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Since the president repealed Dont Ask, Don't Tell the military has been working on integrating the new order into the system.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

[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.
Homosexuality is not equivalent to racial segregation when it comes to the Army's needs. Allowing minorities to serve bumps the recruiting pool up by a third. That's an obvious benefit for the military to spend a massive amount of resources to overcome institutional racism.
There is no such benefit from doing the same with gays. Their population in this country is around 2-4%. Allowing openly gay soldiers to serve bumps up the numbers such a small amount it's not worth the investment.
Before any change is made to the armed forces, it should asked, "How does this make us a more effective fighting force?" Ignore fairness, ignore equality. Just explain how the change will help us attain victory.
So. How does repealing DADT make us a more effective fighting force? Considering the huge investment for such an insignificant gain, I'd say it doesn't.

[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."

The study determined that the risks to military readiness, unit effectiveness, and unit cohesion of repealing DADT were all low, and they have had plenty of opportunity to observe other countries' methods of going about the same process to learn from. Not to mention, the institutional resistance to giving homosexuals "permission" to serve in the military is far smaller than resistance to allowing African Americans was, so it's an effort on a far smaller scale and timeline.

All of which is tangential to the fact that the military doesn't get to pick which of our laws it must abide by.

[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.

Re - other countries: now that's just jingoistic. It is perfectly blind to assume you can't learn anything from the actions of others.

The writing up of training modules and legal code is the one-time deal. And as for training courses, I really think you're blowing this out of proportion. Do you also volunteer all of your leisure time for more combat training?

What's the magic number that makes a demographic worth treating like fellow human beings or valuable soldiers? 5%? 10%? When the military environment is such that female soldiers in Iraq are more likely to be raped by another service member than killed in action, you're looking at a pretty fucked up environment that probably needs sexual assault prevention training and reporting avenues just as much as it needs more hours on equipment training. Women in the military are somewhere around 15% - are they an irrelevant minority too? Should the military also not take sexual assault (of women or men) seriously just because a quarter of its female soldiers will be raped by another soldier?

Calling it "placating an irrelevant minority" is completely misrepresenting the situation. These are soldiers who have dedicated years of their lives to their country, and who could, with one accusation, lose their job and all the accompanying benefits that they earned through their service. A lot of people are up in arms right now over the possible loss of funding for the military, because they believe that service to one's country deserves fair recompense. A soldier who served diligently deserves the entirety of the benefits they were offered when they signed on, just as you do, and that is not "placation".

[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.

No doubt people thought that integration was a risky "social experiment". But it had to be done, and it was done, and we seem to have done pretty well since then, all fears to the contrary.

Your military superiors decided that this so-called "social experimentation" was not a significant risk. So, you claim that it's about efficiency, etc. etc., but I see nothing but you resenting that some of your fellow soldiers are finally getting the same treatment as you. Not better treatment, not special treatment: the same.

[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).

The military could easily change its fitness requirements. So that's a policy failure, not sin by the women who want to serve their country. And I'm pretty certain you have women there who can keep up with you regardless.

They might not need separate facilities if they could count on their brothers-in-arms not to assault them for being female.