Two Perspectives On 'Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell'
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  1. #1

    Exclamation Two Perspectives On 'Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell'

    Two Perspectives On 'Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell'
    KFOX 14 El Paso
    POSTED: 2:32 pm MST February 27, 2007

    Since the Iraq war began, the military has lowered its standards for age, education and criminal history.

    So, what about the ban on homosexuality?

    Wednesday, lawmakers on Capitol Hill will introduce a bill to change that policy.

    Here's a look at both sides:

    Brian's Story

    The view of friends, spouses and children through the plane's window gets larger. The military aircraft is getting closer to landing and as soon as their feet hit the tarmac, the group of Marines make their way to embraces eight months in the making.

    Sgt. Brian Fricke will have to wait a little longer. "That will always sting a bit. Because I was gay, I didn't have anybody there," said Fricke.

    He knew hugging his boyfriend on the flight line wouldn't be discreet. He'd violate the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy and face a dishonorable discharge.

    His homecoming was the culmination of four years of hiding his true identity to all but his closest friends in the Marine Corps. "When you're out there you can't talk about your loved one. You can play the he/she game. 'Oh yeah, "my loved one" yada, yada..' but you really want to talk about your loved one. But you can't." Now his time is almost up in the military and he says he's not re-enlisting because of the policy that kept him in the closet.

    He says on the ground in Iraq, the Marines who he did "come out" to had no problem with his sexuality. A recent Zogby poll backs him up, showing three out of four soldiers back from Iraq and Afghanistan felt comfortable interacting with gay people.

    The Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, which advocates against the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy, says that since it went into effect in 1993, the Department of Defense has fired more than 11,000 service members because they were gay. The group says on average, 2 -3 people are dismissed under the law every day. According to the Government Accountability Office (GAO) at least 800 of those had skills deemed 'mission-critical' by the Dept. of Defense, including more than 300 linguists, of which at least 55 were proficient in Arabic.

    A Colonel's View

    Although he's retired from the military, Lt. Col. Bob Maginnis prides himself on being in touch with the top military leaders and latest Army strategies. In 1993, he argued before Congress that allowing gays to participate would hurt military readiness. He still believes that to be true.

    "We already have a lot of sex going on between males and females in forced intimate situations--whether they're on aircraft carriers or in tents in Iraq--and that hurts readiness," Maginnis says. He says it would be logistically impossible keeping people who are attracted to the same sex out of those intimate situations and it would make other soldiers uncomfortable.

    "We're not making a moral judgment about homosexuality. We're making a judgment that as a category of people, they're suitability for the type of mission, the 24-7, very remote location, zero privacy, very demanding never off-duty environment is just not there. And therefore, we exclude them."

    Maginnis dismisses a recent Zogby poll that claims 3 out of 4 soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan are comfortable interacting with gay people. He says it is not a random sample and especially does not reflect the view of senior leaders who have to deal with these issues on a day-to-day basis.

    When gay advocates argue the policy hurts efforts in Iraq, Maginnis says the number of people getting kicked out under "Don't Ask Don't Tell" are inconsequential. He says they lose about four times as many women who get pregnant and opt out and far more people who have to leave for criminal reasons. He also points to February Department of Defense documents that show retention in the armed services remains solid. The Marine Corps and Air Force are meeting or exceeding overall retention missions. The Army met 109 percent of its year-to-date mission and Navy met 93 percent.

    Ellie


  2. #2
    Sgt. Brian Fricke is in violation of the dont ask dont tell policy. I looked him up and he is a reservist. His MOS is 6323 Aircraft Communications/Navigation/Electrical Systems Technician, CH-53.

    I found his work number, and am contemplating calling it. I dont care if it makes me a biggot, I dont want gays in the Marine Corps. If anyone else wants it PM me and Ill hook you up. Just think, all he had to do is keep his trap shut.

    He says on the ground in Iraq, the Marines who he did "come out" to had no problem with his sexuality. A recent Zogby poll backs him up, showing three out of four soldiers back from Iraq and Afghanistan felt comfortable interacting with gay people.
    Anybody else not buy this quote? I know a gay guy would have been shunned in my unit.


  3. #3
    maybe times are changing....at least they say they are. some things for the better and obviously some things for the worse. look what happened to our boot camp, the Corps over reacted to a small percentage who took it upon themselves to get too physical with recruits. It just isn't the same mental toughness when I see these young kids coming home from boot. And now the concern is gays.....what the heck is this world coming to? We have enough to worry about with all this crap going on around the world and even here in our own country, and now we have to be concerned about whether gays pose a problem? Well the way I see this is that we never should have started this darn 'don't ask, don't tell' stuff. I have a tendency of agreeing with that Col - we don't need more problems to deal with.


