A Conversation with My Brother in Iraq about Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell

1. Yeah this is really more illustrative of the obsitcles faced by gays in the military then actualy reasons for not repealing it.

   By saying simply it would cause problems, then the bigotry itself becomes its own justification. Amazing.

2. @89, i would say russia’s and north korea’s side. Russia has the nukes and NK has the big ass army. we would kick anyone’s ass. maybe even the Empire (with disabled tractorbeam).

3. @90- I’ve known a couple ex-marines, and I wouldn’t say your acquaintance was exactly typical. They’re proud of the Corps and believe (with a lot of justification) that Marines are the hardest working branch of the military and a brotherhood of tough motherfuckers. They tend to be conservative. But my acquaintances don’t think that means they get to be violent alcoholics. They have a bunch of bar fight stories which usually revolve around drinking near a base and mixing it up with some guys from another unit or some drunk townie, but it’s not how they live their life now. In fact they generally hold the belief that they should be better behaved because is disciplined.

   But of course every group has it’s bad apples, and there are a lot of people out in the Red States who think Supporting Our Troops(tm) means never questioning a person who wore a uniform.

4. “like you can lose your job for having an affair
   if your married, or the person you sleep with is married
   enlisted to officer dating, you can losr your job
   and, if if two guys in my platoon are in a relationship, that would cause so many problems”

   BAN WOMEN FROM THE ARMED FORCES RIGHT NOW.

5. God I can’t wait to join the military to suck some cock. That’s why us gays ever do anything and we have no self control. Just imagine all those cocks. Mmmm…. especially the black cock. mmmmm….. some haters just have sand in their vagina.

6. @105 — fair enough. My experience is limited. It’s a relief to hear that most of them are decent.

7. I don’t know if anyone else has posted this, but it just seems to be really perfect timing.

   http://www.avclub.com/articles/military-…

8. @107: Word, girlfriend! They’re just worried we’ll turn all the straight boys with our fabulous deep-throating and ass-offering.

9. There have been gays in the military for centuries. But they probably weren’t known to be gay so no one noticed anything “different” about them. Funny how that works. It would be interesting to know how many gays discharged from the military for being gay had been in the military for years — i.e., they’d been assumed to be straight.

   If you’re a soldier for at least several years and nobody’s known you’re gay, I fail to see how you’ve been injurying people, or what the “problem” is.

10. @90- Excellent points about cost of protection. The stupid fuckups are the ones who get into the Army and will always out number gays. Tangible cost to ‘integrate’. Thanks.
    @101- From my partner’s pre-DADT service, this matches up. Folks ‘knew’ but it just wasn’t discussed, and if you weren’t an asshole, they stuck by you. Kind of like real life.
    I think the military’s idea to stop enforcing based on vendetta outing is a big step. My partner was outed to his superiors during his term. Room-mate (fellow soldier) accidently overheard gay sex. His CO told my partner he could A)have him out of the service tomorrow, if that was what he wanted. Or B) he could shut up and so would the CO and it never happened. Partner chose B and finished the remaining 3 years of his term. But the CO liked him and respected his service. This type of thing occurs under DADT way more more frequently than the discharges, because most people are reasonable. But the partner DID shutup about it; never told a soul during his service.

11. I am pretty sure that straight sex is against the rules while deployed in combat areas so logically if they allowed gayness gay sex would simply be subject to the no fucking while in combat areas rules

12. For many months people have organized to complain that Obama was not taking action. Now he needs our support. Where is the organizing now?

    He was working behind the scenes, actually making things happen instead of just talking. With military top brass supporting him, it’s basically a done deal. Could it have happened faster any other way? I doubt it. Through introducing a law into congress? Hardly possible. Through an executive order that would split his own party and paralyze any attempts to get things done on other fronts? Please. This is how real power is exercised – it’s strategic and smart.

    Marriage equality will come soon. Not soon enough in my book, but probably as soon as is politically possible.

13. There are multiple arguments, right?

    1. Gays should not be in the military because being gay s morally wrong. (That does not hold water.)

    2. Gays should not be in the military because many in the military are not culturally ready for that and might physically attack anyone who is gay. (Not an ethically valid argument, but reasonably practical.)

