A soldier speaks: why repealing ‘Don’t Ask’ is wrong
Image via WikipediaWASHINGTON, D.C., June 24, 2011 I wrote a letter in late May 2011 to the House Armed Services Committee (HASC) requesting that Congress reconsider repealing what is popularly known as “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (DADT).
DADT is a misnomer. And so I shall refer to the repeal as the repealing of morality from the Armed Forces.
The Washington Times learned of my letter and reported on it in the June 8 edition of its “Inside the Ring” section (“Army dissent” paragraph).
I know for certain that leaders across the Armed Forces read what The Washington Times published, and so I am going to explain why I am questioning the pending repeal of morality. As always, my views are my own and I in no way represent the Army Reserve or any other part of the U.S. government.
Why I’m Questioning:
I know that I am in the minority in opposing the pending repeal of morality . . . at least, I am in the minority of those willing to vocalize their opposition. And yet that is part of the reason why I take the risk in saying something about it.
There are other Servicemen who agree with me but I know they are afraid to say so since proponents of repealing morality do not tolerate any opposition.
Repeal proponents have already made it clear that they want to persecute/prosecute Servicemen who don’t side with them, with state-controlled media getting in on the act (of course) by using their bullying power to call for the punishment of Troops who don’t think “right.”
This is a regrettable, yet predictable, fact: leftists don’t have to worry about retribution for opposing the Right, but the Right does face real retribution for disagreeing with the Left. (The Right needs to recognize this fatal flaw and fix it; otherwise conservatives will contribute to their own extinction.)
Yet if everyone allows the real threat of leftist retribution to silence them, then repeal proponents will get away with crowing that the repeal training is going off without a hitch all while they further subvert and destroy the Armed Forces.
Furthermore, as a Soldier, I must speak up and do what I can to protect my fellow Soldiers (and Servicemen at large) when I know they face danger. In fact, everyone to the very top of the Department of Defense (DOD) acknowledges this duty. Specifically, both Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, have stated that telling the truth is vitally important in the Armed Forces:
We spend a lot of time in the military talking about integrity and honor and values. Telling the truth is a pretty important value in that scale. It’s a very important value. And so for me ... a policy that requires people to lie about themselves somehow seems to me fundamentally flawed.
It is true that these leaders spoke in support of the repeal. Yet their point remains valid even for those with a differing opinion since conscience was at the heart of their argument. Therefore, by my leaders’ own words, I should tell the truth about the danger that awaits the Armed Forces once the DOD implements the morality repeal. I would hope that all Servicemen, and the rest of the DOD, would agree with Secretary Gates and Admiral Mullen on conscience, and thus support me in speaking the truth.
Why Repealing Morality Is Wrong:
The same society that tells us that sodomy is “healthy and normal,” and something that must be forcibly institutionalized upon society (the Armed Forces included) also tells us that chocolate milk is harmful and must be banned. My argument against repealing morality from the Armed Forces could stop here. Even still, it won’t.
Repealing Morality Destroys Unit Cohesion, Readiness and Capabilities:
Michael Yon, recently posted a government report on his own web site entitled, “A Crisis of Trust and Cultural Incompatibility,” which should be required reading by every American. The report addresses the epidemic of our Afghan “allies” murdering U.S./ISAF Troops and examines why this epidemic occurs.
In doing so, it implicitly shows that the U.S.-led counterinsurgency (COIN) strategy in Afghanistan is a failure (which is killing our Troops and losing the war) because of the cultural divide—a cultural divide that stems from moral differences and outright immorality in many cases.
The report details repeatedly that this cultural/moral problem has utterly destroyed trust, unit cohesion, and even capability of U.S./ISAF Troops to interoperate with Afghani forces. The report states in its conclusion (after noting problems and issues on the U.S./ISAF side) (emphasis mine):
However, this is not a call for appeasement to a highly toxic culture (such as the U.S. Army’s ‘encouragement’ that its female soldiers wear a hijab instead of their Kevlar thus placating Afghan perceptions of women’s lower social status as well as putting them at additional unnecessary risk).
All too often, ISAF political and military officials as well as the international media have prostrated themselves before the alters [sic] of multiculturalism, moral relativity and political correctness and have excused inexcusable behaviors on the part of the Afghans (witness one senior ISAF official who described a riot that included an Afghan mob’s heinous murder of seven UNAMA workers, beheading two, in Mazar-e-Sharif in response to a copy of the Koran being burned in Florida as “understandable passions”).
