I think I have seen this one coming for a looooong time………. regardless of the political party in power. Todays date: 12/18/2010 and the US Senate passes the repeal of the DADT (Don’t ask, don’t tell) policy that has been in effect for military service since………… I don’t know exactly when, but probably for most of MY life……
There seems to be a dividing line on this policy; most Repuplicans seem to support the DADT policy and most Democrats oppose it. I have served 20 years in the US Army and I can say that this policy to me seemed to be out of date (For lack of a better word) and very much driven by religious factions within the Rep. party (Mostly those of conservative identity IMO)
I retired in 2004 from the US Army, but in my 20 years, I had my run-ins with soldiers that were serving their country and happened to be “gay”; I will say unequivocally that not one gay soldier that I knew tried to “hit” on me or force me into a sexual relationship with them. I say that because that seems to be a fallback excuse of those that oppose having openly gay soldiers serve. I also have not experienced a similar effect from heterosexual females in the military service……….. so what’s the deal here?
Even though I am no longer a member of the active military forces, I do support the repeal of the DADT policy; look, if loving your country has to take a back seat to your sexual preferences, maybe this isn’t the country many of us envisioned after all……….. I don’t think that allowing openly gay soldiers is tantamount to supporting being gay – look, we allow all sorts of people in the military, many of whom happen to be wife beaters, sexual predators, and just plain a**holes, and there isn’t any policy to prevent their service…. get my point??
What I’m trying to say is that I advocate military service for anyone who wishes to serve; I don’t think a person’s sexual preference should be a factor in whether you can be a military patriot, and I say that from my own military experiences and being in a military unit where a soldier was under fire for potentially “being gay” during a weekend out of town event where somebody who knew him and saw him tattled to their superiors. If ONLY for that, then repealing the DADT policy is a POSITIVE for the US military, and any other organization that wants simply to get the best qualified people, regardless of their personal sexual preferences.
