Stop the Absurd US Military Policies on Personnel

There is no part of the US establishment that wastes more money than the Pentagon. A huge component of the waste is the reliance on career enlisted personnel and a career officer corps. The term military career should be proceeded by the word "short". Military service should be composed of mostly conscripts from a universal draft. They should be overwhelmingly male, single with no children.

Two stories highlight the absurdity of the current politically correct social experimentation foisted on the Pentagon by liberal politicians:

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A paper published in the journal Pediatrics in late 2009 found that children in military families were more likely to report anxiety than children in civilian families. The longer a parent had been deployed in the previous three years, the researchers found, the more likely the children were to have had difficulties in school and at home. But those studies do not describe the myriad ways, often imperceptible to outsiders, in which families cope with deployments every day.- continue article in the NY Times

The military's next step after 'don't ask, don't tell': Equal rights for gay service members

After the House voted to repeal the policy, the Senate took on the issue and also voted to lift the 17-year-old ban on gays in the military.

By Chris Patti Washington Post

Thursday, December 30, 2010; 8:00 PM
With a swoop of his pen last week, President Obama wiped away more than a century of discrimination that had culminated in a 17-year struggle for the rights of gay men and lesbians serving in the U.S. armed forces. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates will now try to fashion a policy that will filter down to all of us in the services. That policy needs to set a standard for the ethical and equitable treatment of all service members, regardless of their sexuality...

...Despite all of the controversy, repealing "don't ask, don't tell" was the easy part. Politics aside, it takes no courage to simply right a wrong. The president and members of Congress have been congratulating themselves for doing the right thing. But minds should be turning to the difficult questions that remain. These are the same questions that vex our society when it comes to equal rights for homosexuals. They cross over into the "gray areas" where some start to feel uncomfortable and where the legal options are ambiguous.

It is, for example, one thing to hand a gay junior sailor a paintbrush and point him toward a rusty bulkhead. But can that gay sailor, if he has a partner, collect the same housing allowance his married counterparts do? Can a lesbian sailor request to be stationed where her partner is? Will the military recognize a marriage between two service members that is legal in one state but not in another?

The issue of gay marriage provokes deep divisions. I hope that my brothers and sisters in the armed forces can help the Defense Department set standards for the rights of gay men and lesbians that far outpace the conflicted sentiment and resulting legal tangle in our society. This is an opportunity to show all Americans that homosexuals deserve equal treatment under the law. This applies not just in some cases or with limitations but to the full rights all Americans should share when it comes to legal matters such as marriage, salary and tax benefits.

It is incumbent on the military to not only pave a fair and equitable way forward for all service members but also to lead by example and provide our country with a template. The Sailor's Creed, which is recited across the globe every day by everyone serving in the Navy, concludes, "I am committed to excellence and the fair treatment of all." It is time for those words to ring true for everyone who serves.

Most gay and lesbian service members won't be standing up and announcing their sexual orientation at the next "all-hands" call. They won't get new name tags. They will remain, as they always have been, indistinguishable from their straight counterparts. Instead, the repeal of "don't ask, don't tell" means that there may be quiet instances of a lesbian sailor telling a shipmate that she is gay, or a gay sailor saying that his plans for the weekend include going on a trip with his partner. Such statements are likely to be met with shrugs, and everyone will go back to getting the mission done. But just because these moments no longer risk automatic discharge does not mean that gay and lesbian service members have equality.

The Pentagon must be clear about treating all members of the U.S. military equally, which means that it must recognize gay marriage as legal and a right of every soldier, sailor, airman and Marine. These rights almost must extend to their spouses, just as they do to the spouses of straight servicemen and women, to include health care, retirement benefits, GI Bill eligibility and commissary privileges.

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