Actually, since you bring it up, Diogenes, a male E-5 from my unit in Sigonella, Sicily was sentenced to a prison sentence in Leavenworth by military court martial in Rota, Spain in 1996. His crime was raping an 18 year old male, a dependent son of a Marine stationed on base.
Again, isolated incident. But it was somebody I knew, in my unit. I hesitated to bring it up right away, since the incident was particularly ugly, and not really germane to normal homosexual relations. But if you’re going to discuss rape, rest assured it happens, and females aren’t the only victims.
Leaving aside the issue of gays in the military for a moment, the larger question is one of sex in a combat zone. There’s no question that it’s a problem. Female sailors and soldiers are getting pregnant at record pace on deployment. This leaves units undermanned when they leave. Keeping females out of support units and combat ready ships, though, leads to claims that their careers are being hindered, and cries of discrimination.
How on earth, Diogenes, would you address this dilemma?
Who was the comedian who said that if he were in the military, he’d WANT gay men in his unit, because he felt they’d protect “his ass better if they thought it was cute.”
If you think America fights without gay personnel because of the DADT policy, then you need to re-think the time you spent in the service. Remember that major who was still single at his LTC promotion party? How about the really cute SSgt who didn’t ever date within the office… and never talked about dating while she was at the office?
Being gay doesn’t stop you from serving, or from getting a clearance – it just forces you to lead a double life, and keeps you from forming real camaraderie with any of the soldiers in your unit who are as closed-minded as you are. How well do you think a gay soldier needs to know the guys in his unit before he’ll come out to them (in private) and be certain that they’re not going to out him?
The policy forces otherwise exemplary soldiers to lie and keeps them from having strong friendships at work. Should they have chosen another field? Sure. But if that’s what they want to do, and they’re otherwise qualified, they serve, whether you like it or not. The readiness argument is bullshit; the morale argument just proves that there are some real xenophobic assholes that I have to serve with.
Mr. Moto, as a matter of fact I am, and I alluded to that in my OP. I was a corpman in the Navy, HM3. Got bumped to W.O. when I got my nursing degree. Hung out with a LOT of Marines during the FIRST skirmish in the sand. Spent a fair amount of time treating them. To my knowledge, none of them were ever slammed for breaking the UCMJ code of getting themselves a nasty disease I had to treat, even though it was reported on several occasions (the occasions being; they got the same stupid disease more than once…but that’s a whole nother rant).
Also, BTW, the Israelis are Jewish. Not Dutch. And they’ve been fighting wars for so long with the Palestinians, they make us look like amateurs. My comparison is very relevant; we are the only country of which I am aware that has such a backward concept of who is “fit” for military service. If it’s been proven by other, older countries that gay people are able to serve, why can we not learn by that example?
Enforce strict rules against fraternization. They’re not getting paid to fuck, after all. It needs to be made clear that UA fucking will not be tolerated for anyone and will be equally enforced against everyone. Maybe you didn’t expect me to say this but all the fraternization and pregnancy pisses me off as much as it does you.
In civilan life people get fired for having sex on the job, and if you’re in combat, you’re on the job. I have no problem with severe penalties, busting ranks, even discharging personel who can’t keep it in their pants while in the field.
Incidentally, I don’t buy the excuse that the sex drive is uncontrollable. People have hands for a reason. Sex in the field is just immature, selfish and irresponsible no matter what the gender configuration.
Back home, though, is different. It makes no difference to me if a soldier has a woman or a man waiting back home, and there is no reason that soldier can’t perform equally well in the field regardless of sexual orientation as long as they behave professionally on the job.
I brought up the Dutch because they also have open gays serving.
Maureen, Diogenes, keep in mind, I’m open to the idea of having gays openly serve. I’m just keenly aware that there will be consequences to that action. And I think the only way to make it work is to clamp down hard, finally, on all unauthorized sexual activity, as well as any violence against gays.
We can no longer afford to ignore what the evidence is showing us. Barracks fucking is creating a readiness problem, in addition to a disciplinary nightmare. The Abu Ghraib photos, in addition to showing abuse of prisoners, also show soldiers screwing each other blue, and one of the accused, Lynndie England, is carrying another’s, Charles Graner’s, baby.
All of this recognizes that service in the military is a privilege, not a right. Any activity prejudicial to good order and discipline, like the ones I’ve described, should be punished. Whether they’re committed be gays or straights, they are wrong, and should be recognized as such.
What I fear, though, is that this situation will be allowed to continue, because criticism of it would be seen as overly harsh somehow. Already readiness is a problem, discipline is a problem, and the right people aren’t addressing it.
Except, unless I’m missing something, the only problem was one of blackmailing other gay sailors. If homosexuality were allowed in the military, it wouldn’t have been a problem at all, because blackmail wouldn’t be possible. Ergo, the problem is a circular one.
I’m not trying to be the military apologist in this thread, and have already explained how I think gays in the military could openly serve. But I have seen incidents during my active duty time that cause me not to be able to say that this could be accomplished with no problems.
There will, of course, be problems. Anybody who was in the military and has a passing acquaintance with the culture knows there will be incidents. The question is whether they will be managable ones, ones that won’t degrade readiness and discipline. That should be the debate.
I wasn’t so much submitting this thread as a debate, as I was flaming that fundie splinter group and the whole Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy for yet again reinforcing the idea that gays are second class citizens, and shouldn’t be allowed to serve.
