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Thursday, 25 February 2010 12:13
An infantry officer in Afghanistan explains the personal relevance of
DADT
Sir,
This is indeed revolutionary stuff. Not the deliberate reconsideration of the
DADT issue, but that you're actively encouraging such an adult, open dialog.
I'm one of your officers, currently deployed supporting a WIAS tasker and I
look forward to my Division meeting up with me here in Afghanistan. My partner
of 10 years and I have happily accepted the various assignments the Army has
given me this past decade and have weathered my two 12-month-long and one
15-month-long deployments like, I would imagine, nearly every other couple -
save for one detail: the partner I leave behind has no support from any official
channels. He would be notified after my brother who is listed as my Emergency
POC/NOK. After 10 years, my partner has earned the right to be told first about
my death. He has earned the right to make my health emergency decisions. And, he
has earned the right to be recognized for his sacrifices just as any other
spouse. The exception being that he is not a spouse. We are not a recognized
couple. And the very fact that he and I live in a marriage-like relationship
could cause us to lose my pension and our financial security later in life.
As a former combat arms commander, I've had to face the DADT issue not just
because I am gay - an imutable characteristic that is no more a choice for me
than someone could choose their race - but because I've had 4 gay men in my
command who I have known to be gay. I knew about two of them because they
believed that living a lie was counter to their ethical charge as Soldiers. One
was chaptered and the other was transferred. I knew about another because he was
outed by an Evangelical roommate who had "baited" him into admitting it to him.
He was not chaptered because we were a week from deploying and no one believed
he really was gay. When he left the Army after we redeployed, he came back to
tell me that indeed, he was gay. And, I knew about the fourth one because after
he died of wounds from an IED, his partner of four years wrote me - not knowing
my orientation - to tell me how much SSG ___ loved the Army, how we were the
only family he'd ever known, and how much he appreciated the support of his
fellow NCOs who knew about his personal life and whose spouses back home had
taken care of him (the partner).
The "there's a gay dude looking at me in the shower/coming on to me in the
fox hole" argument is a pathetic, lame canard. Having been through more than my
share of the Army's best lodging - Ranger School comes to mind, as do the Hindu
Kush, the desert in Iraq, and multiple Army gyms across world - I can tell you
that the only thing I've ever thought about while showering was getting in and
getting out. I'd be lying if I was to say that I've not worked with attractive
people. We all have. But the difference between being an animal and a
professional is, among other things, our ability to control ourselves. And, the
only thing I've ever thought about in actual combat was living long enough to
take care of my guys and to make it home alive.
Thank you for the opportunity to contribute to this ongoing discussion. And,
I hope that if GEN Ham and his panel ask you what your opinion is, that you
answer based on the facts, on the beliefs of this current generation of Soldier,
and that you eschew the bigoted hypotheses of those who do not believe that the
only way for Soldiers to truly be the Soldiers they are ethically charged to be,
is to be honest with their buddies, honest with their chain of command, and
honest to themselves.
V/r,
Mountain Soldier (fwd)