OH SNAP! Military to Scale Back Don’t-Ask-Don’t-Tell

Well…my only thought is this way they can control the damage rather than having it rammed down their throats.  Plus they can drag their feet until Obama is run out of town.

Does anyone ever think about where our military is serving.
What happens the first time one of the newly allowed are captured?  Remember how those folk feel about gays.

If it goes thru, its gonna be a MESS!

Grannie Gloria

I would guess that very few if any of those advocating the change have lived in an enlisted men’s barracks.  This clearly will not be good for anyone.  Yes, it will make the inclusion crowd happy for a bit, but how long until they are SHOCKED!! to find it is going horribly wrong?

This is really going to get ugly folks…
Intercessor

The Uniform Code of Military Justice is very specific in awarding punishment:

Section 926.Art.125
Sodomy
(a)  Any person subject to this chapter who engages in unnatural carnal copulation with another person of the same or opposite sex or with an animal is guilty of sodomy.  Penetration, however slight, is sufficient to complete the offense.

(b)  Any person found guilty of sodomy shall be punished as a court martial shall direct.

In my experience during my Air Force career, such punishment could include the loss of veterans’ benefits….which can amount to a significant loss.

This is something to think about before giving in to the urge to experience unnatural carnal pleasure.

As I’ve said before, my son is a Marine and he can’tr see this having a good outcome. The bottom lineis that these guys live in pretty close quarters, especially when deployed. It doesn’t seem just that they should have to share showers, latrines, and sleeping quarters with gays. (Do they plan to have separate showers - marked “males” and “shemales”?)Does anyone care that the heterosexuals might be uncomfgortable in communal living conditions with homosexuals? Of course, no one cares about the heterosexuals, or about pro-life people, or about orthodox Christians, etc. Homosexuals are a small segment of the population, yet they’re a noisy wheel and they get the grease.

Being gay very quickly becomes a qualification for a job appointment.  There is no “GENETIC” reason for being gay, but there is a great powerful social force (greater than our traditional group in the US).  This “community” has more power, is better organized, and demands that you bend over the desk in order to get a job.  Nice bunch of folks.  NOT IN MY MILITARY. If they are going to require my sons and daughters to be subject to this emotional and physical abuse while serving in the armed forces, then I say bring my kids home and let these abusers take over the military.  Get my kids out of harms way. The greater harm coming not from the enemy, but from the homosexual community!

I neglected to mention that another possible consequence of conviction under Section 926.Art.125 is a Dishonorable Discharge, which in most cases means a complete loss of all of the benefits deriving from serving in the Armed Forces of the United States.  Is risking such a court martial worth the price?  NO!

Not yet mentioned is the fundamental and obvious reason for barring open homosexuality in the military:  group cohesion.  The whole aim of combat indoctrination is to instill in the solder this order of priorities:
  1. The Mission
  2. The Squad (Company, Battalion, ...)
  3. Your Buddies (Pfc Joe and Cpl Fred and ...)

The problem, of course, is that romantic attraction completely scrambles priorities and typically exerts an overpowering effect on other considerations (as for example the Republicans in South Carolina or the Democrats in North Carolina, or for that matter anyone who has been really in love, should be well aware—they don’t call it “head over heels” for nothing).  This emotional chaos simply cannot be tolerated in a combat situation.  If you are a Marine in the South Pacific and your wife is back at Fort Riley with the kids, it’s not a problem.  But if the object of your affection is two positions away in the foxhole or behind you tending the tank engine, your actions in combat are likely to be guided more by your infatuation than by your mission.

Not to mention the disruptive effects of jealousy and romantic competition within the unit.  Weekend bargirls are one thing; the other end of the barracks is something quite different.

[ Sex is designed by God to induce romantic emotions; that is why promiscuity, quite aside from its condemnation by religion, tends to produce in moderns a kind of cold detachment that frequently ends in a sort of cynical depression: sex is meaningless, so love is meaningless, so my entire existence is meaningless.  Happy Valentine’s Day; color the heart dingy gray. ]

And this is why the possibility of soldiers within the same combat unit having sex with each other has to be rejected on purely military grounds.  And if, incidentally, one should notice that this also constitutes a powerful argument against coeducational combat units, and yet another reason for rejection of the women-in-combat concept, you are absolutely right.

There are about 30 nations that allow their gay and lesbian citizens to serve openly, including most of NATO (our partners in Afghanistan).  I don’t believe that our soldiers are less capable than theirs are.  None of the fear based predictions have come to pass in those militaries.

Yes, but their societies are more “permissive,” I believe.

#11—Quite right.  Now when was the last time the ground forces of any of our beloved NATO allies won a major war?

Now when was the last time the ground forces of any of our beloved NATO allies won a major war?

How about a medium-sized war?

How about a small war?

Good dodge Craig (#13).  Are you concerned that the logic of your argument might not stand up well if you addressed the comment?  It’s gonna happen sooner or later and time will tell whether or not your prognostications are accurate.  As a military member of one of those “NATO allies” that you disparage, I believe they are inaccurate.