Such ethically challenged apologist perspectives hinder any movement towards advancing the Afghan culture beyond its toxic medieval mentality or curbing a violent and unquestioning ideology. Rather, this is a recommendation not to add fuel to the fire of cultural incompatibility by unnecessarily offending Afghans with various abrasive policies or coarse behaviors that most any people would find offensive.
As long as ISAF political and military leaders are committed to the ‘partnering’ program with ANSF, more decisive efforts towards developing procedures and protocols, and perhaps most importantly, cultivating appropriate attitudes and mindsets specifically tailored to meet and satisfy Afghan cultural and theological sensitivities and normative demands are vital components towards improving the safety of ISAF soldiers.
This is admittedly an extremely difficult task given that the mutual feelings between ISAF and ANSF personnel is quite often one of a very strong dislike, even contempt. Namely one group generally sees the other as a bunch of violent, reckless, intrusive, arrogant, self-serving, profane, infidel bullies hiding behind high technology; and the other group generally views the former as a bunch of cowardly, incompetent, obtuse, thieving, complacent, lazy, pot-smoking, treacherous and murderous radicals. Such is the state of progress in the current ‘partnering’ program.
Undoubtedly, there are some people who have ignored the above parts about appeasement, the altars of multiculturalism, moral relativity, and political correctness, and therefore are now yelling, “You have just undermined your own argument! You’re the one who wants to keep the military from progressing by maintaining an immoral policy that discriminates against the LGBT population! You’re just like the Afghanis!”
But that screeching outburst just further underscores my point: repealing morality from the Armed Forces is an all-or-nothing game where the anti-morality crowd says that to oppose their immorality is “immoral,” “backwards,” and equivalent to racism (it’s not; such an argument is a logical fallacy) while pro-morality proponents argue that it will become impossible for the Armed Forces (indeed society) to both legitimize immorality and allow us to retain our beliefs while remaining a part of “polite” society.
In other words, the anti-morality proponents cannot tolerate any opposing views. Indeed, merely providing the evidence that sodomy is harmful is “hateful.”
Thus, the end state of repealing morality will be that the anti-morality proponents will see the morality proponents as “hate-filled, immoral bigots,” and the morality proponents will see the anti-morality proponents as “hate-filled, immoral bigots.” Only one side will be correct in their assessment and only one side will win. Regrettably, the side likely to win will not be the side that is correct.
And so, repealing morality from the Armed Forces cannot have anything other than a detrimental effect which will undermine unit cohesion, destroy trust, and ultimately destroy readiness and capabilities. This alone is enough reason to oppose the repeal of morality from the Armed Forces. Yet things get worse.
Repealing Morality Will Physically and Mentally Harm Troops:
The DOD says that the physical and mental well-being of its Troops is paramount, yet implementing morality repeal from the Armed Forces will prove otherwise.
In fact, it will demonstrate yet again that political correctness (sometimes called, “diversity”) is the top priority of the DOD. But what the DOD fails to acknowledge about repealing morality (in addition to the harm that it will inflict on Troops and the readiness of the Armed Forces) is that implementing it will also set up the DOD and government for lawsuits that inevitably will follow.
Some of the forthcoming lawsuits will come as the result of the increased sexual assaults and depression that repealing morality will cause. The government will have no defense from these lawsuits since it knows that male-on-male sexual assaults in the Armed Forces already are a problem and are underreported. Allowing open sodomites into the Armed Forces will only exacerbate this plague and thus the DOD will be knowingly increasing abuse and violence against its Troops.
I would have thought that the DOD and government would have had enough of sexual assaults and lawsuits.
Furthermore, the Center for Disease Control explicitly states that male sodomites are the largest spreaders of HIV/AIDS, and that high school sodomites are more inclined to do riskier things than those not engaged in deviant sexual behavior. On top of these physical harms, there is the ongoing problem of depression and suicide in the Armed Forces. Repealing morality will compound this problem through forcing Troops to compromise their consciences and deal with the harassment and assault from the worst bullies of all.
Other Nations and Morality Repeal:
One of the common arguments I hear in support of the repeal of morality is that other nations (particularly our NATO allies) have successfully implemented it in their armed forces.
To this I immediately ask, “Why would the United States, home of the best Armed Forces in the world, look to other nations on how to ‘improve’ our Armed Forces?” That question rings particularly loud when I look at current events and examine the readiness and capabilities of these politically correct NATO allies we wish to emulate.
