Great point iflyboats about making it a social experiment, I never thought about it like that. I thought of it as a gateway to gay marriage.
Ah cappedandplant the mentality for you to stereotype when you do not even know what color I am…I guess you can see right into my room…lol. Im that poor little mexican boy who grew up in a poor black neighboorhood who had to run home everyday after school until I hit a growth spurt and starting hitting back. I had a black roommate for 3 yrs, what other assumptions do you want to make?
Ryan it does not weaken the military, this just fits with forlifes Gay agenda.
Gay soldier gets off the ship, runs to meet his ‘special friend’ and…two men have a sloppy ‘Welcome Home, Darling!!’ wet kiss there on the pier.
Jesus H. Christ…what is this world coming to…
Everyday, I get closer to moving to my vacation home in Colorado and flying my flag at half-staff, in memory of my country…the greatest country in the history of the world…brought down by gay liberators and anti-family Satanists…
Pathetic.
You’re not even trying anymore, are you?
[quote]RyanRC187 wrote:
[quote]iflyboats wrote:
It should be entirely up to military officials to decide whether they think they can operate efficiently with gays in the service. Serving in the military is no more a right than having a job at Microsoft. The purpose of the military is to conduct military operations, not to serve as a bastion of egalitarianism. The reason we have a military is so that all people, including gays, can enjoy freedom in civilian life. The reason we have a military is not to have soldiers galloping around on little pink social justice unicorns. [/quote]
I couldn’t agree more. The military is a tool and many of the US population are discriminated against because our ultimate goal is operational efficiency. I have no issues serving with someone who is gay, provided they are capable, but some will, and that will lead to a less effective fighting force. The military is not a place to conduct social experiments, the capital expended is human lives.
I also find it interesting that so many have opinions, yet how many of those with opinions have served…?[/quote]
Just to put it up front, I have served, honorably discharged, yada yada…
“The military is not a place to conduct social experiments” what would you call the integration of blacks and other races? women? just curious, seems like what you wrote could apply to either of those time periods.
[quote]RyanRC187 wrote:
[quote]forlife wrote:
More broadly, it affects every U.S. citizen to the extent that it weakens our military capability. If thousands of gay soldiers, translators, etc. are evicted from the military due to their sexual orientation, that makes our military less able to do its job. [/quote]
It “weakens” our military? How exactly? Have you served?
Cue Col Jessup’s speech
In all seriousness, each branch has met and exceeded it’s recruiting goals for the past several years. I don’t think manning is an issue.[/quote]
For example:
[quote]IMAGINE for a moment an American soldier deep in the Iraqi desert. His unit is about to head out when he receives a cable detailing an insurgent ambush right in his convoyâ??s path. With this information, he and his soldiers are now prepared for the danger that lies ahead.
Reports like these are regularly sent from military translatorsâ?? desks, providing critical, often life-saving intelligence to troops fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. But the military has a desperate shortage of linguists trained to translate such invaluable information and convey it to the war zone.
The lack of qualified translators has been a pressing issue for some time â?? the Army had filled only half its authorized positions for Arabic translators in 2001. Cables went untranslated on Sept. 10 that might have prevented the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11. Today, the American Embassy in Baghdad has nearly 1,000 personnel, but only a handful of fluent Arabic speakers.
I was an Arabic translator. After joining the Navy in 2003, I attended the Defense Language Institute, graduated in the top 10 percent of my class and then spent two years giving our troops the critical translation services they desperately needed. I was ready to serve in Iraq.
But I never got to. In March, I was ousted from the Navy under the â??donâ??t ask, donâ??t tellâ?? policy, which mandates dismissal if a service member is found to be gay.
My story begins almost a year ago when my roommate, who is also gay, was deployed to Falluja. We communicated the only way we could: using the militaryâ??s instant-messaging system on monitored government computers. These electronic conversations are lifelines, keeping soldiers sane while mortars land meters away.