[11] To the Left

There are only two credible military forces in NATO outside of the US: the UK and Turkey.  The rest are effectively jobs programs for the welfare state.  They are literally decades behind the US in terms of combat effectiveness on a modern battlefield.  They would harm the ability of the US to achieve its combat mission if they tried to fight with us.  That is why the Europeans pleaded ... nay, begged on all fours ... for the US to intervene in Bosnia.  The European ‘powers’ didn’t have the ability to project power even into SE Europe.

carl

WarrenS (#15),

I did not detect any effort to “dodge” any question(s).

How about it, WarrenS? Tell us about the wars any NATO country has won in the past 100 years without significant participation and help from the United States military.

I am not disparaging the military of any NATO country nor am I disparaging any member of such units.  I am just asking for the facts.  What wars have they won.

In the final analysis, the effectiveness of any country’s military is defined by its record of a) preventing war(s) and/or b) winning wars.

Share NATO countries record with us.

Your comment side stepped the issue Carl (I have no idea why you’re discussing who’s the “biggest and the strongest” on this thread), but okay.  The US taxpayer should expect a reasonable return for the $700B spent on defence each year.  You never did comment on the survey I linked to on the previous thread on DADT.

Ol’Bob, ditto for what I said to Carl.  I don’t see how your comment relates to the DADT issue - the subject of this post.

Craig, Ol’ Bon, and Carl are all absolutely right. Craig’s point that even just from a military standpoint there are problems with both homosexual and heterosexual attachments in combat is dead accurate. And as for NATO, I wouldn’t use them as an example. Without us, Europe would be up a creek without a paddle. Who consistently comes to their rescue?

Nellie (#20), 20 years ago when a similar debate was going on in the Canadian military (the Canadian Forces dropped the restriction on gays serving in the military in 1992), I heard all of the same arguments that I’m seeing on this blog.  At that time, I supported and believed in those arguments.  20 years later, I have to admit that I (and most others) was wrong.  My views on homosexuality as a Christian have not waivered, but I can’t deny fact.  As I said to Craig in #15:

It’s gonna happen sooner or later and time will tell whether or not your prognostications are accurate.

WarrenS (#19),

The subject of this thread, in my view, is DADT and its effect of the ability of the U. S. military to fulfull it missions.  I you disagree, please share with me what you think the subject is.

Ol ‘Bob (#22), I believe the subject of this thread is whether or not dropping DADT will adversely affect the combat effectiveness of the US military.  Your previous comment (#17) said nothing about DADT and boasted about the strength of the US military in comparison to the militaries of other NATO nations.  Perhaps you were inferring that the difference in military power was due to them allowing gays to serve without restriction and not the vast difference in things such as population size the amount of money spent on defence?

I believe that most of the objective evidence supports my contention that the elimination of DADT will not have the sort of adverse affect on the US military that many commenters think it will have.  I have more confidence in the the US military as an institution than that.

[19] WarrenS

You never did comment on the survey I linked to on the previous thread on DADT.

It’s a basic principle of cross-examination.  Know when to quit.  I generally don’t feel the necessity to respond to a weak argument, but trust rather the reader will see what I see.  I consider argument by citation of a single study to be a weak argument.  I can place it next to all those studies that prove no correlation between abortion and breast cancer.  I can place it next to studies that prove pornography provides a healthy outlet for sexual deviance.  I can place in next to the studies that show children are better off when their parents divorce.  You can make a study prove anything if only you carefully select both the data and the criteria by which it is evaluated.

I have no idea why you’re discussing who’s the “biggest and the strongest” on this thread

Because To The Left tried to use European military experience as a credible basis for suggesting that homosexuals don’t reduce combat effectiveness.  Your basic average modern European military establishment couldn’t fight the common cold, let alone fight a war.

carl

Your basic average modern European military establishment couldn’t fight the common cold, let alone fight a war.

Carl, I bow to the superiority of your irrefutable logic and won’t waste any more words here.  I hope I don’t catch a cold ‘cause I guess I’ll be a goner.

Warren (#21) & (#23)

We agree on the subject of this thread.

The comparison of U. S. military effectiveness to NATO country military effectiveness arises directly out of the comment by To The Left in #11 the following comment you made in your #13:

As a military member of one of those “NATO allies” that you disparage, I believe they are inaccurate.

You framed the issue that the presence of openly homosexual persons in the military of NATO military units refutes the inference that ending DADT would lessen the effectiveness of the U. S. military.  I did not bring up the comparison, you did.

In my comment # 17 I wrote:

In the final analysis, the effectiveness of any country’s military is defined by its record of a) preventing war(s) and/or b) winning wars.

I would be very interested in hearing the criteria you used in determining the effect of openly homosexual persona in NATO country and Canadian military.

My question very simply is:  upon what do you base your apparent assumption that the presence of openly homosexual persons in the military of NATO Countries and Canada has not diminished the effectiveness of those units.  I shared my criteria with you above.  What is yours?

Ol ‘Bob, see my comments in this thread.  Bear in mind that, according to Carl, my “anecdotal” evidence isn’t worth a fiddler’s damn.

I didn’t expect to change the minds of commenters on this thread, but I hope that I have at least given reason for further thoughtful reflection on why certain opinions are held so dearly.  I won’t be making further comments on this thread.

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