********,

You’re right, the highest positions of responsibility I achieved in the military were (acting) NCOIC of my S2 shop and platoon sergeant in a training environment. I did experience gender issues at my level, including losing female troops due to pregnancy, but I didn’t have to deal with those issues at a command level. Due to my experience with female soldiers, including my doubts, one of my interests in the current war has been the performance of our female troops in a genuine battlefield environment. From what I’ve heard, they’ve been doing okay.

It should be noted that male and female troops are allowed openly to have relationships, but like any professional workplace, there are rules they must adhere to. I’ve even served with wives serving with their husbands in the same unit. I don’t see why the same relationships rules couldn’t apply to homosexual relationships in a post-DADT military.

I admit I’m remarkably unsympathetic to the concerns about females on board ship due to my bias as an Army veteran who rode to work in planes, choppers, trucks, tracks, and of course, in my pimped-out LPCs, but no ships.

Where in my qualifier “no one who’s physically and mentally fit to do so” do you take me to mean that someone who is unqualified to do a job in the military should then do that job? In fact, I made a point of saying that folks who prove to be unqualified, which can happen for reasons unrelated to sexual orientation, are and should be disciplined, even put out of the military if it comes to that. My opposition is to the putting out and discouragement of gay Americans who are both qualified for military service and willing to volunteer for the uniform.

“Lots of women would like to serve in artillery and infantry units too, but until they can carry the same amount of gear the guys can (about 70 lbs last time I checked) they would be a drag on the command.”

You say that as though women are *not* already doing jobs in the military, or in the civilian world for that matter, that require heavy lifting. In fact, almost all jobs in the military – in the Army, at least – require some degree of heavy lifting (warning: they don’t tell you this at MEPS; I think the MOS book I looked at when I was at MEPS said 96Bs would only carry 25 lbs max – Hah!). I do agree that a double standard based on the physiological differences between men and women makes more sense than the sexual orientation restriction because there are and should be strict standards of performance in the military due to the practical nature of the military. That said, it should be noted that the standards are not uniform throughout the military. For example, I was a good MI troop and I’m reasonably confident I would have been a good combat arms troop, maybe even to an Army Ranger level, but I’m also fairly certain I wouldn’t have hacked it as an SF troop. If we start looking at different areas of the military (eg, JAG, Med Corp, MI, etc) in which, perhaps, we can more smoothly begin to transition to a post-DADT military, that would be an interesting discussion in and of itself. I did serve with a few exceptionally motivated female soldiers who PTed, humped a ruck, fired their weapons, did battle drills, etc, at least as well as their fellow male soldiers. They probably were exceptions, but I don’t doubt that they could have been good 11Bs if given the opportunity.

Anyway, your example, while fairly applied to female soldiers, doesn’t apply at all to physiologically and mentally (with a nod to former Harvard President Larry Summers) male homosexual soldiers.

*********, I’m not saying there’ll be no problems. There have been problems with gender and race integration in the military, too, and it hasn’t been a single-solution fix with either of those integrations. It’ll be a process with a post-DADT military, too, but I wonder if it won’t be an easier transition for gays in the military given that, even if it made sense that somehow they wouldn’t, enough gay soldiers have already proven that they are qualified as anyone else to do the harder jobs in the military, because they’ve been doing them.

The practical nature of the military, where the ability to do a life-or-death job under pressure with high stakes is most important, should help. There will be many opportunities, both real world and traditional, for openly gay troops to prove themselves to their skeptical peers and leaders.

At least, that’s how I overcame the race-based skepticism I faced as a soldier. When I discussed with my fellow Columbia U. ROTC advocate his experience as an openly gay Army infantryman, he explained that’s how he overcame prejudice, too. He actually joined the Army to challenge DADT and expected to be booted, but then he made it all the way to his ETS with his Honorable because he was just too damn good of a troop.

It is a cost/benefit issue, it always is. In my opinion, a socially integrated military in terms of equitable access (I don’t believe DADT qualifies as equitable access) has more benefits than cost, just for the increased talent pool. I also believe a democracy’s military should look as much as possible like the society it represents, even if it cannot practice all of that society’s civilian norms.

