Owen West, a Marine vet who served two tours in Iraq, makes the case for ending "Don't Ask, Don't Tell."

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GENERALS are scolded for preparing to fight “the last war,” but if President Obama intends to keep his promise to allow gays to serve openly in the military, he would do well to study President Bill Clinton’s attempt of 16 years ago.

The Clinton argument, based largely on protecting the civil rights of gay troops, was systematically dissected by senior officers and legislators, who focused on how the presence of homosexuals could affect combat readiness. Generals circulated videos made by conservative groups depicting “gay agendas.” Senators brought television crews into cramped berthings. Congress reached a bizarre compromise: a law rendering homosexuality incompatible with military service, but allowing gays to serve under a closet-friendly “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.

The lesson for President Obama is that this fight is not about rights, but about combat readiness. This is a propitious moment for seeking change: a nation at war needs all its most talented troops. Last year the principal architects of “don’t ask, don’t tell,” former Gen. Colin Powell and former Senator Sam Nunn, said it was time to “review” the policy.

That’s a polite way of saying they’ve changed their minds. So have many of us who wore the uniform in 1993 and supported a policy that forced some of our fellow troops to live a lie and rejected thousands who told the truth.

There are other aspects of history that may be helpful as well. The armed forces initially resisted President Harry Truman’s 1948 order to integrate the ranks. But the Korean War forced trials by fire — in fact, the units with the highest casualty rates in Korea integrated the swiftest — and the Pentagon ultimately acknowledged that recruiting from across America’s socio-economic spectrum produced the best force. After that, the military swiftly set the standard for race relations.

Servicemen continue to be fierce believers in the idea that diversity equals strength, yet during the Clinton effort on gay troops most of us rejected analogies to racial integration. The homosexual threat to good order and discipline was behavioral, we argued, not physiological, and therefore unrelated.

It was a flawed argument. The underlying fears were the same as with integration: homosexuals jeopardized unit cohesion not because of their own conduct — after all, military law and command discretion encompass behavioral breaches — but because of the perceived reaction of those xenophobic troops who didn’t want to cohabitate with people different from themselves. Today, this sounds like one of the “worn-out dogmas” President Obama identified in his inaugural speech. And it does a disservice to the ranks.

Maintaining “don’t ask, don’t tell” ignores a vast social shift since 1993. Only 26 percent of Americans supported Truman’s order, so it was little wonder that desegregation stalled. When President Clinton announced his initiative, 44 percent of Americans were in favor of homosexuals serving openly, which perhaps explains the split decision of “don’t ask, don’t tell.”

But today nearly 80 percent of Americans feel that way. As our troops tend to reflect the values of our society, lifting the homosexual ban will be easier now.

In addition, six years of war have clarified priorities. The battlefield has its own values, starting with courage. Sexual orientation falls somewhere below musical taste. What a person chooses to do back stateside, off-duty, in his own apartment is irrelevant in a fight. For months I lived with 12 other American advisers on an Iraqi outpost. There was a single pipe shower next to a hole that masqueraded as a sewer. But the reality of combat dominated personality quirks — nobody wondered about sexual orientation.

Most military jobs are office-based and provide sufficient individual privacy. Even in Iraq many of our fighting forces are comfortably housed with compartmentalized showers.

A 2006 poll of Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans showed that 72 percent were personally comfortable interacting with gays. Bonnie Moradi, a University of Florida psychologist, and Laura Miller, a sociologist at the Rand Corporation, summarized the study this way: “The data indicated no associations between knowing a lesbian or gay unit member and ratings of perceived unit cohesion or readiness. Instead, findings pointed to the importance of leadership and instrumental quality in shaping perceptions of unit cohesion and readiness.”

The other readiness argument concerns recruiting. To fill its swelling ranks, the military now grants one in five recruits waivers for disqualifications that run the gamut from attention-deficit disorder to obesity to armed robbery convictions. In a press conference last fall, Maj. Gen. Thomas Bostick, the head of Army recruiting, said the relevant question in considering such applicants was, “Does that person deserve an opportunity to serve their country?” That’s exactly right. And to choose a felon over a combat-proven veteran on the basis of sexuality is defeatist. Ask any squad leader.

In the end, however, there is one factor that outweighs public opinion, troop morale and recruiting combined. The military is a dictatorship, not a republic. It is built to win in combat. Its strict codes of conduct ensure good order and discipline.

If “don’t ask, don’t tell” is rescinded, military leaders will ensure smooth compliance, as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, has said. Cohesion depends on leadership. Our troops will follow the lead of our combat-tested professionals who base their opinions on what a soldier brings to the fight, and little else.

