Oh?
Posted on 01/02/2007 4:12:33 PM PST by RetiredArmy
He made one, two, three and four stars under the Reagan and Bush administrations.
"If he never served as an enlisted man then I don't care what he thinks on this issue."
He was drafted and went to OCS. I guess that means you care what he thinks?
With their civilian experience, they'd make good tunnel rats.
I wonder what the gay v. straight ratio is among Chaplains and Chaplain's assistants v. the military at large?
"Discipline, good order, and morale all say that gays should not be a part of the military."
No, homophobic chaplains say that.
Somebody with some military credibility could tighten up standards. Duncan Hunter would be one guy. He's the only one that comes to mind, and he has only a remote chance of becoming president.
In his most powerful statements to date on issues involving sexual morality, Pope Benedict XVI said homosexuals end up destroying themselves so the Church has a duty to speak out on moral issues that affect the very spiritual and physical lives of man.
Compare the lists on post 24 and post 98. Pick the top five or so nations from each. Who do you think would win in a fight?
What matters is actual battlefield issues. I can't expect a civilian to understand the feelings about this among the troops. Those unexpressed sentiments are evident in conversation.
Troops would NOT want to be treated when they are wounded and bleeding by someone who is HIV positive OR suspect. They wouldn't want to treat someone who is bleeding and HIV positive OR suspect.
Troops realize that the emergency blood supply if they are wounded would come from their own comrades. They consider it unfair that they can give good blood to someone who would be gay, but they would not be able to have their lives saved by a gay member giving blood to them BECAUSE the blood supply would be SUSPECT or actually infected.
They also realize that the gay troops are far more likely to be infected with other blood-borne pathogens.
They realize that any blood test given in the military every OTHER year is not important because of the extreme promiscuity of gays. They realize that even IF blood tests were given on deployment (which is not the norm) they are insignificant because of sexual contacts that can be made by deployed members with multi-national forces or with the local population. Incubation times of the HIV virus before it is transmitable by a newly infected host are not that long.
In short, there would be huge morale issues based on biological and bahavioral concerns with gays.
Your ad hominem attack on me is of no consequence. All that matters are the real issues.
See the following article.
HIV leaps among young gay Americans
Aids has killed almost 450,000 Americans
Young gay and bisexual men in the United States, especially those who are black, are becoming infected with HIV at rates similar to those seen when the Aids epidemic peaked in the mid-1980s, according to a new study. The report's staggering figures reveal that one-third of all black gay and bisexual male Americans under the age of 30 are HIV positive, and that infection rates have climbed sharply.
Infection rates are comparable with those of sub-Saharan Africa, the continent worst hit by Aids
The study was released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on the 20th anniversary of the discovery of the disease Aids, which is caused by HIV .
Scientists tracked almost 3,000 young bisexual and gay men in six US cities for two years.
Explosive rates
Every year the number infected with HIV grew by 4.4%.
"These are explosive HIV incidence rates," said Dr Linda Valleroy, the CDC epidemiologist who led the study.
The CDC admitted that its small sample might not be representative for all gay men, but it described the study's findings as a "critical" public health matter.
Aids has killed nearly 21 million people around the world, including about 450,000 Americans since the virus's discovery in 1981.
Racial disparity
But the overall infection rates masked an enormous racial disparity.
For white members of the group, growth in the infection rate was 2.5%, for black Americans, almost 15%, or one in seven.
Researchers noted that these infection rates were comparable with those of sub-Saharan Africa, the continent worst hit by Aids.
It's very scary. This is a new generation of people who should know better, but don't
Marty Algaze Gay Men's Health Crisis
The study's scientists blamed the rise in infection rates on poorly targeted education, growing complacency and the continued stigma attached to Aids patients.
Aids prevention groups stressed the need for new ways to reach young adults at risk.
Ignorant generation
"These are young people who didn't see their friends dying, didn't lose lovers and friends and people who were important to them," said Marty Algaze, a spokesman for Gay Men's Health Crisis.
"It's very scary. This is a new generation of people who should know better, but don't."