Then, last October the annual inspection of my base, Fort Gordon, Ga., included a perusal of the government computer chat system; inspectors identified 70 service members whose use violated policy. The range of violations was broad: people were flagged for everything from profanity to outright discussions of explicit sexual activity. Among those charged were my former roommate and me. Our messages had included references to our social lives â?? comments that were otherwise unremarkable, except that they indicated we were both gay.
I could have written a statement denying that I was homosexual, but lying did not seem like the right thing to do. My roommate made the same decision, though he was allowed to remain in Iraq until the scheduled end of his tour.
The result was the termination of our careers, and the loss to the military of two more Arabic translators. The 68 other â?? heterosexual â?? service members remained on active duty, despite many having committed violations far more egregious than ours; the Pentagon apparently doesnâ??t consider hate speech, derogatory comments about women or sexual misconduct grounds for dismissal.
My supervisors did not want to lose me. Most of my peers knew I was gay, and that didnâ??t bother them. I was always accepted as a member of the team. And my experience was not anomalous: polls of veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan show an overwhelming majority are comfortable with gays. Many were aware of at least one gay person in their unit and had no problem with it.
â??Donâ??t ask, donâ??t tellâ?? does nothing but deprive the military of talent it needs and invade the privacy of gay service members just trying to do their jobs and live their lives. Political and military leaders who support the current law may believe that homosexual soldiers threaten unit cohesion and military readiness, but the real damage is caused by denying enlistment to patriotic Americans and wrenching qualified individuals out of effective military units. This does not serve the military or the nation well.
Consider: more than 58 Arabic linguists have been kicked out since â??donâ??t ask, donâ??t tellâ?? was instituted. How much valuable intelligence could those men and women be providing today to troops in harmâ??s way?
In addition to those translators, 11,000 other service members have been ousted since the â??donâ??t ask, donâ??t tellâ?? policy was passed by Congress in 1993. Many held critical jobs in intelligence, medicine and counterterrorism. An untold number of closeted gay military members donâ??t re-enlist because of the pressure the law puts on them. This is the real cost of the ban â?? and, with our military so overcommitted and undermanned, itâ??s too high to pay.
In response to difficult recruiting prospects, the Army has already taken a number of steps, lengthening soldiersâ?? deployments to 15 months from 12, enlisting felons and extending the age limit to 42. Why then wonâ??t Congress pass a bill like the Military Readiness Enhancement Act, which would repeal â??donâ??t ask, donâ??t tellâ??? The bipartisan bill, by some analystsâ?? estimates, could add more than 41,000 soldiers â?? all gay, of course.
As the friends I once served with head off to 15-month deployments, I regret Iâ??m not there to lessen their burden and to serve my country. Iâ??m trained to fight, I speak Arabic and Iâ??m willing to serve. No recruiter needs to make a persuasive argument to sign me up. Iâ??m ready, and Iâ??m waiting.
Stephen Benjamin is a former petty officer second class in the Navy.[/quote]
[quote]jre67t wrote:
Ah cappedandplant the mentality for you to stereotype when you do not even know what color I am…I guess you can see right into my room…lol. Im that poor little mexican boy who grew up in a poor black neighboorhood who had to run home everyday after school until I hit a growth spurt and starting hitting back. I had a black roommate for 3 yrs, what other assumptions do you want to make?
Ryan it does not weaken the military, this just fits with forlifes Gay agenda.[/quote]
Yeah, spic, wetback, “worthless illegals stealing American jobs”…
they’re just words I use. Get over it. 
Lol Im over it and yeah Im a spic and my folks are wetbacks and your point is what, but hey guess what we are not illegals. Like I said its not what you say its how you say it. Im a spic in texas who has two jobs who I stole from the gringos and blacks and gays and lesbos.
You wana hear the story of how my parents swam across the Rio Grande, that certifies them as original wetbacks.
[quote]forlife wrote:
Hungry4more, I hear what you’re saying, but think about the effects of DADT beyond your own experience. It requires gay soldiers to lie about who they are, and makes them hostage to anyone with an ax to grind.
More broadly, it affects every U.S. citizen to the extent that it weakens our military capability. If thousands of gay soldiers, translators, etc. are evicted from the military due to their sexual orientation, that makes our military less able to do its job. [/quote]
At the same time, with people being allowed to be openly gay, it could be argued that this only gives people who will discriminate against homosexuals more ammunition with which to discriminate.