I wonder what the present incident rate is for presently serving gay American soldiers who don’t tell and haven’t been asked. Is it higher than straight soldiers? If not, why would their professional behavior change once they can tell? What about the incident rate for gay soldiers in militaries that don’t have DADT-like restrictions? If there is presently a significant problem with homosexual soldiers propositioning heterosexual same-gender soldiers, would it help solve that problem if homosexual soldiers could freely identify themselves to each other and homosexual civilians, like their heterosexual counterparts can?

Finally, I do sympathize with Co and Bn level commanders and their NCO counterparts. It’s an incredibly hard, stressful, and important job. Maybe because I was privileged to serve under (enough) good leaders and watched them do a hard job well, but I have great faith in their ability to lead a post-DADT military. I also have faith that professional American soldiers will ultimately make it work because – gay and straight, men and women – they are professional American soldiers who understand the meaning of Mission First, Soldiers Always.

The larger question is, what do we need to do to face the threat of determined, fanatical opponents who think nothing of throwing themselves at us as human bombs? Should we come together as a freedom-loving people, recruit friends around the world by trade and diplomacy, set an example for them, help them when they need it (but not in such a way that they feel oppressed by us and that our actions fuel resentment and make our enemies stronger), and ultimately try to sway the vast majority of people to a freedom-loving viewpoint?

Or, should we retreat into a paranoid, closed society where we spy on ourselves, suspend our own civil liberties, abduct and torture people from around the world, bleed our own economy and military, and basically put a big “Closed Until Further Notice” sign on Lady Liberty and all that America once stood for?

The issue (for me, anyway) isn’t about “ignore the threat” or “do whatever we want to fight it.” It is about what course(s) of action will actually serve us in facing an obvious, long-term, and difficult (militarily, economically, philosophically (for a freedom-loving people, anyway), theologically, and sociologically)) challenge.

There is a very real danger that we will descend into a persistent war mentality, were we start viewing the ideology of liberty and democracy as dangerous to our nation’s survival (haven’t you heard? Freedom-loving, pro-peace, proponents of democracy are now being labeled as “domestic terrorists”). Throughout human history, an external threat has always been used to justify the repression of civil liberties. Despite the admonitions of our forefathers, when given the choice between dying free and living as slaves, most people will choose the latter.

There was a time when America was revered by and inspired people around the world. A posture of military aggressiveness and internal paranoia, while it may make short-term gains, can only be successful in the long run if we completely destroy our enemies, an unrealistic goal in today’s ideologically-fragmented world political landscape. We need to chart a new course. Only by coming together as a people (both nationally and as members of an interdependent world community) and overcoming our internal divisions, not by amplifying them, can we do that.

Sorry for the libertarian rant, lol.

#145: My goodness but you have a fertile imagination, chicken little!

Comment by Ian S — November 20, 2007 @ 9:11 pm – November 20, 2007

please share with us your view about the man-made global warming theory

Try fighting a war in this century, Ian.

All it will take to render Israel virtually uninhabitable and kill millions of people is one nuclear weapon.

Iran already HAS missiles capable of carrying such a payload the thousand miles it would take to fly from Tehran to Tel Aviv (a distance which could be considerably shortened by launching from other points in Iran).

And then Iran goes on the air and announces this; any incursion into its airspace or ground will be met with further missile launches at targets in Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq. Mind you, this can be done with their existing missile technology; given the amount they were allowed to “borrow” from North Korea, the 2,500 miles between Tehran and Paris looks quite attainable.

And that’s likely their plan; either you do as we say, or the City of Light, among others, is vaporized in a flash of it. And what we say could be something as simple as demanding immediate elections to implement sharia law.

You and your fellow Democrats will still be sitting there insisting that Iran is “not a threat” because they don’t have enough tanks, aircraft, ships, or artillery. And we’re supposed to believe that people like you who scream and run away when they take a fraction of the casualties they were predicting are going to mount any sort of attack or resistance in the face of certain death and vaporization of hundreds of thousands of US troops.

And finally, Iran is not telling us — for obvious reasons — what it is spending on its illegal nuclear and missile capabilities.