    3. Gays should not be in the military because romantic relationships can be dangerous in combat situations. (This one makes more sense to me, but I see no reason why gays can’t serve in non-combat or non-team oriented situations.)

14. Sorry but I just don’t understand why any self respecting gay person would want to work around a bunch of straight, overly macho soldiers. Sounds like an experience worse than hell. I worked as a tutor for college football players to help them maintain their NCAA eligibility. What a bunch of freaks. Learned real fast to keep my mouth shut about my sexual orientation. Since the neanderthals thought being gay meant you wore dresses they never suspected that I was gay. But the whole experience taught me – why would you want to be around a bunch of people who don’t want you there? They will simply make it their life mission to torture you or kill you. So, I say, “to hell with them”. Let the straights go off and fight their wars. Straight people start wars so let them sacrifice for it.

15. Pretty terrible argument. As a reader wrote to Sullivan this morning (don’t know if we can post links but see “A Question of Integrity, Ctd” on Daily Dish), change has to start somewhere, and that somewhere is now with this administration. Obama is smart in using military leadership to enforce a top down change. I keep hearing this argument that military is way more conservative than civilian life, well that may be the case, but it’s time to start rolling back that conservatism.

    I’m a regular SLOG reader out in DC, but very disappointed with this post. Sending away two women chefs? Unreal, like friggin middle school. Why is it that two openly gay men in the military would automatically be in a relationship?

16. @89, I have never loved you more.

17. Chris, sounds like you love yr brother, but he sounds like a jerk to me. Sorry.

18. Having grown up near a military base, with an uncle who was an officer, I have to say that the military isn’t so much “conservative” as it is afraid of change and somewhat inmature.

    I know that sounds elitist, but what I mean is that most of the people in the military are young – hence the inmature part – and the rest are set in their ways – hence the afraid of change part (Career military folks are a lot like union folks, but that’s another topic entirely).

    Just a casual glance at most towns surrounding military bases will tell you that the people are not truly conservative. True, there’s a million opportunistic churches, but there’s usually twice as many bars, adult bookstores, and other vice-related industries.

    I really don’t think the military would have much of a problem, particularly since there’s not as many gay people as there are straight people to begin with, and I really don’t think repeal of DADT will cause a sudden influx of gays into military service.

    In my opinion, the people who will have the most trouble will be the closet queens. By that, I don’t mean the self-acknowledged gay people who have to stay in the closet to keep serving, but rather the tormented homophobes who are afraid of their urges.

19. Gotta love how all these supposedly-liberal commenters are bagging all over the conservative commenter by calling him/her a “cunt” and a “bitch”. Way to go, you hypocritical jerks. I’m sorry I happen to agree with your feelings about DADT, it makes me feel dirty to find myself in such company.

20. @120 well said, and true to my recollection of six years enlisted.

21. “Are you forced in any other job to daily share, bathroom, showers and bunks beds with others ? The stress and anxiety that would be added to military men and women would only weaken our nations best. And in the end for what ? Just to please people like you. There’s nothing to be gain by the military to allow open homosexuality.”

    Yes, because sleeping next to a SECRETLY gay man is SO much less stressful. Nothing makes an issue less anxiety inducing than pretending it doesnt exist.

    As for nothing to be gained by the military allowing open homosexuality….I’m sorry but, the huge troop of desperately needed arabic translators that got dismissed due to DADT might like a word with you.
    Why post something so easily proven wrong that 5 seconds on google would discredit it? Do you honestly expect people to be that lazy?

22. @120- “Just a casual glance at most towns surrounding military bases will tell you that the people are not truly conservative. True, there’s a million opportunistic churches, but there’s usually twice as many bars, adult bookstores, and other vice-related industries.”

    Which sounds like a lot of very conservative areas to me. They make a lot of noise about morality, they buy a lot of porn and they drink heavily. They punish their daughters for having sex and encourage their sons to get laid.

