Joseph Heller facepalm.

That's kind of amazing.

...and here I always thought that the "Max Klinger" character from M.A.S.H. was just a joke.

Life imitates art; life would be insane to imitate art, but if life didn't want to imitate art then that would mean life was actually sane, so then it would be forced to continue imitating art, or something like that.

There are many documented cases of service members declaring themselves as homosexuals in order to get a discharge. That our military needs to exercise caution and investigate to find out if such claims are true (especially in light of the low recruitment numbers) is nothing new.

Man, when we end DADT, the War in Iraq, the War in Afghanistan, and the War on MJ, we are going to have SO MUCH MONEY.

And stop wasting so much time on foolishness.

This is absolutely ridiculous. And shameful.

@3 There is now a 'Klinger Clause' to enlistment contracts saying that you will not make homosexual statements or perform homosexual acts* in an attempt to get out of the contract.

*Seriously?!?! You gotta REALLY want to get out of the Army! LOL

@5 Low recruitment numbers? You serious? Or just stuck back in 06/07? Active Component was 106% of its recruiting goals last report I saw, and Reserve Component was 111% IIRC.

Bonuses are shit right now.

AAAAARRRGGHHH *head explodes*

@5: Or they could just scrap DADT and stop people from using it to duck out.

@10 When someone spends ~250K to train a soldier, they tend to want to get their money back in terms of service.

"Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn't, but if he was sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn't have to; but if he didn't want to he was sane and had to. Yossarian was moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of this clause of Catch-22 and let out a respectful whistle."

-Catch-22

Waitaminute. Who's on first? And What's on second?

@5
Absurd.

The whole point of DADT is that having people who admit to being gay, even if they keep their sexual activity utterly private, is so damaging that a unit will be completely unable to function.

But they have to be careful to make sure that people really, really mean it? When they get outed by a third party and don't want to discuss it? Bah.

This of course, ignores the even more absurd notion that a professional, competent, motivated, and willing gay person is more corrosive to unit morale than someone who says "I don't want to be here, and I don't care what lies I have to tell to get out."

After having served, I knew several people who did exactly this. They'd also smoke pot and then tell their command the next day to get out. A lot of women would intentionally get pregnant for a "hardship withdrawl". Some would try to intentionally injure themselves (a long running joke was to try to get someone passing by to break your knee). There is a reason that Yossarian starts Catch22 pretending to be sick in a hospital (which he could be court-martialed for malingering). The smarter ones knew that pretending to be gay would have less of an impact on their lives out of the military.

No, you can't just quit.

That'll teach them carpet munchers!