Well, by the late 1930’s, Nazi Germany had the most modern and powerful military on the European continent and quite possibly the world. Iran’s military is decidedly second-tier (they apparently spend about the same as Sweden does on theirs.)

Indeed. Iran doesn’t want a direct confrontation with us, for the past couple of decades it has preferred proxy war through asymetrical means. Just look at badly we have responded for much of that time period and how divided we’ve become as some of us just want to ignore the problem to make it all seem to go away.

And al Qaeda has to rely on asymetrical warfare which in spite of all the sky-is-falling rhetoric is not going to turn the West into part of some world-wide caliphate.

Directly? Not from what I can see at this moment. Yet what toll will the large immigration to Europe and America of Muslim immigration take in bringing pressure from within? We’re already seeing that in France, Denmark, Netherlands and elsewhere in Europe. What about when their numbers get even larger? There is a reason why I said look at the history of iconoclasm. External pressure from a large Muslim threat brought about this controversy that split Eastern Christians and severely weakened the Byzantine Empire. While the external threat today is not comparable, add what we do have to internal pressures from immigration and what will the results be? Time will tell.

Or perhaps the warnings of Winston Churchill who throughout the 1930s was derided as being a warmonger when it came to critiques of Nazi Germany.

Well, by the late 1930′s, Nazi Germany had the most modern and powerful military on the European continent and quite possibly the world. Iran’s military is decidedly second-tier (they apparently spend about the same as Sweden does on theirs.) And al Qaeda has to rely on asymetrical warfare which in spite of all the sky-is-falling rhetoric is not going to turn the West into part of some world-wide caliphate.

Good grief! I suppose this is the 21st century equivalent of the “penny dreadfuls.” It’s a good thing you weren’t around when “War of the Worlds” was broadcast over the radio. LOL!

Or perhaps the warnings of Winston Churchill who throughout the 1930s was derided as being a warmonger when it came to critiques of Nazi Germany. Time will tell and while I doubt it will get as bad as in this story, in general I certainly hope you are right. You and I would be among the first to swing at the end of a rope if you are wrong. Oh and btw, it doesn’t take actually conquering the West to get what they want simply enough pressure to achieve results we wouldn’t care for. It may seem obscure and unrelated, but check out the history of iconoclasm, why it occurred and how it unfortunately split the Byzantines at a crucial time in history.

I am a little to the right of Rush Limbaugh. I’m so conservative that I approve of San Francisco City Hall marriages, adoption by same-sex couples, and New Hampshire’s recently ordained Episcopal bishop. Gays want to get married, have children, and go to church. Next they’ll be advocating school vouchers, boycotting HBO, and voting Republican.

I like that.

Thank you for your well considered response. I hope that we can all improve our relationships with one another. If you have read my posts above, you know that there are things that gays do in public that are unacceptable to me. There are things that straights do to gays for which I gladly fund the prison system.

We all have the obligation to act responsibly in the public square and to lower the volume. If you go to the Lambda Rising webpage and look at the calendar page posted there today, I hope you would admit that this should not be among the selection that Barnes and Noble places with their lighthouses, cats, fields of Provence, NASCAR, Far Side, etc. selections. It may have its place, but its place is not in the public square. (Ditto calendars that would make Larry Flint take notice.)

As a side note: the Hawaiian tongue has some large number of words for our word “lava.” That is because they want to accurately differentiate between the various forms. If find this same problem when talking about gay issues. We already have gaylesbiantransgenderbisexual. But within those groups there are subgroups that are differentiated by their proclivities, personalities and activities. I think this reality of vague nomenclature is both a strength and an impediment. But it is very important. If I am thinking of the flaming, militant gay that comes into my life fairly regularly, I am carrying a model of gays that will ultimately skew my thinking.

This whole issue has so many dimensions, that I believe we all, gay and straight alike, must be honest about our hangups and our ambitions. God put us here together and it is in our interest to be brothers. (And sisters and…..all that pc stuff!)

The 100 years thing reminded me of a short story i read a year or two ago. There’s a time traveller who comes back in time to visit the narrator and warn him about the future.

