask, you don't tell, but if we find out, we'll kick you out. I recall hearing stories of that nature via the news over the years since DADT was enacted. One, in particular, would have been that Lt. Dan guy (NOT THE FORREST GUMP DUDE!) who was an Arabic translator, West Point grad, and they booted him when he came out.
I will accept the notion that the vast majority of known homosexuals in the military were permitted to stay, but there were some instances of people being tossed out just because of that. I could be mistaken. Perhaps there were valid reasons for kicking Lt. Dan out, but I don't know.
What I do know is my West Point grad SIL and BIL favored a change and I sorta defer to their judgement on military matters.
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Maybe they're onto something. It worked for the Spartans after all.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdAVH-ZeUHc
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Maybe they're onto something. It worked for the Spartans after all.
I know you're joking, but it worked for us too. We brought in a general that was kicked out of the German army (his name escapes me) to train troops during the Revolutionary War. The Germans kicked him out for being suspected of having gay sex with a 16 year old boy. A perfectly valid reason, IMHO, for kicking a guy out, but still, he was instrumental in getting our militias properly trained and structured.
And, AFAIK, a lot of that structure has been carried forward. One could say that our military was basically designed by a homosexual.
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I know you're joking, but it worked for us too. We brought in a general that was kicked out of the German army (his name escapes me) to train troops during the Revolutionary War. The Germans kicked him out for being suspected of having gay sex with a 16 year old boy. A perfectly valid reason, IMHO, for kicking a guy out, but still, he was instrumental in getting our militias properly trained and structured.
And, AFAIK, a lot of that structure has been carried forward. One could say that our military was basically designed by a homosexual.
So you're saying it's all just been a big straight act to conceal its true gay nature :D
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... What say you?
TC
Had a few subordinates on the Iwo Jima admit they were gay back in 2005 and a few others that you knew were but who didn't say anything. Never narc'd any of them out and the mission still got done just as well. So, didn't really care then and still don't now.
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4 years in the Corps (73-77) and there was no doubt there were gays there. One gunny for sure. A guy in one of my units- good friend of mine, I attended his wedding and everything. The marriage didn't last as he decided he wasn't into women. Also figured out there were a few Navy Corpsman along the way. Met a few WMs along the way and some of them were gay also.
18 years in the Army National Guard. Same thing. I had a female instructor I worked with for about 7 years when I was teaching NCO schools. She was a lesbian. Big deal. She was a good instructor. We had a gay soldier in the Scout Plt for a while. It was pretty common knowledge but he fit in okay.
I expect there will be some problems as the military adjusts to it, but just like I cringe every time I read the news and see that some a**hole used a gun to do something bad, I'm sure I'll see storied of gays getting assaulted because of their orientation. That will make me cringe also because there will be no winners as a result of it.
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We'll be fine. We've been fine. I had a lesbian CO, others that worked for me. You want to serve and do a good job glad to have you, plenty of arrow straight sacks of crap not doing their part.
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The truth is that most people, homo, hetero, bi, or omni, do not have sex or sexually based relationships with most of the people they know. The only concern I see is that there is no shortage of vicious knuckle draggers who will behave badly. The smart homosexuals will continue to fly under the radar.
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The problems will come. It will come in the form of some shitbird who just happens to be gay being screwed with for being a shitbird, getting NJP or worse, and then making a shitstorm for discrimination. The media won't care that jhonny blow blow isn't doing his job, only that he's gay.
Will the military survive? Yes.
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The problems will come. It will come in the form of some *expletive deleted*bird who just happens to be gay being screwed with for being a *expletive deleted*bird, getting NJP or worse, and then making a *expletive deleted*storm for discrimination. The media won't care that jhonny blow blow isn't doing his job, only that he's gay.
Will the military survive? Yes.
This.
It will also be the reason I'm "asked" to retire at some point, because this will happen to me. I will be the NCO who decides not to coddle someone, I'll hammer the crap out of them with UCMJ, and I'll end up gettin strung up
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Personally, I don't want to know with whom you have sex, what kind of sex you like or how you dress to enjoy that sex. It is none of my business. And is creeping too close to TMI for me. I'm a fossil, I know.
Stupid policy that is now done away with priceless. Do your job, do it well. Now move on and keep it to yourself because I just don't care.
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The problems will come. It will come in the form of some *expletive deleted*bird who just happens to be gay being screwed with for being a *expletive deleted*bird, getting NJP or worse, and then making a *expletive deleted*storm for discrimination. The media won't care that jhonny blow blow isn't doing his job, only that he's gay.
Will the military survive? Yes.
Yes, yet another group that requires extra sensitivity. Really needed another one of them.
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Eh. People thought allowing blacks, women, etc would end the military. Hasn't happened. Initially, there will be some major problems with some folks going way too far. Then it will mellow out to being no big deal except another boring EEO class.
Unless you were blind, if you served, you knew a couple gay soldiers. And like everyone else, if they did a decent enough job, you looked the other way because what the hell did you care? They do their job, it's not a big deal. It will be annoying when lazy blue falcons try to claim being oppression when told to do their friggin jobs. This tends to annoy the ever lovin' heck out of the non-white, female or gay soldiers who do their job more than it does white, male or straight soldiers. Both unfortunately learned the easiest way is to shut up instead of dealing with the problem directly. There's always going to be personality issues. When you have more than one individual in a group, you will have drama issues.
We just need to get over the initial hump, and then hammer lazy blue falcons for being lazy blue falcons regardless of their... whatever. It should be, you do the job, then fine. Elsewise, GTFO.
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If the gays want to be treated just like everyone else, why are they making a big deal out of this? Just keep your personal life and your professional life segregated, just like everyone else.
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If the gays want to be treated just like everyone else, why are they making a big deal out of this? Just keep your personal life and your professional life segregated, just like everyone else.
It is actually the other way around, with the exception of a few attention whores that is exactly what they want. However, the professional life (DADT) was interfering with the personal life because they could not openly be with their type unlike the straight troops who could. The straight folks did not need to worry about being spotted by somebody at the wrong club or the like by their chain of command.
Personally, same story as other former and current .mil folks. I knew some guys that were clearly gay. Didn't bother me or affect the mission one way or the other, they were average soldiers and everybody did fine. We had a few hardcore stereotypical rednecks who I'm sure would not deal with it, but frankly that is their problem.
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There were none detectable in my unit, so I can say that homosexuals were not a problem. But then, far lesser failings would get you a ticket out of the unit and down the road and there were several active filters involved before anyone got to the unit.
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A bit obvious, but I couldn't resist:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_iH1GhM2j8
Close-order swanning about.
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Interesting unintended consequence. http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2011/09/23/suit-seeks-greater-separation-pay-for-gay-military-members/
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Interesting unintended consequence. http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2011/09/23/suit-seeks-greater-separation-pay-for-gay-military-members/
Historical cases are probably SOL. Going forward, it's obviously not an issue.
Rules were the rules when the folks signed the dotted line. I'm willing to bet the majority of that separation pay cut decision was to try to weed out folks who claimed to be gay solely to get out of the military.