Posted on 02/26/2005 3:36:51 PM PST by Former Military Chick
The US military has always been sabotaging itself with its flawed "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy on gay service personnel and now a government study shows exactly how much.
The military has discharged 9,488 soldiers for being gay, lesbian, or bisexual since the policy went into effect in 1993. It has had to spend at least $200 million to recruit and train their replacementsmany in the key areas of intelligence, linguistics, interrogations, and code-breaking. The statistics come from a new Government Accountability Office report initiated by US Representative Martin Meehan of Lowell, who was joined by 19 other lawmakers in requesting the report.
In this time of terrorism, budget tightening, and thinned ranks when retired service people are being pressured to reenlist the military needs all the talent it can recruit. It especially needs foreign-language specialists, but more than 300 have been let go, according to the report, and 54 of those spoke Arabic. Other languages included Farsi and Korean, Chinese, Serbo-Croation, and Vietnamese.
The study noted that 757 of the 9,488 soldiers discharged under the policy held what the military called "critical occupations," encompassing not only linguists and intelligence experts but air traffic controllers, mechanics, missile operators, flight engineers, and technical analysts.
The report, which looked at the Marines, Air Force, Navy, and Army, indicated that costs could be higher than estimated because they did not include National Guard, Reserves, or Coast Guard forces.
- - -
Meehan, a senior Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, has long urged repeal of the ''Don't Ask, Don't Tell" law. He will file a bill next week to take the counterproductive statute off the books.
(Excerpt) Read more at boston.com ...
I wonder how many of the 9,plus discharged military wanted to leave because of their CIC?
PING
"Well, I guess we just need to revert to the old system and put them all back into the closet so we can cut down on discharges."
This is how it worked when I was in the service. As a student linguist at DLI, my roommate decided to move one day. He moved in with one from his class. No one ever said anything about them being a couple. But then, they acted and dressed like soldiers and not queens.
It does make a difference. I never had reason to express my opinion. It was their business.
Again, they comported themselves as soldiers.
If I am correct I think I read an article last week on the British Navy openly recruiting gays. Keep your eyes on the British Navy and you will see that money to replace open homosexuals is money well spent.
I can understand the prohibition on inter-millitary romance (which is also regularly flaunted).
Wonder if folks were doing somthing in the barraks or were found out for somthing that they did on leave.
This whole "hatred of gays" as some kid of religious ritual is just odd. The bible also forbids premarital heterosexual sex in even harsher terms, but you don't find people getting beat up or killed for it.
It seems a lot of people gloss over the biblical tracts that apply to them most and focus on the stuff that applies to others. "The rich have as much chance as getting into Heaven as a camel through the eye of a needle." etc. Just human nature, I suppose.
There are folks who do not want to flaunt their lifestyle. That want to serve and are willing to sacrifice one for the other and further abide by the regulations.
Excellent comment, thank you.
And, that is all we want them to do: comport themselves as soldiers. Military duty is a serious endeavor, not a sex club/one big party.
Heh. Gays at DLI, no kidding?
My experience with that world is that probably 20 percent of the guys and half the women were to all appearances gay. Their superiors didn't care as long as they did their jobs and weren't in anyone's face about it -- which is the way it always has been, I suppose.
At the same time, the CID and the Navy version of same was expending huge efforts to "break gay rings." I thought that was a silly abuse of resources. I never had a gay guy solicit me, and I presume that gay people are even better at picking one another out than the rest of us are at finding them -- so to that extent, it's a non-issue too.
But -- the whole pressure for gays to be "open" in the military is about gay activism, not the patriotism of gays. It's also, from what I have seen, a much bigger deal for the lesbians. Gay men seem to collect in certain specialties -- definitely, intelligence linguist is one of them -- and don't seem to take the "army" army all that seriously. There are probably thousands of them who did their duty and now collect a military retirement without ever bothering anyone.
Gay women, on the other hand, seem to get into the tinsel and trappings of military life and trip on what little power one gets with rank. Lesbians in general tend to be miserable, angry people, and they're usually horrible leaders, but they're good at playing "regulation games." But again, thousands of them have made their contribution (usually annoying the hell out of any straights that fall into the clutches, but no one dies of it) and moved on.
