I dunno.
As a straight guy, if I had to huddle together all close and personal-like with other dudes, it would really be comforting to know which (if any) of them were gay. Otherwise there's the constant mind-destroying wondering...
No homo(phobia).

What, stuffing yourself into the body cavity of an eviscerated camel or donkey isn't good enough for our soldiers?

Seriously, what other situations can Mr. Perkins come up with to justify his bigotry?

"We can't repeal DADT, because the military might run out of those hand-warmer thingies someday, and..."

"...what if a soldier's wee-wee gets blown off in combat, and the only medic around happens to be gay - HE'LL TOTALLY TOUCH THAT SOLIDIER'S DETACHED WEE-WEE!"

"...what if a soldier's GF sends him some sexy photos, but all the other soldiers in his unit are gay - NOBODY ELSE WILL CARE ABOUT HIS SEXY PHOTOS!"

I could probably do this for hours, but, really are my pathetic excuses for not repealing DADT any LESS pathetic than his?

Damn, I thought the Onion article was going to be "Why Won't These Fags Stop Sucking My Dick?"

classic

Big brave soldiers afraid of gays but not the Taliban. That is REALLY odd. Really! Maybe the Taliban should hire gay soldiers to scare away the Americans. They could threaten to hug them.

Could it be that they say they're spooning to conserve warmth because they haven't yet repealed DADT? Just asking.

@2: Re: first sentence.
"And I thought they smelled bad...on the outside."

More proof that Tony hasn't seen combat.

Tell us about your combat experience, Will.

I was in the U.S. Army (in the infantry, even) and went through basic training. They never taught us to spoon each other to stay warm.

I believe Tony is referring to his fantasy basic training.

Oh, and that Onion article, as usual, was fucking hilarious!

Yeah, spooning is in the army manual, between the section that limits how much clothing you can wear in a barracks and the section on trading sexual favors for preferential treatment as a POW

Um, yeah...no spooning as far as I know. And I've known TONS of soldiers.

But even if there WERE spooning involved, there are gay soldiers in the military anyway, so you could still hypothetically spoon with a hypothetically gay solder and not hypothetically know what's going on. Hypothetically.

Maybe he's thinking of Dan's "Caged Heat" video...nice...you give the link to Tony, but not to your faithful Sloggers.

Oh Oh oh... @Vince - your comment brought me so much joy. Thank you.

So as long as everyone is pretending that they're straight, there's nothing wrong with spooning.

Someone comes out and BAM! It's gay.

I'm pretty sure that even gay men wouldn't be thinking about how hot it is that they're spooning with some right-ringed homophobe while they're in a situation that actually requires them to curl up to stay alive. Then again, I'm not a gay man, so I don't actually know.

They are in there sleeping bags?

So, huddling together with someone in the freezing cold through two sets of clothing and two sleeping bags is scarier than, oh, say, being in a combat situation?

This also feeds of that silly prejudice that all gay men are desperate to jump any straight guy they meet. Oi, straight boy - just because your fellow soldier is attracted to men doesn't men he's necessarily into you. You're not nearly as irresistible as you like to think.

When I was a Boy Scout one of the things I remember learning to get my first aid skill award was that you could treat a person with hypothermia by pressing your body against theirs and sharing your body warmth. The instructor added, "And, hey, you might even get to do this with a girl."

Even as a young, completely inexperienced teenager, I thought there was something kind of creepy about using hypothermia as an excuse to get next to someone, and I didn't find the idea all that appealing. If I were sharing body heat with someone, regardless of any attraction on either side, I think sharing heat would be the main goal. Sometimes spooning is just spooning.

If you would rather die than possibly end up next to someone who is gay in the soldier holy-crap-its-cold-and-we're-gonna-die puppy pile then you clearly aren't too attached to the idea of living anyway.

Just sayin'.

It's not the spooning you have to worry about anyway. It's the forking.

tie for the win @4 and @20

Wow, where the hell does he think our soldiers are?

DADT doesn't keep Gays out of the military it simply goes by 'ignorance is bliss'. You may be huddling to conserve warmth and THEY MAY BE GAY... YOU JUST DON'T KNOW IT!!!!!

fine with me, as long as i can be the big spoon

To those who think there's no spooning in the Army:

I was an Army Ranger, and we spooned, huddled and dogpiled a lot - in training, at Ranger school, on combat patrols. We didn't like to carry any weight we didn't have to, and that included sleeping bags in the Afghan winter.

That said, there is nothing remotely sexual about it. I'm gay, and I can swear to that. You've really got to be there to understand how unpleasant it all is. It's motivated by survival - the urgent need for warmth (and sometimes for sleep). Your body doesn't have the luxury to think about sex.

@22 It actually does get fucking cold at night in the desert, and you can get hypothermia, even if it was 104 degrees only a few hours before.