General John Shalikashvili,
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff from 1993-1997, died on
July 23, 2011. In his 39 years
of service to our country,
starting as a draftee and ending
as the highest-ranking officer
in the military, General
Shalikashvili had a remarkable
career, earning the respect and
admiration of his peers, the
military’s top leaders, and of
the Presidents he served.
He
will be remembered for many
accomplishments during his
military career, but he will be
most honored by the military GLB
community for his public support
of repeal of the discriminatory
DADT law. Although Gen.
Shalikashvili fully supported
the initial rationale for DADT
in 1993, in the years after his
retirement he came to understand
that America had changed; he
observed that young troops were
far more comfortable working
with gays and lesbians than he
had previously thought, and that
there were many openly gay and
lesbian troops serving with the
knowledge of their peers and
even sometimes with the
knowledge of their commands. His
public advocacy for repealing
DADT was a major, historic
milestone in the fight for
equality of service of GLB
service members.
Starting in 2005, I had the
honor and privilege of meeting
many times with General
Shalikashvili. He invited me to
join him at his home in
Steilacoom, WA to discuss the
DADT law. General Shalikashvili
was genuinely interested in the
issue, especially as he
recognized the changing nature
of American society in regards
to its acceptance of GLB
citizens in all walks of life.
Slowly, over the months, I
recognized in General
Shalikashvili a change in his
attitude towards gays and
lesbians serving in the
military. Starting from his
statement, “I know repealing
DADT will be good for the gay
community, but when I wear my
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs’
hat, I’m not yet convinced it
will be good for the military,”
General Shalikashvili eventually
agreed to meet with members of
the gay community who were
leaders in the effort to repeal
DADT. He met with Dixon Osborne
(head of Servicemembers Legal
Defense Network), and he met
with Professor Aaron Belkin
(head of the Palm Center at
University of California, Santa
Barbara). These discussions
brought to light for the general
many legal, historical and
societal issues touching on the
repeal of DADT. They were
persuasive and began to
demonstrate for General
Shalikashvili a framework in
which unrestricted service of
gay, lesbian and bisexual troops
would be acceptable to the
military.
In
2006 General Shalikashvili
agreed to meet with several gay
service members (Alex
Nicholson*, Jarrod Chlapowski*,
Steve Lorandos, Timothy Smith,
Patrick English and myself),
some of them still on active
duty. These gay troops and
veterans, most of whom were
known to be gay by their peers,
brought a reality to the general
that there was a very large
cultural disconnect between the
experiences of the young troops
making up 70% of the military
and the assumptions held by
their much older military
leadership, assumptions that
formed the foundations of the
DADT law. The assumed negative
consequences to unit morale,
unit cohesion or operational
readiness were nowhere apparent
in the experiences of these
soldiers, sailors, airmen,
marines and coasties.
But it
was the experience of the active
duty gay submariner, Steve
Lorandos, who proved to be the
most persuasive advocate for
repeal during the meeting with
the general. General
Shalikashvili had previously
stated that the submarine
environment, with its forced
lack of privacy and all male
crew confined together
underwater for three months at a
time, was the ultimate reason
that gays could never openly
serve in the military. The fact
that this submariner was known
to be gay by the entire crew of
the vessel (which presumably
meant the command knew as well,
since there are no secrets on a
sub) and yet he was a respected
and valued member of the crew,
demonstrated that even in this
extreme military environment,
gays could serve openly without
negative consequences.
One
year later General Shalikashvili
wrote an op-ed for the New York
Times titled “Second Thoughts on
Gays in the Military.”
[http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/02/opinion/02shalikashvili.html?_r=1&oref=slogin].
In this op-ed he made the
following statements:
“When
I was chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff, I supported the
current policy because I
believed that implementing a
change in the rules at that time
would have been too burdensome
for our troops and commanders. …
The question before us now is
whether enough time has gone by
to give this policy serious
reconsideration. Much evidence
suggests that it has. … “Last
year I held a number of meetings
with gay soldiers and marines,
including some with combat
experience in Iraq, and an
openly gay senior sailor who was
serving effectively as a member
of a nuclear submarine crew.
These conversations showed me
just how much the military has
changed, and that gays and
lesbians can be accepted by
their peers. … I now believe
that if gay men and lesbians
served openly in the United
States military, they would not
undermine the efficacy of the
armed forces.”
The
importance of this op-ed for the
repeal of DADT cannot be
overstated. It was like a
nuclear bomb going off on the
issue. For here was the former
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs,
sworn to uphold the law and
staunchly supporting its
foundation at the time it was
passed in 1993, now changing his
mind and stating that gays could
serve openly without diminishing
military effectiveness. In so
doing he broke the previous
firewall of flag officer opinion
opposing gay military
service, and he made it
acceptable for other
high-ranking military officers,
including many other flag
officers, to support repeal of
the DADT law. General
Shalikashvili’s strong advocacy
for gays and lesbians in the
military will forever remain an
historic marker in the efforts
to repeal DADT.
But
General Shalikashvili wasn’t
finished fighting for
unrestricted military service
for gay and lesbian citizens. In
2010, in the middle of the
intense political push to repeal
DADT, General Shalikashvili made
an even stronger statement in a
publicly released message to the
Pentagon leadership.
[http://gillibrand.senate.gov/newsroom/press/release/?id=60c1b742-f0ff-4397-83a8-49adf322e77b]:
“Studies
have shown that three-quarters
of service members say they are
personally comfortable around
gays and lesbians. Two-thirds
say they already know or suspect
gay people in their units. This
raises important questions about
the assertion that openly gay
service would impair the
military. In fact, it shows that
gays and lesbians in the
military have already been
accepted by the average soldier.
“As
a nation built on the principal
of equality, we should recognize
and welcome change that will
build a stronger more cohesive
military. It is time to repeal
“don’t ask, don’t tell” and
allow our military leaders to
create policy that holds our
service members to a single
standard of conduct and
discipline."
General Shalikashvili lived to
see his recommendations and his
advocacy on behalf of GLB troops
come to fruition. His son,
Brant, attended on his behalf
the Presidential Signing
Ceremony for the DADT repeal
bill on December 22, 2010, and
he lived long enough to see the
certification by the Secretary
of Defense, current Chairman of
the Joint Chiefs and the
Commander-in-Chief that the
military is ready for openly gay
troops to serve their country
with the same dignity and honor
as their straight peers.
Bravo
Zulu to you General
Shaliskashvili! Thank you for
all you did for the military and
for standing for equality for
all men and women who don the
uniform of the United States
Armed Forces. You are a true
hero to us.
Rest
in peace, General. You will
never be forgotten.
©
2011 Gay Military Signal