Move over Harry Turtledove! This short story would make an interesting book and I like that he refers to others that I’m now looking into getting… Thanks.

100 years from now when a few brave European resistant fighters against Sharia, and the descendents of the survivors of the nuclear destruction of the United States look back to this time they’ll wonder just how freaking irresponisble and self-indulgent the people of our time were.

That’s an unrelated matter, but I definitely share your concerns on this. Demagraphics do not lie and the Euros have big problems coming really soon. As far as the “nuclear destruction of the United States”, that’s always a concern but I don’t see that yet. Perhaps a strike, but not the destruction of the USA – yet.

This is about 20% of it.
http://www.dansimmons.com/news/message/2006_04.htm

The Time Traveler rose so quickly that I flinched back in my chair, but he only refilled his Scotch. This time he refilled my glass as well. “You probably should give a damn” he said softly. “ In 2006, you’ll be ripping and tearing at yourselves so fiercely that your nation – the only one on Earth actually fighting against resurgent caliphate Islam in this long struggle over the very future of civilization – will become so preoccupied with criticizing yourselves and trying to gain short-term political advantage, that you’ll all forget that there’s actually a war for your survival going on. Twenty-five years from now, every man or woman in America who wishes to vote will be required to read Thucydides on this matter. And others as well. And there are tests. If you don’t know some history, you don’t vote . . . much less run for office. America’s vacation from knowing history ends very soon now . . . for you, I mean. And for those few others left alive in the world who are allowed to vote.”

“You’re shitting me,” I said.

“I am shitting you not,” said the Time Traveler.

“Those few others left alive who are allowed to vote?” I said, the words just now striking me like hardthrown stones. “What the hell are you talking about? Has our government taken away all our civil liberties in this awful future of yours?”

He laughed then and this time it was a deep, hearty, truly amused laugh. “Oh, yes,” he said when the laughter abated a bit. He actually wiped away tears from his one good eye. “I had almost forgotten about your fears of your, our . . . civil liberties . . . being abridged by our own government back in these last stupidity-allowed years of 2005 and 2006 and 2007 . Where exactly do you see this repression coming from?”

“Well . . .” I said. I hate it when I start a sentence with ‘well,’ especially in an argument. “Well, the Patriot Act. Bush authorizing spying on Americans . . . international phonecalls and such. Uh . . . I think mosques in the States are under FBI surveillance. I mean, they want to look up what library books we’re reading, for God’s sake. Big Brother. 1984. You know.”

The Time Traveler laughed again, but with more edge this time. “Yes, I know,” he said. “We all know . . . up there in the future which some of you will survive to see as free people. Civil liberties. In 2006 you still fear yourselves and your own institutions first, out of old habit. A not unworthy – if fatally misguided and terminally masochistic – paranoia. I will tell you right now, and this is not a prediction but a history lesson, some of your grandchildren will live in dhimmitude.”

“Zimmi . . . what?” I said.

He spelled it out. What had sounded like a ‘z’ was the ‘dh.’ I’d never heard the word and I told him so.

“Then get off your ass and Google it,” said the Time Traveler, his one working eye glinting with something like fury. “Dhimmitude. You can also look up the word dhimmi, because that’s what two of your three grandchildren will be called. Dhimmis. Dhimmitude is the system of separate and subordinate laws and rules they will live under. Look up the word sharia while you’re Googling dhimmi, because that is the only law they will answer to as dhimmis, the only justice they can hope for . . . they and tens and hundreds of millions more now who are worried in your time about invisible abridgements of their ‘civil liberties’ by their ‘oppressive’ American and European democratically elected governments.”

He audibly sneered this last part. I wondered now if the fury I sensed in him was a result of his madness, or if the reverse were true.

“Where will my grandchildren suffer this dhimmitude?” I asked. My mouth was suddenly so dry I could barely speak.

“Eurabia,” said the Time Traveler.

“There’s no such place,” I said.

He gave me his one-eyed stare. My stomach suddenly lurched and I wished I’d drunk no Scotch. “Words,” I said.

The Time Traveler raised one scar-slashed eyebrow.

