Wilford Brimley, the folksy and appealing character actor, did a
series of commercials a few years back for a brand of oatmeal,
the signature line of which was, “It’s the right thing to do.”
I don’t know if eating oatmeal is the right thing to do;
it’s certainly an uninteresting thing to do. But I know Admiral
Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is wrong
when he claims that allowing openly homosexual men and women to
serve in the U.S. military is “the right thing to do.”
Putting gays and lesbians in the barracks and ships’
sleeping compartments, not to mention those communal showers,
would be an extraordinarily disruptive thing to do. It would make
our military less effective. It would hurt recruiting. It would
be a thumb in the eye of the men and women of our military who’ve
been performing well and bravely under very tough
conditions.
We’ve had endless evidence that our rookie president
doesn’t know or care about any of these things. So it’s no
surprise that he would put left social engineering ahead of
national security (about which he is clueless). But it’s more
than a little disappointing to learn that the Chairman of the
Joint Chiefs doesn’t either. Even our Secretary of Defense has
chosen politics over security.
I’m really surprised at how many people, including
journalists who should know better, claim to be surprised that
the admiral buckled on this one. Mullen may or may not have been
a warrior earlier in his naval career. But he’s a courtier now,
and he must say what the court wants to hear. Or at least he
thinks he does.
“Who would have thought that the most emphatic statement in
favor of gay rights would come from a military leader — instead
of a court, a state legislature, or a popular vote?” the lead to
an editorial in the Greenwood Commonwealth of Greenwood,
Mississippi asks.
Well, just about anyone familiar with the military officer
promotion system at the highest levels would not be surprised by
this sort of toadying. Sadly, after about lieutenant colonel in
the Army, Air Force, and Marine Corps, and commander in the Navy,
promotion gets very political. Too often the warriors get left
behind while bureaucrats and politicians are lifted up.
Civilian control of the military does not require top
military officers to roll over for policies that make it harder
for our military to accomplish the tough missions we give it (not
to mention the crack-pot social-work deployments we shouldn’t be
giving it). But too often that’s just what we get. General Patsy
Schroeder comes up with yet another daft idea and the guys with
the stars on their shoulder-boards salute and ask, “How
high?”
The debate on this issue threatens to establish a new NCAA
record for non-sequiturs. One of the non-sequiturs supporters of
this policy trot out is that gays have always served secretly but
honorably, often bravely, in the military. True, but irrelevant.
As is the assertion that public support for gay people has
increased, which it clearly has. And don’t be impressed with the
news that Canada allows homosexuals to serve openly and that
this, pro-gay-service types say, causes no problem. Canada’s
military is about the size of the Tampa Police Department and may
have even less firepower.
Even more beside the point was Mullen’s statement to
Congress: “No matter how I look at this issue, I cannot escape
being troubled by the fact that we have in place a policy which
forces young men and women to lie about who they are in order to
defend their fellow citizens.”
Huh? No, Admiral. Gay people are not
obliged to lie. Under the current policy they’re not obliged to
say anything. They simply have to face the fact that their open
presence in the close quarters of military life just won’t do. No
shame in it. The prohibition against open service by homosexuals
is not an anti-gay measure. It’s a common sense
policy.
The overwhelming and obvious reason why openly homosexual
men and women should not be allowed to serve is the imposition
this would pose on straights in uniform, which will always be 95+
percent of the force, even if openly gay people are allowed
in.
As the draft ended in 1973, fewer and fewer Americans,
including journalists and politicians who whoop up this insane
idea, have had no military experience. So they have no
understanding of the close, intimate quarters soldiers, sailors,
Marines, and airmen, particularly the lower enlisted ranks, live
in.
Military life is not like civilian life. During operations
it’s not a 9-5 job where people go home at night to the privacy
of their own homes. The last thing straight service members need
is the sexual tension caused by having gays and lesbians
showering and sleeping just feet away from them. When I was an
enlisted destroyer sailor, under a no-gays-even-in-the-closet
policy, I had the comfort of knowing that anyone in the open
showers I had to share with my shipmates was only there for the
purpose of getting clean.
If we’re going to throw gay and straight servicemen into
the same open showers together, we may as well go the rest of the
way and throw servicemen and women in together. What’s the
difference? Or are we going to have new combinations and
permutations of facilities — his, hers, theirs, and
niche?
You don’t have to be anti-gay to not want to be involved in
intimate functions with members of your own sex who might
consider you a sex object. This policy would hurt recruitment at
a time when America is involved in two wars and the military is
having a difficult enough time keeping the ranks filled. People
who serve in the military know this, even high-ranking officers
(and when they’re off the record they’ll say it). So does Mullen
when he’s not concentrating on how to cater to his civilian
political bosses. Or has he been away from service on warships
and in the Pentagon so long he’s forgotten?
This issue may instruct us on whether the Republican Party
has learned anything about standing for something rather than
falling for anything. To the usual suspects on the cultural left
the military is just a huge, expensive ball of clay to be molded
to their liking. They’ll push for a gay-friendly military using
the tired and irrelevant charges of discrimination and
homophobia. This nonsense should be resisted, even though the
left, with full support from the left-stream media, will go
full-goose hysterical and call anyone who opposes this lark a
hater.
A strong military is good for America. A militarily strong
America is good for the world. We can maintain that strength
better without having to sort out and deal with all the various
tensions, resentments, and counter-resentments that would be the
inevitable result of gays in the barracks. Americans would be
thankful if our leadership, civilian and military, would redirect
the energy they’re now wasting trying to get gays into the
military toward keeping Muslim jihadists out of it.