"People don't perceive that you get infected and you die in two months any more," said Phill Wilson, executive director of the African-American Aids Policy and Training Institute at the University of Southern California.
Stigma
Some activists suggest that the stigma - both for being gay and being HIV positive - is worse for black men.
Researchers suggest the fact that infected black Americans are less likely to tell their partners about their status may be one reason for their vastly higher rates of infection.
"Whether you look at this country or throughout the world, this disease is becoming concentrated in marginalised populations," US Surgeon-General David Satchel said at a press conference in Washington.
Mr Satcher, who described the anniversary as a "solemn milestone", added that there was a desperate need to find an Aids vaccine.
Development of a vaccine, however, is years away and unlikely to be of help to the millions around the world already infected by the virus.
You many not be aware of this, but U.S. military personnel are the most screened segment of American society for HIV. Tests are mandatory once a year, and generally before any deployment. Me and my team averaged an HIV test every 9 months or so. No organization in the United States has HIV transparency to the degree the military does.
From a medical standpoint, you'd be a fool to turn down a blood transfusion from any U.S. troop. I'd take one over any civilian. You don't know where they've been.
An infection can occur during the nine months between tests.
If gays are allowed to openly serve, then the military will have an enormous problem, but not the one most people think about.
Consider this... If a gay man is in a unit, do you force straight guys to bunk with him? That would likely create undue tension between the gay and his roomies.
So, would gays be allowed to self-identify and either have a room to themselves (a privelege typically reserved to higher ranking unmarried non-comms) or to bunk with other gays? If gays bunk together, then how do you deal with the male and female soldiers that want to room together? After all, the gays will be rooming with potential mates, and one cannot reward one class of soldier for simply "being" without giving the same opportunities to the rest of the soldiers - that is a definite morale problem.
If the answer is to give everyone their own room, then be prepared for the billions and billions of dollars that will be necessary to accomplish that task worldwide.
I don't like "don't ask, don't tell", but it beats the heck out of creating a class of super-priveleged homosexual soldiers. I know this small argument has little to do with fighting efficiency, but it is an administrative reality for any large organization that houses its people. On that basis alone, openly serving is a non-starter.
"If there's anything I hate more than those who are intolerant of other people...It's the Dutch" ;)
No kidding. The point remains, you're not going to find another segment of American society that's safer to recieve blood from than the U.S. military, regardless of sexual preference. I'm very ambivalent about having gays in the military, but the HIV concern is pretty remote. The military has that problem well in check.
Check post 134 for a reasoned argument.
Oh, and spewing the label "homophobic" into this debate is neither reasoned nor reasonable.
For that matter, blood transfusions in the field are extremely rare these days. Troops are medevac'd very quickly these days, in comparison to other wars. I don't know that the field transfusion is actually still done, in the sense you're thinking, although possibly in the special ops community in unusual conditions. With the advent of combat lifesavers and individual and team IV bags, that's the preferred method to restore fluids in the field after major trauma.
So, your odds of contracting HIV from a gay soldier are practically nonexistant. As I said, there are plenty of good reasons to keep gays out of the military, but this concern is quite overrated.
From the National Institute of Health:
EARLY SYMPTOMS OF HIV INFECTION If you are like many people, you will not have any symptoms when you first become infected with HIV. You may, however, have a flu-like illness within a month or two after exposure to the virus. This illness may include
Fever
Headache
Tiredness
Enlarged lymph nodes (glands of the immune system easily felt in the neck and groin)
These symptoms usually disappear within a week to a month and are often mistaken for those of another viral infection. During this period, people are very infectious, and HIV is present in large quantities in genital fluids. http://www.niaid.nih.gov/factsheets/hivinf.htm
In short, the tests given prior to deployment PROVE how concerned the military is with their walking blood supply.
Also, the promiscuity of gays AND their unbelievable willingness to find and engage in risky sex in every location means that they could be infectious with a month of deployment.
AND WE HAVEN'T even considered that the Gays are infamously infected with a host of other diseases that are not even checked for.....to include other blood-borne pathogens.
I'm going out on a limb here, but... Israel?
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