Don't Ask, Don't Tell Policy?

A friend of mine was thinking about joining the military a while back, but decided against it because of the Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy. She's gay, and fairly open about it (all her friends and family know, she's been in committed relationships with other girls, etc), and said that she just couldn't handle not being able to be "herself".

That, and the fact that there's been quite a bit of debating going on about DADT, I just wanted to hear some different opinions on it, what you think of it, etc. Especially how it's viewed from the point of view of those in the military - I know we have a few people on this board that are serving or have served in the military, and a few people who have spouses in the military.

My personal thoughts are that it should be repealed. Your sexuality has nothing to do with how good of a soldier you are, or how well you can perform your job. You should be able to be yourself (within appropriate limits of course - and that goes for everyone in the military).

I thought it was repealed?

The vote passed in the U.S. House to repeal it, but they haven't actually done so yet.

the president has the authority to repeal it unilaterally. i hate to say it but our country isn't mature enough to repeal DADT.
OTH before DADT as long as they didn't bring it to work a lot of people just looked the other way.

I think it's time to get rid of it. It serves no purpose other than keeping people out of the military.

It will go, someday. But when the military leadership decides the force is ready to handle it.

The military exisits for ONE purpose. To fight and win wars. ANYthing that can cause distractions from that mission is bad.

It is a little sad to say, but I do not think the force is ready yet. This is not something to do to the military when we are at war. Distractions cause hesitation. Hesitation fills body bags.

Are we really ready to put the kind of un-needed attention on our force that this would cause? Ready for the accusations that one soldier allowed another to die on the battlefield because he was "afraid of getting AIDS"? Yes, its sad to think that would happen... But it will.


Start slow maybe? Only in roles that are not directly combat related? (I.e. No Infantry, Armor, Artillery or Engineers?)

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Yes, gays serve in other forces. Good for them. The military is not the place for social experiments.

In my opinion this isn't a social experiment, it's a basic civil right. I'm sure there are people in the military who would let another die in the field because of the color of their skin, once again, sad but true.

This X2. I have three cousins in the military and NONE of them are mature enough to handle having it repealed. I think it's utterly ridiculous that the majority of our armed forces, who you would hope have more common sense than other folks because they're ARMED first of all and because they represent us as a country, can't handle working side by side with gays or bisexuals or whatever.

It needs to go.

THIS.

And THIS.

I fear most of the country isn't mature enough to handle it. Either we're all FREE or NONE of us are. This is such bullshit. For god's sake the gay marriage and civil union ban in my state was upheld by the state supreme court as a constitutional amendment with a 7-0 vote. Note one justice with a functioning brain cell in this state. I'm so disappointed in our society today I can't even begin to describe it.

white trash down the street can have 10 babies from 10 dads and marry every one of them and live off state aid, but a gay man or woman can't have the right to be next to a dying partner in a hospital or have the same legal rights as the rest of us. We're all free or none of us are.

I wish people would take their narrow minds and try to see beyond themselves sometimes. Don't ask don't tell should have been done away with long ago and people should be mature enough to handle it. It really isn't that big of a deal, i mean really, it isn't.

:hail: :hail: :hail: :hail:

I'm not sure if you're ranting in general or if this is directed at someone in the thread but I fully agree with you. It should be done away with but I worry about the safety of gays (etc) in the military if it's done without the agreement of the troops.

I will just observe that many people in the military were very, very unhappy when it was integrated by Presidential fiat, and the prejudice against blacks at that time was MUCH worse than the prejudice against gays today. The same arguments were made, disaster forecast, and surprise, our soldiers pretty much got over it pretty quickly. Oddly, when your life depends on someone, (and special forces people they have interviewed who have gay team members (and they know about them) have confirmed this) it matters a lot less what color their skin is or who they like to sleep with, and a lot more whether they are competent. I could be wrong, but that seems to be what happened with racial integration, so I don't see why it won't happen with gay folks too.

I'm sure there will be problems . . . I'm equally sure they won't last very long. There are already plenty of gays in the military, and I'm equally sure that many of them are known to be so by many of their comrades, even if they don't tell. What it really comes down to is whether someone is going to rat them out or not. There have been too many cases of people who didn't tell (and officially, no one asked) who have been outed out of spite or bad luck; its unfair, and moreover, some of those people have been valuable (for some reason, lots of linguists are gay).

just ranting in general

Because there aren't other factors that can cause someone to be distracted from a mission? And there are a whole host of reasons why you can dislike someone - their sexuality, their skin color, their religion, their personality, etc.

Yes, there are many forces that allow gays to serve openly, and they do just fine.

By waiting for everyone to be "okay" with it, it's never going to happen. It needs to be repealed, and then everyone needs to just get over it. If you don't want to serve alongside people who are gay, then fine, don't. Don't join the military. As with most job situations - the person who has the problem should be the person that has to leave.

This is a very easy issue to "arm chair quarterback" from the sidelines. It is easy to compare DADT to racial integration, but it is simply not the same thing. Not in the minds of SOME of the force.

Allow me to say, again, that I find it a sad state of affairs that DADT exists. But it does. Also allow me to say, again, that DADT has ZERO to do with a person's ability to physically do the job.


Yes, there are other things that distract. Why add another one?


To say that if we wait for the military leadership to do something, then nothing will happen is a falsehood. I have read about several very high ranking members of our military who agree that DADT needs to go... SLOWLY and on terms that will not hinder combat readiness.

Until you have spent every single minute, for months, with the same small group of people in a very stressful and dangerous environment... You just won't be able to see where I am coming from. Some units/people can handle it. Some cannot, YET. To simply repeal DADT with the wave of a wand, in a time of war, is a very bad idea.


/me pulls pin on this one. Its the same debate every time.

:hail::hail:

I will yield to your knowledge of the military.

On the other hand, the current system, where people have done nothing wrong and are outed by someone out of spite and given a dishonorable discharge, strikes me as so monumentally unfair (and counterproductive) that I think the current situation is unsustainable, not to mention, unAmerican. I can't get past that feeling. And I think it distracts now . . perhaps more so, because it can't help being a "big deal."

But I will concede that you have military experience and I don't.

I know.


I wish things were different. It sucks the way things are now. It has to change and it will. But not by the wave of a wand in the middle of a difficult set of conflicts. The military is in a tough enough bind right now. It does not need some jackass Senator going on a scalp hunt because an openly gay soldier was left to die or "fragged" by some knuckle dragger.

There will be a time, hopefully soon. Now is not it.