The Center for Military Readiness has gathered one thousand fifty signatures of retired general and flag officers, petitioning the administration and Congress not to repeal Section 654, Title 10, commonly known as the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” law.
The list includes a former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, several Service Chiefs, a number of combatant command, theater, and other major U.S. and allied force commanders, together with a Medal of Honor recipient and hundreds of retired flag and general officers who have led the men and women of our armed services at every echelon, in both peace and war, past and present …
For the record, my primary objection to repeal of the law is that it is simply a poke in the eye to the military, a pay-off to a small but vocal constituency, and has nothing to do with increasing or improving the readiness of the armed forces.
Good for them. We’ll see what effect it has, but I won’t hold my breath with the current office-holders.
pay-off to a small but vocal constituency, and has nothing to do with increasing or improving the readiness of the armed forces.
They are just taking their cue from the women. DOD stopped worrying about readiness in personnel policy in 1991.
every single unit I served in over my 27 years in the Army had gay and lesbian soldiers. My boss in the Penatgon was a lesbian. Everyone knew who was who in those units, and everyone knew about my boss. And you know what? It didn’t make any difference in their ability to soldier, lead, or get the job done. We need to stop letting whackjobs like Elaine Donnelly have any voice in military personnel policy and let people serve openly and honestly. Punish conduct–adultery, sexual assault, rape, etc.–not orientation.
Like Mike points out, I doubt there are many who can honestly say they never served with a gay/lesbian shipmate that performed honorably and for whom their orientation was no issue. On the other hand, though, there are also few that can say that they have never seen a situation in which unwanted homosexual advances were a problem.
I have two problems with off-handedly trashing Section 654. First is that there are legitimate privacy issues that are simply dismissed or ignored by the anti-654 faction. They would never advocate unisex berthing, head and showers, so I fail so see why they instictively fall back on the derisive “too fragile to have someone look at your willie” non-argument when the question of gays is asked. Whatever is decided, I at least want the decission to be made in full acknowledgement of all relevent issues.
Second, as members of a “historically oppressed group,” I am concerned that in a post-654 military consentual sexual relations that are contrary to good order and discipline of a homosexual nature may be less vigorously prosecuted for fear of being labeled homophobic.