  4. #4
    Bill targets 'don't ask, don't tell'
    Updated 2/28/2007 1:11 AM ET
    By Andrea Stone, USA TODAY

    Brian Fricke, a former Marine sergeant who served nine months in Iraq's Anbar province, wasn't thrown out of the military for being gay. He left when his enlistment was up because he was tired of pretending he wasn't.

    The "don't ask, don't tell" policy allows lesbians and gay men to serve if they keep quiet about their sex lives. Commanders are barred from asking subordinates about their sexual orientation.

    "If people were talking about relationships, you'd have to play the pronoun game. 'He' became 'she.' You really just can't be yourself," says Fricke, 25, a government information technology specialist in Washington. "You'll never be able to tabulate" how many gay people have left the military voluntarily because of its "don't ask, don't tell" policy.

    Fricke will be on Capitol Hill today when Democratic Rep. Marty Meehan of Massachusetts reintroduces his Military Readiness Enhancement Act.

    The bill would repeal the policy President Clinton approved in 1993 as a compromise between ending a ban and gays serving openly. That would leave gays free to serve without limits.

    Since the policy began, nearly 11,000 troops, the equivalent of an Army division, have been discharged.

    The measure had 122 co-sponsors last year but died in the Republican-controlled Congress. Now that Democrats are in charge, Meehan plans to hold hearings as early as April. He says the bill has more than 100 original co-sponsors and seven freshmen.

    Three Republicans have signed on, including Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida. She says her husband, Dexter, was cared for by a lesbian nurse when he was injured during combat in Vietnam.

    Defense Department statistics released at the request of Congress and the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, a gay advocacy group, show that nearly 7% of the 726 troops discharged under the policy in 2005 were medical personnel. That's the most in one year and brings to 334 the number of health care workers, including doctors, nurses and mental health specialists, dismissed since 1994.

    "People in need of medical specialists couldn't care less about the sexual orientation" of those caring for them, Meehan says. "The policy is outdated and discriminatory."

    Marine Maj. Stewart Upton, a Pentagon spokesman, says the number of ousted health workers is small given the nearly 11,000 in war zones. "We are enforcing the policy," he says. "We are not experiencing any problems with recruiting and retention."

    A Government Accountability Office report in February 2005 found that at least 800 dismissed gay servicemembers had skills deemed "mission critical" by the Pentagon. Among them: 54 Arabic-language specialists.

    Congress takes up the issue amid changes in:

    •The legal landscape. A federal appeals court in Boston will hear arguments March 7 in the first legal challenge to the policy since the Supreme Court struck down a Texas sodomy law in 2003. The high court said the Constitution's guarantee of liberty bars government from targeting private, consensual sex practices.

    •Public opinion. Polls indicate growing acceptance of gay troops. A Harris Poll this month found that 55% supported allowing gays to serve openly, up from 48% in 2000.

    A Pew Research Center survey last year found that 60% favored gays serving openly, up from 52% in 1994. Support ran 3-to-1 among those younger than 30. In contrast, Pew found that 39% favored same-sex marriage.

    •Military needs. The demand for more troops has led to lower recruiting standards as Congress vows to add 92,000 soldiers and Marines by 2012. "The war makes it easier to think about lifting the ban," says Clyde Wilcox, co-editor of The Politics of Gay Rights.

    •Military thinking. John Shalikashvili, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under Clinton, once supported the policy but wrote in The New York Times in January that he believes gays should be allowed to serve openly.

    Elaine Donnelly, whose Center for Military Readiness favors a ban on gays, calls Shalikashvili's column "very misinformed" and "part of a PR campaign" to overturn the policy.

    Shalikashvili and other policy critics are taking a go-slow approach while fighting continues in Iraq.

    John Hutson, once the Navy's top lawyer, calls "don't ask, don't tell" a transitional policy. "It bought us some time," he says, "but now I think that time has come and gone."


  5. #5
    Utter crap. More social engineering being disguised as "faaaaiiiirrrrnesss".

    I've said it before, I'll say it again; I'll support this when I'm allowed to live, shower, and use the same head as the female Marines. It's the EXACT same thing.

    I'm all for "equality", as long as everyone is equal.


