It will
“seriously affect voluntary enlistments,” “seriously
affect morale,” and “affect battle efficiency.” Though
these claims are identical to the arguments of Chairman
of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Colin Powell in
opposing the integration of openly gay, lesbian,
bisexual, and transgender service members into the
United States military, they are actually the words of
World War II hero and very first Chairman of the Joint
Chiefs, General Omar N. Bradley, in opposing the
integration of African-American service members in
1948. To Bradley’s credit, the great general went on to
say in a March 28, 1949, statement that “we all realize
that the donning of a uniform does not change a man’s
personality, his aptitude or his prejudices.” In other
words, it is not the performance of a minority group
within the military that is the problem, but the bigotry
of the majority in acting on ignorance that leads to
trouble. Bradley obviously had little confidence in the
military’s professionalism or the ability of “grunts” to
work with people they had been socialized to dislike.
It may remain one of the great ironies of American
military history that Colin Powell, the first
African-American chair of the Joint Chiefs and arguably
the one soldier to benefit most from Harry Truman’s
decision to oppose his own top military commander, would
use the same argument to exclude gay service members
that was used to exclude black service members.
President
Harry Truman |
General Omar
Bradley |
Secretary of
State
Colin Powell |
Opposition to
minorities serving in the military is nothing new in
America. Even before there was a United States,
individual North American colonies excluded minorities
from military service. In his book “Founding Faith,” author Steven Waldman writes that both Jews and “papish”
Catholics were barred from military service. The Dutch
colony of Nieuw Amsterdam (later New York) excluded Jews
from military service and then taxed them for not
serving.
Ironically,
the military has begun to expound on the merits of “diversity” while many groups still oppose lifting the
ban on LGBT service members. Command Sergeant Major
Hector G. Marin, who assumed the top enlisted position
at Aberdeen Proving Ground in 2007, spoke of the
“strength in diversity” at his installation ceremony.
According to Marin, “the many races, ethnicities,
religions and creeds” that “make America strong” also
help “make the Army strong.” “We take young men and
women from all backgrounds, some who come from several
generations of Americans and some who are first
generation Americans, and turn them into a force with a
common focus, the defense of our great way of life. We
understand better than most that success has nothing to
do with the color of your skin, where you were born, or
the type of religion to which you belong. In fact, we
know there is only one color of importance to the
Soldier and that is Army green….It was only in 1948,
when President Harry S. Truman signed an executive order
that led to the integration of the military, that we
really started on the road to becoming the model of
meritocracy that our military is today.” These same
sentiments were echoed by General George Casey, U.S.
Army Chief of Staff, who stated in the wake of the Ft.
Hood mass shooting tragedy by a Muslim officer, “Our
diversity, not only in our Army, but in our country, is
a strength. And as horrific as this tragedy was, if our
diversity becomes a casualty, I think that's worse."
The Army’s first four-star female general, General Ann
E. Dunwoody, Commander, U.S. Army Materiel Command,
spoke on the same theme of diversity in a
speech on March 6, 2009. "Your Army considers diversity
a strength – and we proudly lead the nation in offering
equal opportunity to all.”
General
George Casey |
Command Sgt
Major
Hector Marin |
General Ann
Dunwoody |
Are these
exceptional, highly experienced soldiers merely giving
“lip service” or do they limit the definition of
“diversity” to the usual categories of nationality,
gender, race, ethnicity and religion? Of course some
Americans disagree with their argument altogether.
Conservative commentator Ann Coulter, for instance,
stated in direct response to General Casey’s “diversity
is strength” statement with her own thoughts on
diversity. “Never in recorded history has diversity been
anything but a problem. Look at Ireland with its
Protestant and Catholic populations, Canada with its
French and English populations, Israel with its Jewish
and Palestinian populations….’Diversity’ is a difficulty
to be overcome, not an advantage to be sought.”
Sec. of Army
Kenneth Royall |
Coulter’s
comments actually come closer to another Army
commander’s statements when discussing earlier
issues of diversity. Again in reaction to
Harry Truman’s plans for racial integration of the
military, Secretary of the Army Kenneth C. Royall
stated in an official letter dated March 29, 1949,
“A total abandonment of – or a substantial and
sudden change in – the Army’s partial segregation
policy would in my opinion adversely affect
enlistments and reenlistments not only in the South
but in many other parts of the country, probably
making peacetime selective service necessary.
