Posted on 06/14/2010 4:09:29 PM PDT by jazusamo
As early as this week, the United States Senate may turn to the annual legislation known as "The National Defense Authorization Act" (NDAA) that is supposed to provide the Pentagon what it needs to defend our nation. Unfortunately, thanks to an amendment added in the Senate Armed Services Committee that would impose the radical homosexual agenda on the U.S. military, a more appropriate title for this bill would be "The Bring Back the Draft Act."
Mind you, none of the bill's sponsors would want it given such a descriptor. Nor are they likely to own up to the reality that their effort to repeal the present statutory prohibition on avowed homosexuals serving in uniform (popularly, though incorrectly, known as "Don't Ask, Don't Tell") will have the effect of destroying the highly successful All Volunteer Force.
Yet, that is, nonetheless, the professional judgment of over 1160 retired senior military officers who joined together earlier this year to warn President Obama and the Congress of this danger.
Specifically, these distinguished officers-- who included among their ranks two former Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, several service chiefs, a number of combatant command, theater, and other major U.S. and allied force commanders and two Medal of Honor recipients-- wrote:
Our past experience as military leaders leads us to be greatly concerned about the impact of repeal [of the law] on morale, discipline, unit cohesion and overall military readiness. We believe that imposing this burden on our men and women in uniform would undermine recruiting and retention, impact leadership at all levels, have adverse effects on the willingness of parents who lend their sons and daughters to military service, and eventually break the All-Volunteer Force.
Such a grim assessment has been informed by, among other data, the results of a poll of serving military personnel (as opposed to civilians) conducted by the Military Times. It found that roughly 10 percent of those currently in uniform would leave the armed forces if the proponents of the amendment to the NDAA succeed in repealing the current law. The pollsters reported that another 15% would actively consider doing so. In time of war, even the more conservative estimates of such losses would be absolutely devastating - particularly if, as seems likely, they come disproportionately from the critical ranks of field grade and non-commissioned officers. Those who decide no longer to serve are not "homophobes." They are men and women who quite understandably do not want to be put in settings of forced intimacy (foxholes, barracks, showers, submarines, etc.) with individuals who find them sexually attractive. Civilians, who polls say mostly support the idea of gays serving in the military, tend to have little idea of what such circumstances would be like. They certainly are ill-equipped to understand the impact more generally of repeal on the military culture, and the essential "good order and discipline" it requires, that would be inflicted by the sort of "zero-tolerance" policy demanded by zealots of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community.
Interestingly, a front-page article in Sunday's Washington Post provides a flavor of how problematic such arrangements would be in practice. Entitled "In Limbo Over ‘Don't Ask, Don't Tell,'" the news item was transparently designed to promote the inevitability of repeal, and to tout the accommodations already being made by the armed forces to the anticipated post-repeal order of things. Still, the article could not avoid the reality that there will be serious issues involving conduct, discipline, spousal benefits, housing arrangements and the ability of military chaplains to practice and minister their respective faiths. These are precisely the sorts of problems an internal Pentagon review has been given until December to assess.
But legislators more interested in appeasing homosexual activists than understanding-- let alone avoiding-- damage to the armed forces are insisting that the current prohibition be repealed now. In order to secure sufficient votes for passage, they adopted a cynical gambit: The repeal would only go into effect after the Pentagon's study is done and three officials (all of whom have already made up their mind, namely, President Obama, Defense Secretary Robert Gates and JCS Chairman Mike Mullen) give the go-ahead. The House of Representatives has already approved such a rigged game, voting recently to strike the existing law over the bipartisan objections of its Armed Services Committee and the four serving chiefs of the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines.
As a practical matter, the result will likely be a hemorrhage of talent from the military. If so, the Nation would be required to make one of two choices: The first would be to accept defeat on today's battlefields-- and leave the country wholly ill-prepared to deal with those of tomorrow. Assuming that outcome is still deemed unacceptable to most Americans, the only alternative would be to reinstitute conscription, better known-- and reviled-- as "The Draft."
Whether they own up to it or not, legislators who vote to allow radical homosexuals to inflict their social experiment on the only military we have (in time of war no less), are on notice: As Colin Powell once famously said in another context: "You break it, you own it." The trouble is, the rest of us will pay the possibly exorbitantly high price of such irresponsible breakage of the All Volunteer Force.
There’ll be no Draft, period.
Ping!
He very well may be, but because of the economy we have today, the real effects of this decision won't be felt for some time, probably years.
