No one asked, but I'll tell this anyway
In light of the recently passed and signed law to end the military’s “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” policy, I felt compelled to comment, being an Army veteran who has become closely involved with GLBT issues in recent years.
First I will note that with all the reports of how bad DADT has been, it seems forgotten that the rule originally came about to soften military policy towards gays, a step away from absolute prohibition. It was a bad compromise, but a compromise nonetheless. Viewed that way, ending it was a natural step in the direction that DADT itself had taken.
In my own military experience, I hardly knew of any GLBT soldiers, but given the atmosphere at the time, there were no doubt several whom I served with who employed the personal discipline instilled in service members to stay completely in the closet. There was only one gay man that I knew of, a sergeant who in a moment of drunken weakness allegedly hit on a member of my unit. This person quietly disappeared, discharged, with the only issue being his personal weakness rather than the injustice of military policy.
As for lesbians, they were an open secret. I don’t know what personal pressures they felt, as any officer or NCO with an ax to grind would have easy leverage over them. But as a fellow common enlisted soldier, there were no problems. My company-level armory clerk, who I think was arms-room NCO when I left, in charge of storing all the rifles and ammo, was respected as a hard-working and efficient soldier. And once word got around that, cute as she was, she was only interested in other women, the men’s attitudes barely changed, except that perhaps thinking of her as “one of the guys” helped us respect her more as a fellow soldier. In the crude calculus of Privates thinking with their private parts, any single female soldier who didn’t put out was likely gay. This being peacetime in Germany, there were plenty of frauleins in town to attract our attention. What women who had no interest in us did on their own time was their own business.
This open-secret aspect points out two big weaknesses of DADT. The first being that with homophobia being more focused against gay men than lesbians, the former were in greater danger of being discharged, setting up an inequity even among the secret ranks of the GLBTs. The second is that “not telling” is a lot harder than you’d think. Service members in constant contact, whether in combat or field exercises, or just spending endless hours cleaning barracks and tinkering in motor pools, get to know very intimate details about each other. You get to know the name of your squad-mate’s first dog or girlfriend, what town he grew up in, what foods he likes, what makes him laugh or fly into a rage. It’s the world’s oldest fraternity. If you’re gay, sooner or later, someone will at least suspect - you might even feel a close enough bond to the others to tell one.
Comparing my service in the 80s to today’s military only goes so far. The overall American culture has shifted incredibly towards acceptance in the intervening years. Not to say that there is perfect harmony, after all there are many in this country still struggling with racial/ethnic acceptance, and especially religious tolerance considering recent animosity towards Muslims. But polling of both service members and civilians show attitudes have changed a lot in a generation.
So how will the end of DADT change things? In most ways there will be little change at all, which will be a relief to commanders who worried over unit cohesion once the gay members were out. These worries proved to be unfounded in the Canadian and UK forces, and being of a similar culture, we should do all right as well. There is also the fact that, except for a possible celebratory recruiting bump, gays aren’t likely to sign up in droves, any more than they already were. The stereotypically flamboyant gay man was never going to submit himself to this life anyway, so wild queens taking over the military wasn’t going to happen. But there are all kinds of gay people just as there are all kinds of straight people. Those for whom military life and service appeals will understand and accept the restrictions and rigors and need for uniformity, just like anyone coming out of any other subculture.
But there will be changes, subtle shifts in military culture. They won’t all be easy or smooth. I don’t remember any homophobic chants from when cadence was called to our marching or running rhythm - the ones that could be seen as sexist or misogynist are no doubt history now, as are any racist ones from generations past. The effect on the culture will be more in the unwritten mores of conduct in a mostly- or all-male unit. Within the understanding that no one in the group was gay, we could joke with one another with pretend sexual advance, make crude comments or call one another “faggot,” and nothing came of it except in the ways it helped to bond us in a manner that wasn’t sexual, but deep in the ways only fighting men understand. With the greater odds that a man in that company is actually gay, then there is the possibility not only of offense, but of misunderstandings and mixed signals from buddies making faux-gay “advances.” But such horseplay would likely cease or change as, much like having women in the squad, having gay men alters the game, rewrites the ground rules for how a unit makes its glue. In the end, with troops seeing a man’s sexuality as being, like race or religion, insignificant to the mission, yet important enough to your brother in arms that you don’t insult it, this will be a good thing.
