12000
Flags and 28 Flag Officers
Make a Powerful Statement
By
RADM
Alan M. Steinman, USCG/USPHS (Ret)
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On November 30,
2007, the 14th anniversary of the infamous “Don’t
Ask, Don’t Tell” law (DADT), two major events
happened on the Capitol Mall in Washington, DC that
will stand as milestones in the fight to repeal DADT.
The events were: “12000 Flags for 12000 Patriots”
and the release of a public statement signed by 28
retired generals and admirals advocating repeal of
DADT and advancing the cause of gays and lesbian
serving honestly in the military.
First, “12000
Flags for 12000 Patriots” kicked off a weekend of
activities highlighting the loss of valuable men and
women from the military under DADT. One small American
flag was planted on the Mall for each service member
discharged for being gay since the law went into
effect in 1993. The idea for this event was the
brainchild of Alex Nicholson, founder of
Servicemembers United (the former Call to Duty Tour),
who himself was kicked out of the Army a few years
back, despite being trained as an intelligence
specialist and despite speaking multiple languages
(now including Arabic).
The purpose of this
display was to illustrate the magnitude of the
stupidity of wasting the talents, skills and training
of 12000 American patriotic citizens who wanted to
serve their nation in the Armed Forces. Each
flag on the Mall represented one of those military men
and women discharged under the DADT law since its
passage in 1993. The event was co-sponsored and funded
by 5 leading organizations dedicated to the rights of
gay, lesbian and bisexual service men and women to
serve honorably in the Armed Forces: Servicemembers
United, Human Rights Campaign, Servicemembers Legal
Defense Network, Log Cabin Republicans, and the
Liberty Education Forum.
The 12000 flags made
a visually stunning and poignant backdrop to speeches
by the heads of each of the sponsoring organizations
and by several veteran service members, including
Rhonda Davis (USN), Eric Alva (USMC) and Alex
Nicholson himself. There are over 65,000 active duty
and reserve GLB service men and women in the military
right now. In order to serve their country, they
are required to live a lie, live in fear of being
discovered, and violate the very honor codes of their
service they have sworn to uphold. Yet,
according to a recent survey of Iraq and Afghanistan
war veterans, 68% of them know for certain or suspect
there are gay members of their own unit; 73% say they
are comfortable working with gay members of their own
unit. There has been no diminution of unit
morale, unit cohesion or combat readiness.
Therefore, why continue with the discriminatory
policies of DADT?
Every day on
average, two GLB servicemembers are kicked out of the
military solely for who they are. Worse, every
year, 3000-3500 GLB servicemembers leave the military,
quietly and voluntarily, because of DADT. These
men and women, all of whom are trained, experienced
and paid for, would have remained on active duty were
it not for DADT. Over the course of the 14 years
DADT has been on the books, that loss of manpower
equals a loss of nearly 50000 men and women.
That is a significant hit to national security at a
time when the military is desperately seeking bodies,
having to lower enlistment standards and issue
thousands of "moral waivers" simply to meet
recruiting quotas. And none of those new
recruits has the training and experience of the troops
who leave voluntarily because they're tired of living
in fear of being found out and kicked out.
Not to be outdone,
the statement from the 28 retired admirals and
generals is immensely important. Following in the
footsteps of former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff, General John Shalikashvili, who early this year
publicly stated that he had changed his mind on DADT
and now felt that gays and lesbians could serve
openly), the statement from these senior military
leaders (three of them 3-stars) demonstrates that
times have changed in both our nation and within the
military establishment. Senior leaders no longer feel
that the known presence of gays and lesbians in a unit
would be disruptive to unit morale, unit cohesion and
combat readiness. Certainly the number of gays and
lesbians serving more or less openly now (according to
the Palm Center/Zogby Poll mentioned above) speaks to
the falsity of the assumption that gays can’t
contribute to the nation’s war effort unless they’re
“silent, celibate and invisible.”
The 28 Flags
Statement was due to the diligent work of both Dr.
Aaron Belkin, Director of the Michael G. Palm Center
at the University of Santa Barbara, and former Navy
senior petty officer Rhonda Davis, herself discharged
unjustly under DADT. As noted above, Rhonda was one of
the speakers at the Flags on the Mall event.
Significantly, one of the generals who signed the
statement, Major General Dennis Laich, USA (Ret),
personally traveled to Washington, DC to be the
spokesman for the other flag officer signatories.
Their statement reads as follows:
“We respectfully
urge Congress to repeal the "Don’t Ask, Don’t
Tell" policy. Those of us signing this letter
have dedicated our lives to defending the rights of
our citizens to believe whatever they wish. As
General Colin Powell, former Chairman of the Joint
Chiefs said when the "Don’t Ask, Don’t
Tell" policy was enacted, it is not the place
of the military or those in senior leadership to
make moral judgments.
Scholarly data
show that there are approximately one million gay
and lesbian veterans in the United States today, as
well as 65,000 gays and lesbians currently serving
in our armed forces. They have served our nation
honorably.
We support the
recent comments of another former Chairman of the
Joint Chiefs, General John Shalikashvili, who has
concluded that repealing the "Don’t Ask, Don’t
Tell" policy would not harm, and would indeed
help, our armed forces. As is the case in Britain,
Israel, and other nations which allow gays and
lesbians to serve openly, our service members are
professionals who are able to work together
effectively despite differences in race, gender,
religion, and sexuality. Such collaboration reflects
the strength and the best traditions of our
democracy.”
I want to personally
thank my fellow flag officers for their public support
of repealing DADT. Ultimately, this kind of support
will be critical in overturning this unjust law.
As for the flags on the mall it is the intention of
the sponsoring agencies that “Flags on the Mall”
be an annual event, until such time as gays and
lesbians can serve openly, honestly and honorably in
our Armed Forces.
©
2007 Gay Military Signal
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