DADT

[jachyra]

Since the president repealed Dont Ask, Don't Tell the military has been working on integrating the new order into the system. Military law has to be reviewed and rewritten, these changes must be taught down through the ranks so every soldier from general to private knows what they should be doing

Comments

[tkie]

Devil's Advocate: If a gay soldier has to self-censor at all times in order to keep his or her job in the military, that strikes me as a pretty huge and unnecessary diversion for that person. Perhaps you're all losing a few hours now, but the people most affected by the policy change will be deeply affected.

True...

[jachyra]

...but the unit matters far more than the individual in the Army.

I'm stuck on "Democracy. We're here to protect it, not practice it." That goes for individuality, fairness, and other priviledges we fight for civilians to have.

[carmenwoods]

So, what, having a few training sessions to let potential troublemakers know how to behave is worse, and more of a diversion, than having to deal with replacing unit members who get kicked out for being gay, or establishing their replacements, or spending resources on hearings to determine whether someone is gay and should be kicked out, or having part of a unit under-performing or making mistakes because they're stressed about being ratted out by an angry ex or relative?

Is it not worth a small diversion now to increase the overall longterm efficiency and effectiveness of the military as a whole? Don't you think that not having to give a shit now over what color one of your unit members is is a benefit that outweighs whatever "training diversions" occurred during integration of the military?

Come on, dude, the military's job might be to break things and kill people, but what point is it if it's so incredibly distanced from the people it's supposed to be breaking things for that it can't even handle allowing a guy to be open about

[jachyra]

To answer your first question: yes. Spending the time and effort to retrain hundreds of thousands of soldiers in new doctrine, not to mention making up this new doctrine, is worse than being fair to such a small community

[carmenwoods]

A huge, one-time investment will certainly be worth it with the accumulation of time.

That question was asked. The Pentagon's study shows that a majority of service members believe that repealing DADT would have either a positive, mixed, or neutral effect on a variety of aspects of military life. The likeliest immediate results are that your effectiveness will be unaffected or positively affected overall. And from the study's assessment of organizations such as fire departments and police departments, "Several interviewees actually reported that integration of gay and lesbian personnel resulted in improved performance, in that the organizations were better equipped to respond to concerns of gay and lesbian constituents in their communities

[jachyra]

I remember that study. It also shows 60% of Army and Marine combat forces disagree. The majority of the military elements with the most direct experience and practical knowledge in surviving and winning combat believe the repeal of DADT is likely to be deficient to unit cohesion and effectiveness.
As to other coutries; when did it become wise policy to imitate our inferiors?
It will not be a one-time investment. Not only do we have the months of rewriting military law and the initial training, there will be countless refresher courses for myself and hundreds of thousands of other soldiers for the entirety of our military career. Those are valuable days that could be spent training on reflexive fire or CLS or IEDs. Training that saves lives rather than placating an irrelevant minority.

[carmenwoods]

That 60% is among soldiers who had never served with someone they knew was gay, and were therefore operating under misconceptions. Among marines and combat personnel who knew they'd had gay compatriots, that disagreement was significantly lessened

[jachyra]

Don't get me started on women in the military. If I had my way I wouldn't allow them to serve in the Army either for a whole host of reasons.

It's not me blowing this out of proportion. It's you who's unaware how much time we're forced to spend on these kinds of things.

As much as you claim otherwise, I see this as nothing more than political placation. Our job is too important to risk with social experimentation. Was DADT unfair? Yes. Life ain't fair. Quit your bitching and do your job or don't volunteer for service in the first place.

[carmenwoods]

You may not want them in the military, but good gracious, there they are. You seemed happy enough to have another 30% of minorities to draw potential recruits from, but another 50% of potential recruits is something to sneer at? And the question was not "Do you want to serve next to someone who doesn't have a penis," but "Does the military need to take sexual assault seriously or not?"

Much as you seem to want otherwise, the military is not a monolith that will remain forever unchanged. Policies will be updated and rewritten, technology will be modernized, global power structures will shift, tactics will adapt, and people who are different from you are no longer going to be prevented from having the same opportunity to serve their country that you enjoy. All of those changes are going to require new training. The military cannot and will not remain a stagnant entity in a world that changes around it. Any time you have to spend on training to keep up with the rest of the world is entirely necessary, and time well spent

[jachyra]

Of course it needs to take sexual assault seriously because we've been forced to accept women into the fold. Countless hours myself and every other servicemember has lost because it was decided it's unfair to discriminate against women. Add in their inability to physicaly keep up with males, their out-of-proportion use of medical resources, and added expense of seperate facitilies and I see the addition of women to the Army as a detriment rather than improvement in military strength.
Now a whole new can of worms is being opened on an unnecessary change.

[carmenwoods]

You're confusing what is fair with what is legally required. It wasn't "decided it's unfair to discriminate against women," it was recognized as unconstitutional to do so. Often, the two are the same, but the reason the military let women in was because it was unlawful for them not to, not because it was unfair of them not to.

Maybe they're hours lost for you because you would never sexually assault someone. But until any of your buddies no longer rape people, it is necessary to take everyone aside and say, "Here is how you can safely report sexual assault, and here is the proper way to handle such a report." So that's countless hours lost, not because women had the gall to join, but because some of the men decide they have to intimidate and dominate anyone they perceive as weaker than them (including other men, who are also sexually assaulted in the military

Re: True...

[carmenwoods]

And, actually I am going to call bullshit on that "Democracy" line. Our military is as subject to our Constitution as any of the rest of our society, and DADT was thrown out for violating the First and Fifth Amendments.