November 12th
Ever since the United States military became an all-volunteer force in 1973, there has been a need to recruit civilians to join the military. They spend a lot of money on advertisement and other recruitment strategies to try and get as many people to sign up as possible. I think it is ironic that, "During the 1980s, approximately seventeen thousand gay men and women
were discharged or prevented from serving in the U.S. military." That is seventeen thousand able-bodied individuals that were denied service just because of their sexual orientation. The reason that the military denied these people came from statements made in the 70s from people likeW. Graham Claytor Jr. stating that, "The presence of homosexuals 'would frustrate
formation of close personal bonds and would fragment the unit.'" I'm glad that the military opinion of members of the LGBTQ+ has shifted over the years and now accepts these people for who they are and are. I'm personally thankful to have these people serve our country to protect our freedoms.
Throughout the past years the topic of gender and sexuality has been on the rise. Politics and people’s opinions have caused the rise of talk on the topic of gender and sexuality. LGBT’s in the armed forces has been a talk since the early 20th century. The ban on gays and homosexuals in the armed forces was put into play until the late 20th century. In 1992 Bill Clinton ended the homosexual band in the armed forces. Why did it take almost a full century to fix the problem? Shouldn't anyone willing to fight in the armed forces be aloud to no matter their gender or sexuality? Bill Clinton while in office would do anything to help the homosexuals in the armed forces. He didn’t care what his generals or officers thought. He was there for those who wanted to serve that were homosexuals. I believe that anyone who is willing to serve their country and fight for freedom should be able to fight. No matter their gender or sexuality. If they can get the job done without causing problems they should be involved. Studies have been proven that there has always been the debate of race, gender, and sexuality in the armed forces. One of them want to be the superiors. During the late 20th century and early 21st century a study was shown that only 44% had believed that LGBT’s should be aloud to serve in the armed forces. The debate of race, gender, and sexuality in the armed forces is never ending. Since the current president Donald Trump took office the topic of gender and sexuality has rose again. He is trying to completely eliminate those in the armed forces that are LGBT. Why is he doing that? We need as many troops as we can. Let them serve if they are willing to fight for their country. Don't discriminate against them.
ReplyDeleteThe biggest thing that stuck out to me in the reading was the part about the military specifically seeking out the opinions of and surveying privates. This makes so much sense I am surprised we actually did it. Privates and other low ranking servicemen and women make up the vast majority of the service yet their input is almost never heard. Bailey points out the Truman example in desegregating the military to point to this exact point. I believe President Obama did a great job in allowing Congress to handle Don't Ask Don't Tell, as Bailey pointed out the courts often treated the military as an "exceptional institution". He was right in believing allowing Congress to handle the issue gave it more legitimacy, hoping for bipartisan work on this issue. Conservatives, as Bailey points out were traditionally tough on this issue, pointing to both "moral beliefs" and "traditional values" which certainly slowed this progress down. I was amazed homosexuality was viewed as a mental illness up until 1973 and how far we've come since then.
ReplyDeleteThe irony and absurdity of the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy is perhaps most palpable in the last paragraph of Bailey’s article: “it seemed wrong that gay men and women would be welcome in a unit with a strict code of honor only if they lie.” Relying heavily on an abstract concept of unit cohesion, the military condemned homosexuality within its ranks throughout the latter half of the twentieth century. What makes this unrelenting effort particularly frustrating is the way in which conservative policymakers and military men danced around their true motivation, which was moral opposition. In using language that emphasized the importance of efficacy, conservatives were able to draw support from those who were not necessarily opposed to homosexuality from a religious or moral standpoint, as well as evade accusations that they were being outrightly discriminatory - if it was for the good of the military, then it couldn’t be a bad thing, right? Blinded by its mission to maintain the ban on explicit homosexuality within ranks, the military lost a significant amount of help. Letting go of over seventeen thousand qualified service members in an age in which the institution itself could not afford to be picky seems almost self-sabotaging. Why was the supposed collective comfort of conservative, “morally-opposed” individuals in the military valued more than the careers and capabilities and overall wellbeing of gay service members? Sexual orientation as a basis for military compatibility is a nonsensical notion, so why did it hold so much ground for such a long period of time in our country’s military history, and why is it only recently that DADT has been lifted?
ReplyDeleteThe issue of unit cohesion in Bailey’s article is one that stood out to me as especially absurd when questioning the ability of gay men and women to serve in the military. It’s clear, both in the article and in the world around us, that this opposition to gays in the military is not one of “incompatibility” or dissension, but one of moral opposition. Nonetheless, those who worked against gay men and women serving were able to avoid being pegged as overtly biased by emphasizing the idea that it was not them who were claiming that homosexuality was immoral, but their subordinates, and claimed that a significant number of those serving would not be willing to work alongside any gay peers. It becomes clear, however, that this issue of unit cohesion is one that revolves around these leaders. As Major General Vance Coleman says, “Unit cohesion is a leadership issue. You build teams through cohesion. And if you take one member away from that team then you’re breaking the cohesion.” It is the responsibility of these higher-ups to ensure the unit cohesion that they allegedly feared so much for, and it should have been their responsibility to deal with any dissenting serviceman who refused to work with their gay peers. Instead, they chose to expel an entire group of hardworking, often extremely valuable servicemen. It seems to me that it would have been much more beneficial to get rid of those who were aggressively bigoted and anti-gay, a trait that seems more detrimental to unit cohesion, than the common gay servicemen. Sexuality, something that is wholly personal and irrelevant to warfare and the military, seems like far less of a factor that would harm how a unit could work together and succeed than bigotry and refusal to work with team members.
ReplyDeleteI also noticed the use of unit cohesion as a mechanism to speak about homosexuality in the military. Even today homosexuality can be a bit of a touchy or controversial topic for individuals. Homosexuality was even more controversial during the second half of the 20th century. It is interesting to note that the debate and controversial aspects about it was not just LBGT rights but also civil rights and religious issues. To avoid all these issues the military focused on what they deemed to be the only important aspect about homosexuality, unit cohesion. In the trials leading up to Bill Clinton lifting the ban on homosexuality in the military; there were men brought from the Marine Corp to speak on behalf of the military's stance on homosexuality in the military. Through this testimony it becomes clear that men serving in the armed forces did not care. They were fighting and dying together they did not care about sexual orientation. This was also a time without the draft so anyone in the military wanted to be there. Why then did it take so long? If the LGBT community wanted to fight and military personal did not care, why did it take so long?
ReplyDeleteI agree that this topic is ironic. If you go back into military history to where we had an official draft just to draw citizens into the military for service and now were denying certain citizens the privilege to join the military is very ironic. Also when talking about the vietnam war, the draft, and people who dodged the draft because they didn’t want to do their service if they were elected but now you aren’t going to let certain people join because of their beliefs and preferences is wrong in my eyes. I really didn’t even know that this was a thing until we started discussing it in class and also didn’t know that the ban for “Don’t ask, don’t tell” was lifted only recently in 2011. After discussing the readings and seeing that one topic of discussion was that allowing homosexual men/woman in the army could establish distrust and uncertainty in squads really didn’t surprise me that some members felt like that. I’m not agreeing with that but I feel like that would the first topic of defense for people who are against homosexuals in the military since that ties in with safety and what not. Again, I don’t agree with this and the idea that people have been denied to enter the military because they are homosexual is sad, especially when during the vietnam war - there was people who intentionally avoided being abducted into the military. Then the military is struggling to conduct members but luckily this isn’t a problem.
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