  6. #6
    Gay veteran calls for end of 'Don't ask, don't tell'
    POSTED: 10:06 p.m. EST, February 28, 2007

    By Larry Shaughnessy
    CNN

    WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Staff Sgt. Eric Alva was one of the first Americans -- perhaps the first -- to be wounded in Iraq when he lost his leg to a land mine.

    But for years, Alva kept a secret: He is gay.

    "Who would have guessed that the first American wounded was a gay Marine?" Alva said Wednesday.

    Alva's service and sacrifice in Iraq earned him medals, media attention and a meeting with President Bush and the first lady.

    Now, he wants to use his place in history to win support for a proposed law to allow gays and lesbians to serve openly in the U.S. armed forces.

    He announced his homosexuality at a Wednesday news conference on Capitol Hill, where he called for the military's "Don't ask, don't tell" policy on gays in the service to be abandoned. (Watch Alva speak on Capitol Hill )

    "I'm an American who fought for his country and for the protection and the rights and freedoms of all American citizens -- not just some of them, but all of them," Alva said.

    Since the Clinton administration instituted the policy, service members who reveal their homosexuality face immediate discharge. Even troops with crucial skills, like Arabic translators, have been expelled.

    Rep. Marty Meehan, D-Massachusetts, has reintroduced a bill to lift the ban. It has failed before, and he admits it won't be easy this time, but he says it's not a lost cause.

    "It will be an uphill climb," Meehan said. "But I think the November elections can only mean good things."

    Meehan said his bill has 109 bipartisan co-sponsors in the House, and he said he expects that number to grow.

    "The momentum is clear," he said. "It is time to end this outdated and discriminatory policy."
    Gay service members are discharged

    In 2005, more than 700 members of the U.S. military were discharged because of their sexual orientation. Others, like former Marine Sgt. Brian Fricke, left on their own rather than keep their secret.

    "We cannot count those, gay and straight, who have chosen to leave rather than serve in silence like myself," Fricke said. "I'm proud to be a Marine, but I decided not to re-enlist so that I can live openly and honestly."

    There is no indication that the White House or the Pentagon is willing to change the policy. But just two months ago, the man who was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff when the policy was introduced indicated he was having second thoughts about "Don't ask, don't tell."

    "Last year I held a number of meetings with gay soldiers and Marines," retired Army Gen. John Shalikashvili wrote in The New York Times. "These conversations showed me just how much the military has changed, and that gays and lesbians can be accepted by their peers."

    Ellie


  7. #7
    No.

    And, Shali is the same guy who instituted the beret for everyone in the army, IIRC. So that they could all feel "special". Nuff said.


  8. #8
    Seems to me the gays brought this on themselves by insisting on making an issue of it.

    When I was active, no one made a big deal of it. There was someone you wondered about once in a while, but outside of maybe a few discreet comments to your known straight buddies, as long as they did their job no one cared or pursued it.

    What really yanks my chain is when gays, per se, act like I'M the one with a problem because I find the thought of sexual activity with anyone but an adult consenting female totally disgusting.

    crate


  9. #9
    Marine Free Member Quinbo's Avatar
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    Ok butt pirate go take a shower and put on your pink slippers. Are you done? Fine the rest of the Marine Corps can now go take a shower without a meat gazer in their presence.


  10. #10
    Marine Free Member bigdog43701's Avatar
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    i think there should be gays in the Marines...we all need moving targets to shoot at.


  11. #11
    Quote Originally Posted by Bulkyker
    Ok butt pirate go take a shower and put on your pink slippers. Are you done? Fine the rest of the Marine Corps can now go take a shower without a meat gazer in their presence.

    That's some funny freakin' **** right there!


  12. #12
    Bulkyker!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
    I laughed so hard I wet myself !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


  13. #13
    Quote Originally Posted by bigdog43701
    i think there should be gays in the Marines...we all need moving targets to shoot at.
    haha?


  14. #14
    Quote Originally Posted by Sgt Leprechaun
    Utter crap. More social engineering being disguised as "faaaaiiiirrrrnesss".

    I've said it before, I'll say it again; I'll support this when I'm allowed to live, shower, and use the same head as the female Marines. It's the EXACT same thing.

    I'm all for "equality", as long as everyone is equal.
    That's the ticket!


  15. #15
    Ridiculous that You Can Fight and Die for Your Country but Have to Live a Lie Meanwhile?