23. Damn, I want to like your brother. He still sounds cool (I appreciate that he was honest), but his arguments are ridiculous. If he had the intelligence to part with his party on Kerry and Obama, I would think that he could muster those conservative bones and realize that he is there to do a JOB, and that another’s personal life really has nothing to do with him.

    Oh, maybe he’s just young, and unwilling to be right on this issue. Weird that so many other countries are not experiencing problems with this. I’d like to think we are (at least) as capable of being professional as those countries. Maybe our troops aren’t as tough as we’d like to think. Nancy boys.

    Or maybe it was unfair for you to publish his candid thoughts. Perhaps if he had been given a little time to think it through, he would’ve come to a better conclusion. Also, your side of the conversation reminded me of Zelig. Come on, Christopher: you’re the big brother; you have responsibilities. His views reflect that you’re not doing YOUR job.

24. Just fucking do it.

25. I may cause problems, but so have a lot of things in the military. They had to re-vamp basic training to make it easier. Initiation rituals are still done, but not to the same extent. Women have a hard time, but that is slowing changing. I mean, things have to be bad before they can get better. People have to deal with the reality of life, and slowly warm up to it.

    I also don’t see how it would be a problem, as long as the rule was you can’t date someone in your unit. Period (men and women). Sure, here and there you might have people breaking the rules, but that happens regardless of the rule.

    My only fear is of the gay guys getting beaten up, or dying from fratricide. Maybe that is what you brother is hinting at? I mean, in Vietnam there were many cases of “accidental” friendly fire….and I wonder how long it would take for the first gay man to be accidentally killed in combat.

26. Here’s the thing: soldiers are built. They enter the military, are mentally and physically broken down and reassembled into a mental and physical profile that makes them good soldiers.

    Couldn’t part of that breaking down/building up include acceptance training? One would hope that such training would already be part of the military, given the variety of different cultures a soldier encounters, but I’m guessing, given the amount of intolerance we’re seeing, that it is not.

    I can’t grasp that these strong men and women, who deal mentally and physically daily with things more trying than most of us can even imagine, can’t find a little bit of fortitude to just get the hell over it, and accept people of every sort. Such aversion to gays in the military seems like the sort of mental weakness that should disqualify someone from being a soldier.

27. A poll from the Army Times I posted in an earlier DADT thread, but as it was the last comment, might have been missed.

    http://www.armytimes.com/xml/news/2008/1…

    That’s actually pretty low % of people who say they will leave. Considering the economy, not many are likely to actually go through with it, and those that do leave are probably not the brightest stars in the sky so can be replaced relatively easily.

28. it so fucking insulting how all these “straight” people get decide about my value in this or that. fuck off already!

29. FYI — my nephew is a Marine, serving over there right now in one of those tents in the desert.

    i specificlly asked him about DADT, and he said he honestly DOESN’T CARE about the issue. he thinks gays should be allowed to be themselves and serve openly in the military.

    he’s 20, straight, conservative, former football player, raised evangelical in Texas, and says that’s the attitude of everyone he knows in his age group.

    we are very proud of him!

30. He said it would be hard. Anyone who thinks it won’t be hard is completely out of touch. Let’s take a quick look at who/where the military gets most of it’s recruits: southern states, low income, low education, minorities, etc. Pretty much the center of anti-gay sentiment.

    Obviously gays SHOULD be allowed to serve openly. To say otherwise is to be bigoted. But to just say “fuck it, lets do this now, screw these bigots” and think everyone’s going to be cool tomorrow is also stupid. This is the nation’s biggest fraternity/Boys club. People don’t have a right to be hateful, but they are – and we have to be realistic about the repercussions. I think opening the military carefully/gracefully and with education is a good idea.

31. @132, wrong wrong wrong.

    http://www.heritage.org/Research/Nationa…

    “In summary, the additional years of recruit data (2004–2005) sup­port the previous finding that U.S. military recruits are more similar than dissimilar to the American youth population. The slight dif­ferences are that wartime U.S. mil­itary enlistees are better educated, wealthier, and more rural on aver­age than their civilian peers.”

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