As for religious-based arguments against gays serving openly, I suspect they are mostly made by people who have never served in the armed forces. These arguments boil down to two - that Christian soldiers won’t be free to practice their faith, and that Chaplains will be hindered in their duties.
As for the first, aside from the fact that one can be gay or gay-friendly and still be Christian, judging from my experience, few service members are devout enough in their faiths for this to be an issue. In my company-sized unit of about 200 soldiers, you could count on one hand those who attended any regular religious services or in word or deed had an overtly Christian “witness.” While disciplined when it came to the military mission and highly competent at our jobs, we were, like millions of soldiers before us, prone to mildly hedonistic behavior, a secular outlook on life and profanity-loaded language. (Adding women didn’t change that much, they’d drink and cuss just like the rest of us.) And even the few “Holy Joes” among us never let religion get in the way of the job.
The second argument misunderstands the role of the chaplain. It is not his role to convert and/or lead his soldierly flock. Chaplains don’t command troops, other than the assistants assigned to them. Functionally, even though he is a commissioned officer, the chaplain serves the soldier, not the other way around. Considerations of the separation of church and state aside, this is a practical matter. A chaplain acts as counselor, and helps service members to practice their faiths - helping to maintain morale and mental focus. As for the possibility that a chaplain may have to put aside his religious beliefs opposing homosexuality, he took this job with the understanding that he would be ministering to soldiers with all manner of beliefs that aren’t consistent with his. There may be only one chaplain for a battalion, and he must deal equally with Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Muslims, agnostics and even, in recent years, Wiccans. Any who leave the military over the end of DADT -- and I doubt many will, no matter what you’ve heard -- are doing the military a favor.
I don’t expect this lengthy essay to convince or persuade anyone. This is just the perspective of one person who served, filtered through my own experience and beliefs. And perspective is something that gets lost quickly when issues like this enter public debate.
First I will note that with all the reports of how bad DADT has been, it seems forgotten that the rule originally came about to soften military policy towards gays, a step away from absolute prohibition. It was a bad compromise, but a compromise nonetheless. Viewed that way, ending it was a natural step in the direction that DADT itself had taken.
In my own military experience, I hardly knew of any GLBT soldiers, but given the atmosphere at the time, there were no doubt several whom I served with who employed the personal discipline instilled in service members to stay completely in the closet. There was only one gay man that I knew of, a sergeant who in a moment of drunken weakness allegedly hit on a member of my unit. This person quietly disappeared, discharged, with the only issue being his personal weakness rather than the injustice of military policy.
As for lesbians, they were an open secret. I don’t know what personal pressures they felt, as any officer or NCO with an ax to grind would have easy leverage over them. But as a fellow common enlisted soldier, there were no problems. My company-level armory clerk, who I think was arms-room NCO when I left, in charge of storing all the rifles and ammo, was respected as a hard-working and efficient soldier. And once word got around that, cute as she was, she was only interested in other women, the men’s attitudes barely changed, except that perhaps thinking of her as “one of the guys” helped us respect her more as a fellow soldier. In the crude calculus of Privates thinking with their private parts, any single female soldier who didn’t put out was likely gay. This being peacetime in Germany, there were plenty of frauleins in town to attract our attention. What women who had no interest in us did on their own time was their own business.
This open-secret aspect points out two big weaknesses of DADT. The first being that with homophobia being more focused against gay men than lesbians, the former were in greater danger of being discharged, setting up an inequity even among the secret ranks of the GLBTs. The second is that “not telling” is a lot harder than you’d think. Service members in constant contact, whether in combat or field exercises, or just spending endless hours cleaning barracks and tinkering in motor pools, get to know very intimate details about each other. You get to know the name of your squad-mate’s first dog or girlfriend, what town he grew up in, what foods he likes, what makes him laugh or fly into a rage. It’s the world’s oldest fraternity. If you’re gay, sooner or later, someone will at least suspect - you might even feel a close enough bond to the others to tell one.