However; I am sure there will be problems. There’s no denying it won’t be an easy transition. Then again, it wasn’t an easy transition when the armed forces started letting black people serve. There was another struggle when women started serving. But it is generally accepted that people who are mentally and physically sound (and sometimes the mentally thing is iffy) regardless of race, creed or gener are allowed to serve. Gays are the only exception, and the excuses are becoming threadbare.
Well, sure. Thing is, there are no equal rights in the military anyway, so I’m always perplexed when people demand them.
Sure, let the gays in. You’ll still have to leave the nearsighted out, and this is inherently discriminatory.
So all we’re really doing is debating exactly how discriminatory the military is.
If a strong case can be made that gays in the military harms unit cohesion, and invites blackmail and foreign intelligence exploitation of military secrets, then the moral and correct thing to do is to exclude gays from the military. Not excluding them will get other soldiers killed. The same, incidentally, goes for women in combat units, front-line support units, or combat ships. If they can’t contribute fully to the mission there, they shouldn’t be there. Period.
If that case can’t be made, then the moral and correct thing to do is to include gays in the military, and women in a greater role.
However, you can’t simply dismiss policymakers or who try to weigh these considerations as bigots. Any mistakes they make won’t just cost someone a paycheck - the stakes are far higher than that.
If gays weren’t treated like shit, this probably wouldn’t have been a problem. THe military’s constant sidestepping of the situation is the root cause here and if that gay man’s fellow soldiers had a little bit of human decency he most likely wouldn’t have “blabbed,” as you put it. Hell, the other queers wouldn’t have had retribution on their minds, either, come to think of it.
Not that you don’t already acknowledge this in subsequents posts, I’m just sayin…
You are once again comparing being gay to a physical handicap. Knock it off, huh? They aren’t the same thing at all.
How is a person being gay in any way remotely inviting blackmail and foreign intelligence exploitation of military secrets? Being heterosexual didn’t stop Brian Regan from selling information about our country to the enemy.
Are you stating that policy makers will be sending gay people to their deaths? As compared to sending merely heterosexual people to their deaths? Or that gays are unable to fulfill the function of soldier and will be unable to pull the trigger when it’s required?
Chauvinist crap? Oh, about how women should be compelled to use some permanent (or at least for an indefinite period of time) birth control? That’s not chauvinist, that’s reality. If your partner gets pregnant you can hire a temp. If my squadronmate gets pregnant, I’m fucked. Big, big difference.
Oh, and Mr. Moto has one thing right. The military is an exercise in discrimination. EVERYTHING is discriminatory, from rank to customs and courtesies to combat to induction. All we’re doing here is deciding exactly how far the discrimination goes.
Maybe I’m misunderstanding you here, Maureen, but I wasn’t comparing anything there. I was saying that there is a list of things that are permanent disqualifiers and I think allergies to birth control/refusal to submit to birth control should be added to that list. There was no comparison.
I don’t understand this. How would someone even begin making this case? I’m not being argumentative; I’m being naive, I guess – what’s the connection between gays and women in combat, and blackmail and exploitation of military secrets? Are you talking about sexual/romantic relations with foreign agents? Or blackmail by outing gays in the American military?
No, the misunderstanding was mine, Airman Doors, I thought you were equating an allergy to Norplant with Asthma or ADD. GaWd, while it sounds chauvinistic, it really isn’t. It’s risk reduction. As I said, when a woman is sent home due to pregnancy from a battle zone, it reduces the morale of her squad, it wastes training hours spent on her and her replacement, and forces someone else who wasn’t slated for a battle ready billet into the front lines. There are SOME personal freedoms you are required to give up in the military, and I agree that for women in combat, that should be one of them.
I think that’s why Mr. Moto lumps homosexuality along with physical limitations. Not sure if it’s the right comparison…I’m kinda sitting on the fence on this one since I personally never served since I do have a physical limitation that excluded me from service.
The circularity and stupidity of your argument is truly spectacular to behold.
You worry that gays in the military are a security problem because “the threat of blackmail was there.” Yet the only reason that the threat of blackmail might be relevant is because of the bigoted attitude that prevails in the military.
If the military announced that gays were allowed, and that discrimination against them would not be tolerated, and if it actually made an effort to enforce this among the troops, then there would be no cause for a gay service member to fear being outed. Thus, the possibilty for blackmail is gone.
As for the Dutch: do you really think the difference in power and effectiveness between the American and the Dutch militaries has anything at all to do with policies regarding homosexuality? If you do, you must have been smoking some of that Amsterdam weed.
As Diogenes said, why not simply institute regulations about fraternization that apply to both sexes and to all types of relationship? I’m stunned that someone like Airman Doors can recognize that the DADT rule actually provides an opportunity for military members to get out of the service early without a dishonorable discharge, and yet can still defend the rule. Get rid of DADT and you not only close the loophole for people looking to skip out early, but you also rid the military of one of its most bigoted and regressive practices.
Of course, we should remember that the military’s bigotry is not restricted to gay men and women. The treatment received by servicewomen who report rape, which has received plenty of attention in the media recently, just demonstrates the lengths some military people will go to in their attempt to maintain the “straight men’s club” that dominates the armed service culture.
It’s pretty sad when keeping the gays out and the women down is a higher priority than cleaning out the rednecks and misogynists and general psychopaths.