    Patrick Lockyer
    March 1, 2007
    American Chronicle, CA

    I served nine years in the Royal Corps of Transport and five of them in Germany and knew gays were serving alongside me. The women were quite open. The men were tolerated. I am sure that they are even more open these days as things have progressed. Why is America so slow to progress in such matters? The 'Gay Thang' and 'Abortion Thang' have surely taken Foreign Policy matters down the wrong road because the people who would live and die by objecting have not shown great skills at being 'worldly' and 'diplomatically ' universal? As a Brit born in London during the war I have always admired the things we inherited from the States. Whatever you guys had we surely acquired sooner or later. That would be freezers and microwaves and drive-in burgers. The USA does trail in matters though when the Vice Pres has to subdue that his daughter is gay. My daughter is also gay and realized it from an early age and she is a babe. She is to be proud of and I would never conceal or deny her in order to succeed or progress. My sweetheart tried to tell my Heidi that she would be forgiven and I got uptight about that concept. She is NOT a sinner in my eyes. She is a sinner to many here but that is nonsense in the grand scheme of things just as this great Marine Sgt gay hero in the story repeated below supposedly being a sinner is also ridiculous. If having softer women serving in the war regions does not compromise the other troops who might extend themselves beyond reason to save a woman trapped then how would a Rock Hudson Marine gay compromise anyone? Watch the movie "American Beauty" which is a five Academy Awards winner of 1999 that bravely tells it how it is here in that Kevin Spacey is a salesman who is killed at the beginning of the movie. We have to try and decide which of several people who might have reason to want to kill him actually pulled the trigger. It turns out that THE most unlikely one, the tough Marine father of a weird son kills his neighbor as he is 'ashamed' at being turned on by him working out and at having kissed him on the lips in a weakened moment. So eight years on from that movie and Kevin is banished to London to mastermind the East End Shakespeare Theatre. We still find that many in the USA cannot come to terms with the fact that our species come in all facets and you cannot change that any more than you can change the fact that many these days will have a rampant sex life but never marry. Also that many couples are only so in the biblical fashion but keep a financial right to 'go it alone' rather than lose pensions and benefits? We should not make these matters either constitutional or voting arguments. Here is the shocking story of what goes on for some of our serving hero's. We seem to need Change, Change and Change right through the whole attitudes issue. We don’t need to be Phony Maloney to get on in our modern world?

    THE STORY:

    'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' Revisited Vet Fights to End Ban on Openly Gay Service Members.

    The first U.S. Marine seriously wounded in Iraq , Staff Sgt. Eric Alva, lost his leg when he stepped on a land mine. Now he and his prosthetic leg have marched right into one of the most contentious battles in American politics

    Alva joined with Rep. Marty Meehan, D-Mass., as a bipartisan group of Congress members pushed legislation to overturn the ban on openly gay and lesbian troops serving in the military. Alva says that losing his leg forced him out of the closet. "It made me realize everything that I had to actually speak up for," Alva said Wednesday. "Basically the rights and privileges of what I as an individual have earned in this country." He imagines conversations with the political opponents he knows he will now face. "OK buddy," he said, "'you pick up a gun and you go fight in Iraq or Afghanistan for a while, then you could come back and we can have a talk because I've actually sacrificed, I've actually done duty and served in this country for your rights and freedom.'"

    The Pentagon has long maintained that the ban is necessary for unit cohesion. "The bottom line for the military is, 'Is this a policy change that's going to help promote combat effectiveness?'" said retired Lt. Col. Robert "Bob" Maginnis. "I see no evidence of that."

    Alva hopes that he can change minds by arguing the ban is simply unfair to gays and lesbian service members who are already serving their nation honorably, not to mention Americans who want to serve. He and his partner will never be able to live under the same rules and regulations applied to a husband and wife, for instance. Increasingly, advocates for lifting the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" compromise that President Clinton signed into law in 1993 argue that the ban on gays and lesbians serving openly is a national security issue.

    The military is stretched thin, the argument goes, and the unit cohesion commanders argue is threatened with the presence of "out" soldiers and Marines pales in comparison with the loss of specialists. Data released today by the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, an advocacy group that supports lifting the ban, suggests that the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" ban is disproportionately affecting troops in key specialties. Of 742 such dismissals in fiscal year 2005, the highest number than in any category.49 were medical personnel. An additional 40 were law enforcement officers, along with 14 intelligence officers, 35 infantrymen, and seven nuclear, biological and chemical warfare specialists. This generally squares with the Government Accountability Office's 2004 study, which found that of the 9,488 service members who at that point had been discharged from the military for gay and lesbian conduct since 1993, approximately 757 or 8 percent, "held critical occupations." Meaning the kinds of jobs for which the Pentagon offers selective reenlistment bonuses. That number included 322 with "skills in an important language such as Arabic, Farsi or Korean." Maginnis says that the military has "come to the conclusion that if we embrace homosexuality openly in the military than that has far more of a detrimental impact than will keeping someone just because they happen to have a critical skill."