Owen West, a commodities trader, served two tours in Iraq with the Marines.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/09/opinion/...amp;ref=opinion

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Oh, stop. Like we don't have more important issues to deal with right now. The gheys can wait.

[Chica Yeyé 41]

Oh, stop. Like we don't have more important issues to deal with right now. The gheys can wait.

ur mean

[Danno 1,228]

I sure hope Obama is going to be consistent on this issue.

( as he is sliding on a number of others already)

If you go to whitehouse.gov and go under the Civil rights section you can read Obamas agenda concerning New rights for gays AND TRANSGENDERED.

He claims that "Patriotism" should be the guide (and doesn't that throw the door open wide) and I am betting transgendered folks, are just as patriotic as Gays so he better not fight for the rights of Gays to serve at the abandonment of they trany crowd too.

NOw I know he and other are typically painting homos as the victim in this topic but I knew of two cases that I was aware of when I was in the Marines.

One was concerning some Navy guys I worked with on the filght deck.

The other case that I was very familiar with, was two guys in my unit.

IN both cases it amounted to an E-5 and E-6 befriending new young troops and via alcohol or drugs having sex with these new guys.

I knew the Private very well, he was a really nice kid from conn who always had a one-liner joke. The Gay Sgt, was a quite, mild kinda guy that worked upstairs in the offices. He was a nice guy, but he really ruined this kids military life up.

What happen was Sgt and prvt took a trip to the beach one evening they were parked at the beach and drinking. After a few hours of drinking the fell asleep in the this sgts hatchback.

A while later, the Pvt wakes up and Sgt is giving him a BJ.

When Pvt told me this, I asked him "and what did you do", he said he pretended he was asleep or passed out. He couldn't explain why he didn't stop him but he said that he never got erect and after like thirty minutes of the SGT working on him, he said his pecker was painfully sore. and eventually SGT gave up and went back to sleep.

I can't explain how a guy lets another guy he thought was a friend toot his horn for 30 minutes while pretending he's asleep, but if you could have seen how distraught he was while telling me about it

you would have saw his sincerity too.

The only reason I knew about it was pvt started using my room to hide from the guy. At first I thought he owed him money or something, but then he told me what happened.

Before he told me what happened he made me promise I would not report the incident.

When I think back now, I really did have a duty to break that Promise and if I had, things would have turned out better because he ended up going awol trying to get away from the base and he ended up in the brig in a suicide cell where he finally told a doc what had happened.

I then got called on the carpet to verify the time line.

They both ended up getting discharged.

Of course this is one story out of; who knows, how many of these type cases.

There are probably some where people are outed for no real reason but I would bet in most cases, these service members are breaking rules of conduct and causing strife within the unit.

[joelunchbox 0]

Or my story about one of my female troops. Excellent technician, no problems, got along with everyone. Went off to her next duty assignment, where she got pretty much all of the awards because she was an excellent airman. Well, someone got jealous, and outed her. Result? We now have someone with a lot less knoweldge working on govt. equipment. and if you really want to here about how the present policy sucks, read about the army interpreters getting run out of the army. and those guys were saving lives by doing their jobs well.

present policy is screwed, at least in how it enables other people to screw over homosexuals. no pun intended--that is the best word to describe the situation.

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

[alienlovechild 75]

A while later, the Pvt wakes up and Sgt is giving him a BJ.

The NCOs in your unit were more friendly than ours.

I used to read criminal files on soldiers held at Corp HQ. The written statements were funnier or bizarre than most movies on the military.

Lesbians having sex in showers. Drunken soldier chasing the OD around the barracks. Naked drunken soldiers running around. BN Commanders asking female soldiers about their sex lives and wanting details.

I supposed anyone in uniform could up with plenty of other oddballs they met and tell a few stories.

Edited February 25, 2009 by alienlovechild

[Nagishkaw 510]

[Ban Hammer 13,355]

[Danno 1,228]

Or my story about one of my female troops. Excellent technician, no problems, got along with everyone. Went off to her next duty assignment, where she got pretty much all of the awards because she was an excellent airman. Well, someone got jealous, and outed her. Result? We now have someone with a lot less knoweldge working on govt. equipment. and if you really want to here about how the present policy sucks, read about the army interpreters getting run out of the army. and those guys were saving lives by doing their jobs well.

present policy is screwed, at least in how it enables other people to screw over homosexuals. no pun intended--that is the best word to describe the situation.

Forgive me for questioning this "plot" to run all the Gays out of the translation slots, perhaps since you are so familiar with these rumors you can provide some links to verify these Gays were, innocent of any wrong doing.

I could be wrong but I am betting there were "incidents" which most would consider as: "actions unbecoming" any service member, ** or not.

Edited February 25, 2009 by Danno

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]