Thursday, November 18, 2010

Relooking DADT

The administration is plowing ahead with the fierce moral urgency of now, to deal with gays in the military. Not. Instead they are waffling around, waiting on the 9th Circuit to try and figure out what they are going to do since the district court in California just ruled that Don't Ask, Don't Tell is unconstitutional. But is it unconstitutional?
There is no right to join the military. You can actually be denied for being too tall, or too short, too skinny or too fat, too young, too old it doesn't matter. Missing a limb? Highly unlikely that you will be able to serve. Have asthma? Good luck in some other endeavor. Of course my favorite is the criminal history one. Have you ever used a gun in the commission of a crime? Well just keep on moving junior. We only want moral killers here.
The point of all this is that the military selects its own replacements. And the biggest issue is that the new recruits can fit in and adapt, and yes they can. The military has over 200 years in figuring out how to get young men and now women to fit in. Now some may say that this is no different from when women were fully integrated into the military. But that is a rather poor example. For when women were first integrated they were held to the same standards as the men, and when they couldn't compete equally, there were new standards created that were less difficult. This just caused an increase in the resentment of men toward women and an increase in their harassment. It took close to 15 years for acceptance of women, and even then it was with a recognition that not all women were going to compete equally with men in feats of physical performance.
Sure, some of it was ridiculous, for example, a 175 pound male carrying a 120 pound rucksack and gear is going to be under tremendous stress. But a 120 pound woman carrying a 120 pound rucksack won't be able to move. And they don't make scaled down rucksacks, rifles, bullets, meals or anything else for that matter so that she can carry on the same as a man. This is not to say that there aren't women who could do it, but they are in the distinct minority. Overall, the idea of legislating equality through the military is not a good idea.
Besides, the one thing that no one takes into consideration is the young enlistee who realizes that the military life is just not for him or her. All they have to do is to tell their superiors that they have feelings for members of the same sex, but haven't acted on them yet, and they will have an Honorable Discharge in weeks.
Eventually, the military is going to have to let gays in who will serve openly. But that is a matter for those who are serving to deal with, not social engineers. Until that date, let's just keep the current system which requires everyone to mind their own damned business.
It's really not that hard to do.

2 comments:

Kevin K. said...

I don’t know where you’ve been, but the females in the military are mostly “comfort women.” The rest are clerks and cooks. None of them are really soldiers or sailors.

Steve said...

Kevin, you are quite wrong sir. Women serve in everything except direct fire units. That is, they are in artillery, air defense, combat engineers, and aviation. On board, there are no positions excluded for women except SEALS.