And a change in our policy would adversely affect
the morale of many Southern soldiers and other
soldiers now serving.” Why is it that
today’s commanders can see the
ignorance of their predecessors when
discussing |
issues
of race, gender, religion and ethnicity
while being blinded to the thoroughly
whipped dead horses of “morale” and
“recruitment” when it comes to sexual
affection or gender identity? Or are
their words as empty as the promise of “the
Army takes care of its own” to those of us
who have been the victims of the “Don’t Ask,
Don’t Tell” policy? |
Both General
Powell and former Senator Sam Nunn, co-parents of DADT,
have now called for a “reexamination” of the policy.
Clearly, the military is beginning to at least pay
homage to the value of diversity, which should include
LGBT service members. If anything, the integration of
LGBT soldiers into the US military should be easier than
other minorities, since LGBT personnel are already
serving incognito alongside their heterosexual
counterparts. Now that military leaders are beginning
to come around to valuing diversity rather than claiming
difference is a challenge that training and discipline
just can’t overcome, why is the ban not being lifted
amidst a celebration of the military’s newly discovered
pride in the “strength of diversity?”
In the
current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan women have come
closer to overcoming the ban on female combat soldiers
than ever before. According to New York Times reporter
Lizette Alvarez, “as soldiers in the Iraq and
Afghanistan wars, women have done nearly as much in
battle as their male counterparts: patrolled streets
with machine guns, served as gunners on vehicles,
disposed of explosives, and driven trucks down
bomb-ridden roads. They have proved indispensable in
their ability to interact with and search Iraqi and
Afghan women for weapons, a job men cannot do for
cultural reasons.” Women have become so crucial in
combat situations that Army commanders have resorted to
“bureaucratic trickery” using such terms as “attached”
rather than “assigned” when women have been needed in
combat units. The US Navy now allows women to serve on
nuclear submarines. And not surprisingly, a number of
allied nations now actively recruit women to serve in
combat units, having crossed traditional barriers well
ahead of the “leader of the free world.”
Of course not
everyone approves of women in combat either. Elaine
Donnelly, president of the Center for Military
Readiness, opposes allowing women to serve in combat.
Ms. Donnelly also opposes allowing LGBT personnel from
serving openly in the military. Polls show that the
majority of Americans not only support lifting the ban
on LGBT service members but also support allowing an
increased roll for women in combat situations. The
Center for Military Readiness appears to be out of touch
on both issues. The Human Rights Campaign has pointed
out that the claims by groups opposed to the service of
openly gay soldiers that LGBT integration would “disrupt
the tight cohesion of a unit and lead to harassment and
sexual liaisons” are the same claims used to oppose
women in combat. Women soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan
have debunked these myths, which appear to be as
vaporous for women in combat as they would be for LGBT
personnel serving in openness.
So, with the
military’s newfound love affair with diversity, and both
facts and the public supporting lifting the ban on LGBT
soldiers, why is the ban still in place? The experience
of almost all of America’s military allies following
their integration of LGBT service members into their
forces has shown that all the claims made in opposition
to the move have been proven to be false. And the US
military’s own “bureaucratic trickery” in hanging on to
deployed openly LGBT soldiers until units return
stateside proves that the military itself does not
believe that the presence of such LGBT personnel damages
unit morale, combat readiness, or “military efficiency.”
So what’s the problem? The naysayer “experts” both
inside the military and outside have always been around
in the past, yet the armed forces have pushed past the
prejudice. Perhaps the missing ingredient in the mix
could be referred to as the “Harry Truman factor.”
Truman chose to integrate African-American soldiers into
the military, possibly because his knowledge of
electoral politics told him that he needed the black
vote to win reelection, despite the opposition of his
top military commanders and a huge number of vehemently
racist Americans. However you may choose to describe
it, it seems that Harry Truman had, well, something akin
to “chutzpah” which may not be politely stated in this
article. Whether or not the “right thing” is done on
the issue of patriotic openly LGBT service members may
very well depend on whether the current
Commander-In-Chief, who has long promised to lift the
ban, possesses the same “set” of moral courage and
determined leadership as Harry Truman.
© 2010
Gay Military Signal