Comparing my service in the 80s to today’s military only goes so far. The overall American culture has shifted incredibly towards acceptance in the intervening years. Not to say that there is perfect harmony, after all there are many in this country still struggling with racial/ethnic acceptance, and especially religious tolerance considering recent animosity towards Muslims. But polling of both service members and civilians show attitudes have changed a lot in a generation.
So how will the end of DADT change things? In most ways there will be little change at all, which will be a relief to commanders who worried over unit cohesion once the gay members were out. These worries proved to be unfounded in the Canadian and UK forces, and being of a similar culture, we should do all right as well. There is also the fact that, except for a possible celebratory recruiting bump, gays aren’t likely to sign up in droves, any more than they already were. The stereotypically flamboyant gay man was never going to submit himself to this life anyway, so wild queens taking over the military wasn’t going to happen. But there are all kinds of gay people just as there are all kinds of straight people. Those for whom military life and service appeals will understand and accept the restrictions and rigors and need for uniformity, just like anyone coming out of any other subculture.
But there will be changes, subtle shifts in military culture. They won’t all be easy or smooth. I don’t remember any homophobic chants from when cadence was called to our marching or running rhythm - the ones that could be seen as sexist or misogynist are no doubt history now, as are any racist ones from generations past. The effect on the culture will be more in the unwritten mores of conduct in a mostly- or all-male unit. Within the understanding that no one in the group was gay, we could joke with one another with pretend sexual advance, make crude comments or call one another “faggot,” and nothing came of it except in the ways it helped to bond us in a manner that wasn’t sexual, but deep in the ways only fighting men understand. With the greater odds that a man in that company is actually gay, then there is the possibility not only of offense, but of misunderstandings and mixed signals from buddies making faux-gay “advances.” But such horseplay would likely cease or change as, much like having women in the squad, having gay men alters the game, rewrites the ground rules for how a unit makes its glue. In the end, with troops seeing a man’s sexuality as being, like race or religion, insignificant to the mission, yet important enough to your brother in arms that you don’t insult it, this will be a good thing.
As for religious-based arguments against gays serving openly, I suspect they are mostly made by people who have never served in the armed forces. These arguments boil down to two - that Christian soldiers won’t be free to practice their faith, and that Chaplains will be hindered in their duties.
As for the first, aside from the fact that one can be gay or gay-friendly and still be Christian, judging from my experience, few service members are devout enough in their faiths for this to be an issue. In my company-sized unit of about 200 soldiers, you could count on one hand those who attended any regular religious services or in word or deed had an overtly Christian “witness.” While disciplined when it came to the military mission and highly competent at our jobs, we were, like millions of soldiers before us, prone to mildly hedonistic behavior, a secular outlook on life and profanity-loaded language. (Adding women didn’t change that much, they’d drink and cuss just like the rest of us.) And even the few “Holy Joes” among us never let religion get in the way of the job.
The second argument misunderstands the role of the chaplain. It is not his role to convert and/or lead his soldierly flock. Chaplains don’t command troops, other than the assistants assigned to them. Functionally, even though he is a commissioned officer, the chaplain serves the soldier, not the other way around. Considerations of the separation of church and state aside, this is a practical matter. A chaplain acts as counselor, and helps service members to practice their faiths - helping to maintain morale and mental focus. As for the possibility that a chaplain may have to put aside his religious beliefs opposing homosexuality, he took this job with the understanding that he would be ministering to soldiers with all manner of beliefs that aren’t consistent with his. There may be only one chaplain for a battalion, and he must deal equally with Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Muslims, agnostics and even, in recent years, Wiccans. Any who leave the military over the end of DADT -- and I doubt many will, no matter what you’ve heard -- are doing the military a favor.
I don’t expect this lengthy essay to convince or persuade anyone. This is just the perspective of one person who served, filtered through my own experience and beliefs. And perspective is something that gets lost quickly when issues like this enter public debate.