And bear in mind, we are currently downsizing the USMC (don’t know about the other services), so losing people isn’t exactly a major concern right now.
Once again, I am simply speaking in practical terms. None of this emotional bullshit so many people get wrapped up in the instant DADT gets mentioned. Let’s please keep this above emotions so we can be productive. (You’ve been ok thus far)
[quote]PonceDeLeon wrote:
H4M,
Out of curiosity, what’s another reason for being in favor of DADT, besides the “double standard” argument you’re using about not allowing men and women to bunk in the same room? Are you saying that, if men and women were allowed to bunk together, you would be in favor of the repeal? [/quote]
While I know that would NEVER happen (which is half of my point), yes. The problem is simply potential (open) sexual attraction, mutual or not. [quote]
Because I didn’t see you argue anything else in favor of DADT and, frankly, that’s a poor argument (re: men and women not bunking); seems like a “convenient” argument to mask ulterior motive. No offense. [/quote]
No, you see, I don’t want men and women to be allowed to bunk together, that would cause a myriad of problems…for the exact same reasons allowing openly gay members to bunk with straight (or gay) members of the same sex will cause problems.
[quote]
And I’m trying to keep this civil. Just curious.
By the way, I don’t have your email (can’t PM) and was going to ask you a few other questions about training. Check my profile, please.[/quote]
Checking profile now…
[quote]Dustin wrote:
[quote]Aragorn wrote:
No, he has a very valid point about the physical limitations of women in the military. You need to sack up and argue it. I do not share his view of gays, but this one is a very legitimate issue. Women have different physical standard, their qualifying run time is a FULL 3 minutes slower than the guy’s qualifier. In addition they are only required to do 19 push-ups to pass, whereas a guy is required to perform 43 push-ups.
[/quote]
He has no point. He’s an idiot and has made that abundantly clear.
I have been in the Army five years, I know what the requirements are for females in the PT test.
I know while deployed, the females that the guys in my unit worked with while running convoys had no issues mounting 50 cals on their vehicles and serving as gunners. Hell, some of the biggest weaklings I have seen in the Army were males.
You know what? I make no pretensions to being a vet although I have numerous close friends, relatives, and roommates that are (both enlisted and officer). That said, in the few posts I read of yours BEFORE I responded to yours, you didn’t make any claims of being a vet either.
First I agree with you that some of the biggest weaklings are males. Second, i NEVER said that all females were incapable of doing the job. If you’ll recall, I said that provided they were able to pass the same physical tests as males, I say let them have completely equal opportunity to roles in the military–including combat.
MY only point was that a) I disagree and thoroughly despise the double standard in physical testing b) the military has absolutely zero place for a double standard given their mission as an organization and c) a physical double standard is inherently damaging to the stated objectives of the military.
Basically, equality must be all across the board–I do not support special standards for females because they are females. The only exception to this that I would consider beneficial is a possible relaxing of upper body strength for females in intelligence positions or other “safe” and non-physically active jobs behind lines. Spare me the lecture please, I know that no job in the military is fully safe, it is just a figure of speech. I also would still make them perform equal standards on all other physical movements.
PonceDeLeon, go to my youtube channel (hungry5768), send me a PM there, and we’ll go from there, k?
I going to go ahead and repost to maybe get an answer on this:
Just to put it up front, I have served, honorably discharged, yada yada…
“The military is not a place to conduct social experiments” what would you call the integration of blacks and other races? women? just curious, seems like what you wrote could apply to either of those time periods.
[quote]storey420 wrote:
I going to go ahead and repost to maybe get an answer on this:
Just to put it up front, I have served, honorably discharged, yada yada…
“The military is not a place to conduct social experiments” what would you call the integration of blacks and other races? women? just curious, seems like what you wrote could apply to either of those time periods. [/quote]
Its been answered, but here ya go: integrating women completely was a huge mistake, and homosexuality is not a race.