“Last year you gave me words about 2005,” I said. “The kind of words Ken Grimwood’s replayers in time would have put in the newspaper to find each other. Give me more now. Or, better yet, just f’ing tell me what you’re talking about. You said it wouldn’t matter. You said that my knowing won’t change anything, any more than I can change the direction the Mississippi is flowing . So tell me, God damn it!”

He began by giving me words. Even while I was scribbling them down, I was thinking of reading I’d been doing recently about the joy with which the Victorian Englishmen and 19th Century Europeans and Americans greeted the arrival of the 20th Century. The toasts, especially among the intellectual elite, on New Year’s Eve 1899 had been about the coming glories of technology liberating them, of the imminent Second Enlightenment in human understanding, of the certainty of a just one-world government, of the end of war for all time.

Instead, what words would a time traveler or poor Replay victim put in his London Times or Berliner Zeitung or New York Times on January 1, 1900, to find his fellow travelers displaced in time? Auschwitz, I was sure, and Hiroshima and Trinity Site and Holocaust and Hitler and Stalin and . . .

The clock in my study chimed midnight.

Jesus God. Did I want to hear such words about 2006 and the rest of the 21st Century from the Time Traveler?

“Ahmadenijad,” he said softly. “Natanz. Arak. Bushehr. Ishafan. Bonab. Ramsar.”

“Those words don’t mean a damned thing to me,” I said as I scribbled them down phonetically. “Where are they? What are they?”

“You’ll know soon enough,” said the Time Traveler.

“Are you talking about . . . what? . . . the next fifteen or twenty years?” I said.

“I’m talking about the next fifteen or twenty months from your now,” he said softly. “Do you want more words?”

I didn’t. But I couldn’t speak just then.

“General Seyed Reza Pardis,” intoned the Time Traveler. “Shehab-one, Shehab-two, Shehab-three. Tel Aviv. Baghdad International Airport, Al Salem U.S. airbase in Kuwait, Camp Dawhah U.S. Army base in Kuwait, al Seeb U.S. airbase in Oman, al Udeid U.S. Army and Air Force base in Qatar. Haifa. Beir-Shiva. Dimona.”

“Oh, f—,” I said. “Oh, Jesus.” I had no clue as to who or what Shehab One, Two, or Three might be, but the context and litany alone made me want to throw up.

“This is just the beginning,” said the Time Traveler.

“Wasn’t the beginning on September 11, 2001?” I managed through numb lips.

The one-eyed scarred man shook his head. “Historians in my time know that it began on June 5, 1968,” he said. “But it hasn’t really begun for you yet. For any of you.”

I thought – What on earth happened on the fifth of June, 1968? I’m old enough to remember. I was in college then. Working that summer and . . . Kennedy. Robert F. Kennedy’s assassination. “Now on to Chicago and the nomination!” Sirhan Sirhan. Was the Time Traveler trying to give me some kind of half-assed Oliver-Stone-JFK-movie garbled up conspiracy theory?

“What . . .” I began.

“Galveston,” interrupted the Time Traveler. “The Space Needle. Bank of America Plaza in Dallas. Renaissance Tower in Dallas. Bank One Center in Dallas. The Indianapolis 500 – one hour and twenty-three minutes into the race. The Bell South Building in Atlanta. The TransAmerica Pyramid in San Francisco . . .”

“Stop,” I said. “Just stop.”

“The Golden Gate Bridge,” persisted the Time Traveler. “The Guggenheim in Bilbao. The New Reichstag in Berlin. Albert Hall. Saint Paul’s Cathedral . . .”

“Shut the f– up!” I shouted. “All these places can’t disappear in the rest of this century, your goddamned Century War or not! I don’t believe it.”

“I didn’t say in the rest of your century,” said the Time Traveler, his torn voice almost a whisper now. “I’m talking about your next fifteen years. And I’ve barely begun.”

but an observation: 100 years from [whenever], people will look back on this period and see it very much like the issue of desegregation

100 years from now when a few brave European resistant fighters against Sharia, and the descendents of the survivors of the nuclear destruction of the United States look back to this time they’ll wonder just how freaking irresponisble and self-indulgent the people of our time were.