And how does the disintegration of NATO readiness and capabilities relate to repealing morality from the Armed Forces? Sodomy is one of the gods of political correctness, and political correctness is at the heart of why the majority of NATO nations no longer can mount a sustained, competent defense.
This eases efforts to further defund defense so that leftists may push ever-increasing amounts of money to the socialist-welfare state, which further weakens defense by consuming constantly increasing amounts of money and resources. This is what has happened to our NATO allies—PC has led them to intentionally gut their militaries in order that they might throw ever larger sums of money at their own, failed socialist states. And this is what will happen, over time, to the American Armed Forces should the government implement morality repeal.
Repealing Morality Institutionalizes Inequality and Injustice:
Political correctness has slowly cut away at American society for decades, and the pending repeal of morality is simply one last nick of the PC knife that will destroy the last remnants of foundational America.
So it comes as no surprise and I therefore am somewhat at peace with it. But there are still a few things in life that irritate me and one of them is that this pending repeal promises to usher in a new era of official, institutionalized inequality and injustice (apart from the inequality and injustice that is inherent in repealing morality). Here’s what I mean.
The DOD allows officials and commanders to ignore the current law that bans sodomites from the Armed Forces. Even when commanders surely know that a servicemember is a sodomite, commanders and the DOD often look the other way and ignore the law. In order for the DOD and commanders to maintain equality and justice if the pending new policy goes into effect, they would have to allow the same disregard for the new law as they do with the current law. But that won’t happen.
The Huffington Post column I mentioned in Part I proves this—it shows that troops breaking the current law are being consulted and quoted as arbiters on if law-abiding Troops are thinking “correctly” about the not-as-of-yet policy. Additionally, there is the fact that sodomite military members are planning a group conference in Las Vegas in order to “formulate strategies” on what they are going to do next.
How can there even be such a thing as a “gay military member group?” Doesn’t the very existence of such a group break the current law? And then there are the three Army colonels in South Korea who were punished for doing a “gay” skit even as, “. . . the officers did not violate any regulations with their performance. . . .” So if inequality and injustice already exists in the DOD with regards to morality, how bad will it become once morality is repealed and enforcing immorality becomes the standard?
And it is this inequality that bothers me . . . particularly when someone lectures me on how Servicemen must obey any changes to the law regardless of whether they agree with it. What an Orwellian nation we have become.
In Closing:
This Isn’t about Dissent:
I didn’t start this fight—I’m just now fighting back. And I’m not even doing that really. I’m simply noting the absurdities, the contradictions, and the forthcoming consequences for what is about to happen. In other words, I am vocalizing my opinion on this for the same reason I vocalized my opinion when I wrote, “Why women shouldn’t be allowed to serve in combat:”
. . . although the American armed forces currently are the best in the world, if we want them to follow the lead of (by inference) inferior armed forces through politically correct maneuverings, we must be prepared for our armed forces to become like those inferior ones. In other words, if we choose to strive after that which is inferior, we must accept inferiority. People may question who will fill the void once the American armed forces are no longer dominant, but that’s not for me — or anyone else in the military — to determine. After all, the armed forces are subordinate to and should follow the will of the American people.
Therefore, my reason for speaking up is not dissent (although I understand why The Washington Times interpreted it that way). I oppose this pending morality repeal but that is not to say that I won’t follow it if/when it is implemented.
Let me also explicitly state that I would hope that all Servicemen would follow any new policy on morality without hesitation regardless of their beliefs on the matter, just as I would hope that Servicemen would follow any other order regardless of their beliefs.
Simply put, while Servicemen have a right to disagree with policy and offer reasons for their disagreement (which I have done with my two-part explanation), in the end, once the decision is made, we have an obligation to obey our superiors and above them, the American People who run this nation.
And since this is the rule we’ve all agreed to play by when it comes to implementing morality repeal, then it’s going to be the rule that we will all play by when it comes to everything else as well. If not, then we no longer are a society or a nation of laws. Instead, at that time, we might very well have become an anarchic land of full of worthless people and ruled by a tyrannical government.
Paul Hair serves in the U.S. Army Reserve as a non-commissioned officer. He is a veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom and wrote or contributed to approximately 50 reports and assessments while in Iraq on an eight-month deployment during 2009-2010. He has worked as a civilian in both the government and private sectors. His views are his own and he in no way represents the Army Reserve or any other part of the U.S. government