So I can live with "the love that dare not speak its name" as long as it holds to that description. That's a whole different thing from encouraging gay enlistment. Someone else made a point about some 18 year olds not having their sexuality sorted out (which may be true, but what about all that gay rubbish about it being inborn... oh, that's all rubbish, innit?) and that means that your confused 18 year old who hasn't got it sorted out may very well fall into the orbit of an older guy who has got it all sorted out. (Although if he's still puzzled by 18, it probably serves him right).
d.o.l.
Criminal Number 18F
It's always amusing when people point to the professional, but culturally and militarily insignificant forces of Norway, Denmark or Canada as a model for the USA. Or for that matter, what's left of the Royal Navy. They're lucky that the Argies tried it on two dozen years ago, because todays British forces couldn't retake the Falklands from Argentina.
Of course an irrelevant force can welcome gays. Who better for a military service that's basically just for show? They've always been boffo in show business.
d.o.l.
Criminal Number 18F
That's just totally wrong. I don't support the idea of gays serving in the military, but I absolutely don't support the idea of murdering people for any reason what-so-ever.
There was a case just like this at a Stateside base (Campbell?) a couple of years ago. A soldier in an infantry unit was dating a female impersonator and apparently didn't mind his buddies knowing. One night one of them got drunk and beat the poor kid to death. It was a particularly cowardly murder, the victim was beaten to death with a baseball bat while he was sleeping.
In this case, apparently, one or more of the soldiers had complained about the gay fellow but the chain of command didn't want to take action against him, because he was a good troop.
While the media focused on the gay issue, that was only part of it. The killer and victim had fist-fought before (and the victim had won the fight, IIRC). The killer was clearly, in retrospect, a sociopath. He had, by the way, been boasting about his criminal activities before joining the army (no idea if the boasts were true).
The Army threw the book at the murderer and he is serving a life sentence. The others who had egged him on got long sentences and a dishonorable discharge.
Unfortunately today's JAGs and the officers that serve on courts martial have gone soft -- I would have had the lot of them hung for killing that guy, and I wouldn't care if *he* was the female impersonator. You have to keep a sense of proportion about these things! Having soldiers that kill soldiers is a heck of a lot more serious problem than having a guy who's dating another guy who wants to be Judy Garland.
d.o.l.
Criminal Number 18F
Got to remember how many murders are crimes of passion. Allowing gays increases their likehood. All the same, the number of such killing is probably small and the victim might not be actually gay at all but simply some effeminate looking guy who is odd and invites agression. Ironically the closet gay may be someone you would never suspect.
More often than not, those things happen as a result of a "lovers spat", where either the person killed was refusing the attention of a gay person, was sexually harrassing another soldier, or was fighting it out with a gay person - often by proxy.
Most knock-down drag-out fights in the barracks in general are related to sex: Who is getting laid by whom, or who isn't. The runner-up cause is theft.
Not true. The Bible describes most of the various sexual oddities as shameful things. It describes homosexual along with bestiality, both of which are characterized as "abominations".
but you don't find people getting beat up or killed for it.
You surely do, and used to much more. Never heard of brothers going out and beating the snot out of the guy who seduced their sister (nevermind which way it really happened)? Never heard of shotgun weddings?
This is how it worked when I was in the service. As a student linguist at DLI, my roommate decided to move one day. He moved in with one from his class. No one ever said anything about them being a couple. But then, they acted and dressed like soldiers and not queens.
Okay let's get to the heart of the matter. Your roomate was in the closet at the time in a posh two man room situation. Would you feel comfortable in shower with him after six months at sea?
Thank you for your kind words, my heart breaks for the family. Yes, no one deserves this.
How true!
"Discovering sexual orientation..." What a load of bunk! There are men and there are women; they are sexually "oriented" towards each other. Anything else is perversion.
The DLI barracks were 2-men (now person) rooms. His behaviour was proper. He kept his personal life private.
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