Whether you and I agree on this matter or not is not important. Change is coming regardless of how either one of us view the matter. It’s only a matter of time. You cannot have for long a group of people fit and able to serve excluded simply based on ‘discomfort’. You cannot have just about all the major Allies of the USA agree that homosexuality is not a legitimate barrier to service without it bringing change in attitudes here as well. You also cannot have a major party be dedicated to lifting this ban without change coming, that is if the current crop of candidates are anything to judge by. The next Democrat to slip into the White House will try and ram this through without exercising any caution, an approach I don’t want to see happen. I would rather take the old adage of “only Nixon can go to China” and have a Republican CiC do this, not only to make the initial transition smoother but more importantly the full implementation of a repeal. Dan is right, in my estimation, by what he hinted at in the last podcast: we need to convene study groups or commissions to look at the matter. Not to “table the idea” because bottling it up in committee as both parties do in Congress will not make this go away, but within a set time period actually examine everything about it. Congressional, presidential and military. Let’s bring over leaders and officers from our Allies and quiz them on how they handled this matter, along with sending our guys over there to see it in person so to speak. We can hash out all the concerns and address them in such a forum. Strict policies concerning sexual harassment will be needed for starters. The kind of “militant gay” you speak of will not sign up for the military and on the off-chance they get wild hair up their ass and decide to do so, will not last long without a serious change of attitude, which is why they don’t concern me. Who implements this change does concern me. Rudy I could trust to handle this in the right manner, God help us if Hillary gets hold of the military and I say that about far more than just this matter. It’s not just Hillary herself, but the people she will bring with her into office that concerns me. I haven’t forgotten Les Aspin and his disastrous tenure over DoD.

I think most everything’s been said at least once, so no rehash, but an observation: 100 years from [whenever], people will look back on this period and see it very much like the issue of desegregation. Not everyone will feel the same way about it, or how it was handled, but it will be accepted that it took place, that it was socially necessary, and that society has adapted reasonably well to it.

Some straight males will always be made uncomfortable, some gay males will always behave in an unhelpful manner, but by and large, we will all get along, and those who hold the view that society should have stayed the way it was will be a small minority. And, of course, we will still have quite a ways to go. Onward and upward.

I would not knowingly engage in polite crudity. I have been hit on by men and I do not like it. For some gays, that would make me the subject of their favorite neologism: homophobic.

Your last paragraph says it all:

do you want to ravish every good-looking woman you meet or work with? If you do, do you tell her? Do you follow this up by making a pass at her and/or bedding her? The reason I ask all of these should be obvious: straight males are capable of comporting themselves in a polite and business-like manner with some having to learn this when women first entered the workforce. Perhaps it’s time the lesson was extended.

You infer that some young straight men have to learn to “comport themselves in a polite and businesslike manner” around women. That is to say that they need to learn when and where to flirt and when and where to become more aggressive in the mating game.

Now you say that this maturation process, perhaps, should be extended…..(to gays.)

So, alas, it comes down to social engineering. The military can help gays learn to thread their way through an overwhelmingly straight world.

I have attempted to make clear why I do not see race and being gay as an equivalence in this issue. You do not agree.

This is where I get my back up. Blacks never needed to be taught how to thread their way through an overwhelmingly white world. Good God, they got that information loud and clear during slavery and segregation.

No, whites needed to learn that drinking from a universal drinking fountain or sitting on the same toilet seat a black had used was not going to cause them to suffer from some contagion.

The military has been the black man’s best friend. Legions of people (black and white) have learned the lessons of showing up on time with a good attitude and the value of clearly understood merit in rising up the ladder.

I do not think gays should be denied the same opportunity. But, whether you will admit to the issue or not, the average gay is bringing something far more complicated than mere skin color to the equation.

Nor is gay flirting and leering equivalent to the hetero rush of hormones in our society. In fact, we find no useful social model in history for blending gays and heteros except by gays being discrete. To be clear, the onus in on the gays.

The militant gays who are pushing their “in your face” sexual agenda can not help but be a force to be reckoned with in this whole DADT conundrum.

I hope I have been respectful. I am really trying to understand this problem and reach the compromise that is most fair to gays and the military mission and cohesion.