Panetta: So far, DADT A "Non-Event"

[Formaldehyde]

Remember all the doom and gloom projections about how this would be so deleterious to the morale of our combat troops? About how it would provoke untold numbers of highly trained killers to no longer wish to do so? About how it was going to hurt Obama politically?

Repeal of 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' showing no effect on morale, Panetta reports

Does anybody still think any of that will still happen? That anybody who would have never voted for Obama in the first place has now changed their minds due to the repeal of DADT?

 

[JollyRoger]

This will be a long-term net good. I mean, you have people in the military that basically serve out their service in an office and will be moving to the private sector. They need to be prepared for the fact that they will likely be working along-side openly gay people. If the civilian population can handle it with no training, surely, the military, who we spend a lot of tax dollars towards teaching discipline, can handle it.

 

[Kozmos]

One particularly fierce military force in history was all dudes with boners for each others.

 

[Askthepizzaguy]

And the crowd goes silent.

That's what happens when you're so right that it actually shuts the other side down, as literally every single one of their talking points was proven absolutely wrong in the real world application of this policy. This is going to be what happens in states where gay people are allowed to get married. Nothing will happen except the wedding service industry will sell more gowns and tuxedos, and more honeymoon vacations will be booked. How wicked! And all those fears about the downfall of western society will no longer be able to be pinned on gay people, because they will be proven to be bigoted nonsense, wholly without merit, completely ungrounded in reality, as all superstitious supremacist nonsense always is.

 

[MobBoss]

Its a non-event because the culture still remains largely the same regardless. I think the vast majority of homosexuals serving are still serving silently with no real desire to push the issue. Fwiw, I havent seen or heard of a single service member 'coming out' in my own area, nor even talked with anyone that has. This means either one of two things: the number of homosexuals serving was greatly over-estimated; or those serving are still convinced that nothing has really changed.

I'm going with the latter because of the number of years we had DADT as a rule.

 

[innonimatu]

Its a non-event because the culture still remains largely the same regardless. I think the vast majority of homosexuals serving are still serving silently with no real desire to push the issue. Fwiw, I havent seen or heard of a single service member 'coming out' in my own area, nor even talked with anyone that has. This means either one of two things: the number of homosexuals serving was greatly over-estimated; or those serving are still convinced that nothing has really changed.

You know, it can simply mean that they never wanted to mix sex and work in the fist place, just not to be fired from work just for what they did on their private lives. Meaning that your fears of being chased by the gays were misplaced - as had been repeatedly pointed out to you. Most gay men, perhaps amazingly for you, do not spend their time trying to jump on top of every other men they see!

 

[MobBoss]

Bud, I never had that fear. But thanks anyway.

My fear was more about violence done to gay service members; not them being a bunch of demanding sex perves.

 

[BvBPL]

Ithe number of homosexuals serving was greatly over-estimated; or those serving are still convinced that nothing has really changed.

I'm going with the latter because of the number of years we had DADT as a rule.

Well, now they can't legally lose their jobs simply because their boss found out about their sexual proclivities. That's real change any way you slice it.

 

[MobBoss]

Well, now they can't legally lose their jobs simply because their boss found out about their sexual proclivities. That's real change any way you slice it.

Well, it wasnt as if we were separating a huge number of personnel because of it either.

My point is part of the 'business as usual' is also attributed to the homosexual service member themselves - they havent really changed how they serve either.

 

[innonimatu]

Well, it wasnt as if we were separating a huge number of personnel because of it either.

My point is part of the 'business as usual' is also attributed to the homosexual service member themselves - they havent really changed how they serve either.

And why should they? Being gay was just one among a huge number of character traits they have. It doesn't change any of the others, it doesn't make them special for better or for worse. That's what people need to understand.

And - shameless plug here - that's also why gay couples should be allowed to marry and even adopt children, for example. Being gay doesn't make them more or less fit for that, or anything else.

 

[Formaldehyde]

Well, it wasnt as if we were separating a huge number of personnel because of it either.

There were certainly enough of them who were victims of this absurd policy which you supported.

Link to video.

