Latest on "don't ask, don't tell"

[Asher]

Ben, you'd save us all a time and earn yourself a lot of brownie points just by coming out and saying what we all know you're saying. But I'm thinking you genuinely do not understand the malice and ignorance behind your words. You are genuinely ignorant about how much of an unChristian ******* you really are.

If what you are wasting your life believing is true, you may as well give up now, because you will end up burning in hell for your beliefs and your sins.

[BlackCat]

Who's them? All gay people? Or just those who are inclined to commit sexual assault? If the former, then no, if the latter, then yes.

Wich gays are you thinking about when you claim that their only thought is to rape their comrades ?

[Elok]

BK, even excluding the bit about the rampage, that's ludicrous. There is no legitimate reason to believe that repealing DADT will cause a significant increase in sexual assaults, and very few, if any, commanding officers are going to interpret "you have to let gays serve" as "you have to let gays ass-rape."

I really don't know where you get this "gay men who are not willing to abide by the regulations" - I assume that it is from your fantasy. What are the regulations that they wont abide ?

"No playing showtunes in the barracks."

[Asher]

Wich gays are you thinking about when you claim that their only thought is to rape their comrades ?

Own goal: RC Priests

[Asher]

http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2010/05/19/for-allies-integrating-gays-in-military-easier-done-than-said/

For allies, integrating gays in military easier done than said
The U.S. and its military allies agree on many things, from the size of bullets for their rifles to the design of future fighter jets. But on the issue of gays in the military, the U.S. stands alone among the Western allies.

Representatives from Great Britain, Canada, Australia, Israel and the Netherlands gathered Wednesday at the Brookings Institution, a think tank in Washington, to describe how the militaries in those countries handled allowing homosexuals to serve openly in their militaries. The consensus was that, in spite of concerns before the change, when gays and lesbians were allowed to serve, it was a non-issue.

"I did not see one case at any level when homosexuals did not get along with other soldiers. The problems are among men and women," said Maj. Gen. Walter Semianiw, an infantry officer in the Canadian military. "This is not an issue for our country."

"We know the U.S. as a country that favors the individual rights, freedom, giving the people the opportunity to flourish in their life," said Col. Kees Matthijssen of the Royal Dutch Army. "From that perspective it's still very strange the U.S. is still having a kind of ban on openly having gays and lesbians in the military."

"There were concerns in the late '90s of gay men walking across the gangplank in feather boas and high heels," said retired Lt. Cmdr. Craig Jones of the British Royal Navy. "That just did not happen."

Jones said British military officials saw an unexpected benefit of allowing gays to serve openly - better retention of qualified soldiers and sailors in key positions. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the British military had a 6 percent to 8 percent gap in unfilled positions. Now it's down to the 2 percent to 3 percent range.
Jones said one reason for that is the new policy allowing gays to serve.
Now that gays are able to serve, military recruiters in the United Kingdom have more volunteers to choose from, Jones said. Also, having children is often cited by British troops as one reason why they leave the military in their late 20s or 30s. And Jones said because gays and lesbians are less likely to become parents, they tend to stay in the military longer.

During a recent Congressional hearing on the U.S. military's "don't ask, don't tell," policy, retired NATO Commander Gen. John Sheehan testified that he believed that the Dutch military's policy of allowing gays to serve was in part to blame for the Dutch military's failure to halt the massacre of Muslims in the Bosnian town of Srebrenica in 1995.

"They declared a peace dividend and made a conscious effort to socialize their military," Sheehan testified in March. "That includes the unionization of their militaries. It includes open homosexuality demonstrated in a series of other activities."

"That led to a force that was ill-equipped to go to war. The case-in-point that I'm referring to is when the Dutch were required to defend Srebrenica against the Serbs. The battalion was under-strength, poorly led," Sheehan said.

Sheehan later backtracked on his testimony, but it still grates on the Dutch.

"I was in Srebrenica myself, I was a company commander, I was there. I had a full professional company," Matthijssen of the Dutch army told CNN.

"The homosexual, sexuality that he (Sheehan) suggested would have affected that unit, that is absolutely not the case."

Matthijssen added, "There was good cohesion within the unit, the unit was effective. But the unit was put in a place - based on political decisions within the U.N., within the international community - with too (few) troops, too few means, not the mandate to really fight and overwhelm ... That's what really happened."

Matthijssen insisted allowing gays to serve openly has made the Royal Dutch Army better.

"We're much more effective because we have an organizational culture and climate that people know that they can tell about who they are, and that's what we encourage," he said.

[Al B. Sure!]

Asher:

But bootcamp would be too much fun for a gay guy! Haven't we established that? It's supposed to be difficult and stressful, not enjoyable!