There is a wide divide between what people say, and what people do. There really isn't any job market for people to move into. So, I'll wager they'll tough it out, at least for a few years. After that, who knows what will happen.
Agreed, it won’t happen right away, like you say it will take years.
Where it’s going to really hurt the Marine Corps and Army is in the NCO Cadre, IMO.
the left has avidly been pushing for it, usually under the guise that the all volunteer military is made up mostly of poor and uneducated people. That, of course, doesn't mesh with reality, but since when are liberals concerned about facts and reality?
I suspect that, in part, their real motivation is that they believe that the anti Vietnam war protests were made possible because people resisted the draft forcing them into a war zone. They can't make the same arguments when the military is all volunteer.
I think the opposite needs to happen.
Instead of the religious, Christian, and conservative members of the military not reenlisting, we should ENCOURAGE Christian, religious, and conservative people to enlist and reenlist. The Demonrats want to Cloward-Piven the military so its destroyed. This DADT thing is just the latest incarnation of that.
Instead, the more Christians and conservatives in the military, who obviously will make the homosexual agenda crowd uncomfortable, the more WE can Cloward-Piven THEM. We can force a religious crisis in the military to open up debate on whether freedom of religion, enshrined in the bill of rights is superior to freedom of sexuality, which is not enshrined in the bill of rights or not.
We can win this, but we can’t retreat. We have our ammo, we just need to shoot.
Ditto. Earlier today was posted a piece noting that 90% of Philadelphia youth are unsuitable for the draft. A draft is probably impractical and especially inefficient.
This year’s bill also includes allowing abortions on military bases, which has previously been illegal.
Not in this economy.
Under Obama, recruitment and retention rates are all being met. Aspiring enlistees are being turned away and many wishing to re-enlist are being refused for disqualifiers that would've been waived back in '03-04. Re-enlistment bonuses have vanished. People today re-enlist just to keep their job! People are getting separated for infractions that just a few years ago would've gotten them a wrist-slapping. The military is kicking people out for being overweight, failing to advance, having bad credit, DUIs, and on and on. Advancement rates are locked up because the higher-ranking service members aren't going anywhere if they have a choice in the matter. They can't find jobs on the outside so they stick around as an E-6 until they retire.
Draft? Give me a break. Everyone knew DADT would be repealed under the next Democrat administration yet today's military is enjoying the historically unprecedented ability to turn away legions of motivated volunteers while enlisting, retaining and promoting only the top candidates.
I don’t honestly see what would be so wrong with the draft.
It would do our young people good.
How old are you?
It would be a disaster. That is why Democrats want it so much.
You have it all wrong. It isn’t about getting inner city (read minorities) in the services. It is about getting people with intelligence in there (real mostly caucasian) and then sacrifice them in pointless endeavors. Glad my son volunteered after college. NFW he’ll serve again under this communist POS.
“A draft is probably impractical and especially nefficient.”
Never let it be said that ineffiency was a deterrent to the government’s radical agenda.
48.
The draft was only a disaster because the people who came of age during Vietnam were spoiled brats who did not want to serve their country and who instead wanted to spit on soldiers and spend the whole time, well, those who are older than me remember the 60s well enough.
I think its interesting that as long as the WWII generation was running the country we didn’t see much in the way of offshoring of jobs. WWII management had fought for their country.
The minute the boomers took over, it was offshoring season, because most of those boomer managers were the same ones who were able to get to that point because they went to college instead of Vietnam.
You’re painting with a mighty broad brush about the spoiled brats. The Army had a problem before Vietnam with many draftees, I know.
Once our military became an all volunteer organization it went on to become a truly better organization and I know about that also, our son was an Army Sgt. in Gulf War I.
I agree that there are many who’d benefit from a military stint but the overall quality will suffer some, IMO.
I was 10years old in 1965 the same year my older brother finished high school. I can still remember him and his friends sitting around our kitchen table filling out papers for the Army. They were laughing and having a great time, talking like they were all super men or something. I can still remember when they came back and it was so quiet. It is just something I will never forget.
You are correct, my son wanted to enlist in the Marines, 10 mo. minimum wait list, absolutely no waivers, even traffic tickets would cause them to say no! He enlisted in the Army Infantry, they were releasing guys left and right even during reception! I couldn’t believe it, I thought once you signed the papers that was it.
The World War II military was the draftee military, the Vietnam military was overwhelmingly volunteers, those “spoiled brats” gave us 9.4 million veterans and are currently still serving in large numbers.
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