[quote]Jimmy6 wrote:
[quote]storey420 wrote:
I going to go ahead and repost to maybe get an answer on this:
Just to put it up front, I have served, honorably discharged, yada yada…
“The military is not a place to conduct social experiments” what would you call the integration of blacks and other races? women? just curious, seems like what you wrote could apply to either of those time periods. [/quote]
Its been answered, but here ya go: integrating women completely was a huge mistake, and homosexuality is not a race.[/quote]
Not only isn’t homosexuality a race it hasn’t even been proven to be genetic.
[quote]Jimmy6 wrote:
[quote]storey420 wrote:
I going to go ahead and repost to maybe get an answer on this:
Just to put it up front, I have served, honorably discharged, yada yada…
“The military is not a place to conduct social experiments” what would you call the integration of blacks and other races? women? just curious, seems like what you wrote could apply to either of those time periods. [/quote]
Its been answered, but here ya go: integrating women completely was a huge mistake, and homosexuality is not a race.[/quote]
Ummm…actually no it hasnt been answered all he has gotten is two “bravo, right on” when his premise is false. The race and gender integration were social experiments, he said the military is no place for them. My point is that the military has been THE place for them and history shows it. Good job though on figuring out homosexuality isn’t a race all by yourself.
Oh and last time I checked we still have the most advanced fighting force in the world not sure how we completely failed adding women. I served with plenty that were outstanding soldiers
I dont really care much for the repeal or not. however i do see two concerns:
-
Someone mentioned this earlier, one person is going to ruin it for everybody, one person is going to join the service, and to make a statement he is going to be gay and proud and all flamboyant, harrasment ensues and boom. Ive seen this happen one too many times. Just to be clear, i am not saying anything about the majority of homosexuals im just saying that there is always one in the group that ruins it for the rest.
-
Harrasment. Im sure theres gunna be more than there is now and im sure its more than just man to man harrasment. There will be alot of guys who wont know how to take this and sometimes things can get out of hand. Personally i think this is somehting that will not hurt the image of DADT getting repealed but still be somewhat of an issue.
However i think that repealing DADT is a good thing in the name of equality to humanity. The more people have the chance of experiencing to serve this great country and the personal growth that comes with it, while addressing the needs of the service, the better
I think we need some more input from the combat arms and their opinion should weight heavier consiredering their position. However i think we should try to solve a problem instead of deciding on one.
[quote]Jimmy6 wrote:
[quote]storey420 wrote:
I going to go ahead and repost to maybe get an answer on this:
Just to put it up front, I have served, honorably discharged, yada yada…
“The military is not a place to conduct social experiments” what would you call the integration of blacks and other races? women? just curious, seems like what you wrote could apply to either of those time periods. [/quote]
Its been answered, but here ya go: integrating women completely was a huge mistake, and homosexuality is not a race.[/quote]
Nobody ever said homosexuality was a race. People compare homophobia to racism because they are both forms of bigotry. Likewise, ageism can be compared to sexism, or abilism to religious intolerance. Because each is a form of bigotry, and bigotry is bad.
Ok, storey420, so you’re saying because IN THE PAST the military has been used for social experiments, that somehow means it’s a good idea? Good heavens man, we’re supposed to learn from our mistakes, not intentionally repeat them. People say “oh well our military is good so obviously what we’re doing is working”…bullshit. Who’s to say it couldn’t be that much BETTER and actually somewhat efficient if we didn’t use the force DEFENDING OUR NATION for testing new fucking ideas? Flawed logic.
[quote]hungry4more wrote:
Ok, storey420, so you’re saying because IN THE PAST the military has been used for social experiments, that somehow means it’s a good idea? Good heavens man, we’re supposed to learn from our mistakes, not intentionally repeat them. People say “oh well our military is good so obviously what we’re doing is working”…bullshit. Who’s to say it couldn’t be that much BETTER and actually somewhat efficient if we didn’t use the force DEFENDING OUR NATION for testing new fucking ideas? Flawed logic. [/quote]
Accepting people of various sexual orientations (without expecting any to hide theirs) is a new idea? This isn’t a “social experiment”, its social progress.