    Alva had no such specialized skills, but he was a decorated staff sergeant who had served in Somalia and Japan. As troops began to push into Iraq, on March 21, 2003, Alva was leading 11 Marines among 75 or so sailors and Marines in a 50- to 55-vehicle convoy on its way from the desert in Kuwait to Basra, Iraq. It was a logistical convoy moving through the desert at night, lights out, night-vision goggles on. The sand was so kicked up it was nearly impossible for Alva to even keep track of the vehicle in front of him. At one of three stops along the way, Alva, who hadn't eaten for a full day, was heating up an MRE when he went to get something out of his Humvee. "I took maybe a step or two," Alva said, "and that is when the explosion went off." It was a land mine. "I stepped on a land mine with my right foot," Alva said. "The explosion went off and threw me about 10 feet. I was in severe pain." His hearing was temporarily lost, so he couldn't hear his own screaming. His hand was covered in blood; the tip of the index finger on his right hand was blown off, and the nerves had been damaged forever. Marines ran to him. "They lifted my left foot and cut the bootlaces from the bottom, and they lifted my heel, and they took the boot off from the heel," Alva said. "And they never touched the right leg. So I remember even asking the chaplain, 'What is wrong with my legs? What is wrong with my legs?' And the chaplain, because we had chaplains with us, and he said, 'There is nothing wrong. You are fine. You are fine.'

    But he wasn't. Evacuated to Kuwait by helicopter, Alva woke up hours later in the post-op recovery room. His leg was gone. "It felt like a nightmare," he said. "And I remember just crying like for a few minutes, and I fell back to sleep because the drugs were really heavy." In Bethesda Naval Hospital, Alva was visited by President Bush and the first lady, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld , California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Michael Jordan. What none of them knew, and what the 5-foot-1-inch Latino from San Antonio had known by the time he had graduated from high school: He was gay. Alva knew it when he enlisted at age 19 in 1990, but even though he acknowledges lying on his application when asked about his sexual orientation, it sounds as if deciding to pick the Marines over the U.S. Army weighed more heavily on his mind. "My father and grandfather were in the Army," Alva said, "but then I decided you know what, I wanted a bigger challenge, and actually that's when I went to go see a Marine Corps recruiter." Alva says that it was tougher for the military's closeted gays before the 1993 "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" law Clinton at the time called "an imperfect compromise." "If you were even assumed to be" gay, you would likely be questioned by superior officers, Alva recalls. "You could be a heterosexual male who was married, but if you had a feminine side to them, what they did back then in 1990, '91 or even before that, is you started to get questioned. You actually had what people used to label as a witch-hunt. Your staff would start to question you and interrogate you and, you know, just pressure you like, you know."

    That changed with "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." Which is not to say that Alva didn't "tell" anyone. "I told tons of people," he said, with a laugh. "A lot of my friends, my buddies, my closest Marines, people I had served in combat with. Straight guys, married, with children and everything, three of them which I have become their sons' godfather now. Everybody was just respectful and was just like ordinary. ‘That's it, that's your big news?’ Alva says that while anti-gay language wasn't exactly unheard of in the Marines, generally he thinks troops are ready for gays and lesbians to serve openly. "Being on the front lines and serving with the people who even actually knew that I was gay, you know, that was never a factor. We were there to do a job. We were [there] to do a mission. I don't think people would have a hard time with it because they know that the person right next to them is going to be there to protect them, in our terms, 'have their back.'

    Patrick Lockyer

    A Brit in Sunny Florida. . A boy born in war torn London. A boy who went to school with Tom Jones in Pontypridd South Wales. A boy who slept on the sidewalk outside Westminster Abbey to see the Coronation. A NATO vet who stood in Berlin against the RED threat. A man who once was chosen to drive for Her Majesty. A man who was in a movie with Pierce Brosnan(diet Coke Ad).A driving instructor in Peterborough for 25 years. Chairman of the Peterborough Road Safety Committee for three years. Chairman of The Peterborough Institute of Advanced Motoring for six years. A Professsional Videographer of Premier Soccer. A College Tutor of Computer Technology. An Adobe Photoshop specialist of ten years. A photographer.

    Ellie


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