So, basically, the Department of Defense broke the law and asked you and pursued you in 21 different ways if you were gay. Is that the case?

Yes.

And those other folks you have met, the 50 other folks who have been discharged under DADT, did they run into similar circumstances where they were asked if they were gay?

Yes. I ran into one female that was asked if she were gay because she would not sleep with a higher official and they discharged her for that.

Was she even gay?

No.

Do you think women are targeted more than men?

Yes. In the discharge company I was in, there were maybe one or two males within the past 4 or 5 months I was there. And half the females who were there were being discharged under DADT.

 

[MobBoss]

There were certainly enough of them who were victims of this absurd policy which you supported.

Again, in the broad scope of things, the actual percent among all discharges its probably less than 1/100th of a percent. Your handful of links doesnt disprove that. Hell, your links dont even meet the expectation of being fair or balanced, being filled with nothing more than heresay and one sided viewpoint.

The previous policy was neither absurd, nor without valid reason. I and a significant number of military professionals still think those reasons valid. I guess only time will tell.

 

[Formaldehyde]

Yet there were 13,650 victims of this absurd policy, which are 13,650 too many.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don't_ask,_don't_tell

Year Coast Guard Marines Navy Army Air Force Total
1994 0 36 258 136 187 617
1995 15 69 269 184 235 772
1996 12 60 315 199 284 870
1997 10 78 413 197 309 1,007
1998 14 77 345 312 415 1,163
1999 12 97 314 271 352 1,046
2000 19 114 358 573 177 1,241
2001 14 115 314 638 217 1,273
2002 29 109 218 429 121 906
2003* – – – – – 787
2004 15 59 177 325 92 668
2005 16 75 177 386 88 742
2006* – – – – – 623
2007* – – – – – 627
2008* – – – – – 619
2009* – – – – – 428
2010* 11 – – – – 261[192]
Total ≥156 ≥889 ≥3,158 ≥3,650 ≥2,477 13,650

I just wonder how many of them were women who weren't even gay. They simply had more good sense than to he victimized into having sex against their will.

 

[MobBoss]

In comparison to how many discharges total? How many of those discharges were voluntary? You do know that claiming to be homosexual in the service was a guranteed way to get out of an enlistment contract right? How many of those discharges had additional misconduct associated with them? Do you know?

No, you dont. All you know how to do is cut and paste something from a wiki page which is grossly insufficient to clearly profile the issue. Without proper context, such information is nothing more than propaganda. For example, in comparison, we were admin discharging two to three times as many people a year for various types of mental illness. Discharges solely for homosexuality were actually quite rare over the last 12 years and were grossly overshadowed by discharges for other reasons, like drug use, and other types of misconduct.

I've been a military paralegal for over 25 years. I can safely say, without hesistation, that every, single discharge I worked that was solely for homosexuality, was because the person was requesting voluntarily to disclose that status in order to get out of the military. In every other instance where the discharge was not voluntary, there were additional acts of misconduct which had nothing to do with the sexuality, which would have still removed them from service.

 

[LucyDuke]

Its a non-event

So no problem.

 

[MobBoss]

So no problem.

So far its not. But how much of that is simply the inertia created by DADT as opposed to real change in the military?

What I mean is this: the military itself is going to experience so many changes with downsizing, and cutbacks, and in many cases much tougher standards, that the elimination of DADT is just one small ripple of a huge splash. There is a veritable exodus occuring in our military right now with people leaving service, and with that much turn-over, i'm not entirely sure thats a good thing for it.

 

[LucyDuke]

I'm honestly not sure what you're trying to say about what problem it might cause or contribute to.

 

[Mr. Dictator]

People are leaving the military in droves? That's the best news I've heard all day.

 

[MobBoss]

People are leaving the military in droves? That's the best news I've heard all day.

Budge cutbacks and downsizing. Its going to be like the early 90s after the first Gulf War all over again.

 

[BvBPL]

Again, in the broad scope of things, the actual percent among all discharges its probably less than 1/100th of a percent.

In the US, murder accounts for .06% of all deaths. Probably no point in having any sort of policy about that either.