Okay, I'm juvenileFollow

And there's nothing particularly funny about the Army deciding it can do without Arabic translators these days because they're gay.

But I have to admit I laughed hard at this part:

Is that Cloris Leechman in that picture?

Wasn't sure if you were asking honestly or honestly asking.

Beautiful!

But I heard they were all heros and our nation's most precious resource.

I suppose by your use of the term "neanderthals in the military" you are referring to military personnel who follow the lawful orders of their legally elected civilian superiors?

So everyone here who gives a damn and isn't just spouting off because it's fun should write to your President and tell him to get off the dime and give the order. It's not even a lot of work. Send him an email at:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/

By the way, even some senior military officials have said it's time to allow homosexuals to serve openly, even a former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Shalikiashvili (although Colin Powell still opposes it, if less vigorously than in the past).

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/02/opinion/02shalikashvili.html

This report says attitudes have changed a lot (along with declining actual discharges).

http://www.palmcenter.org/node/263

As to the command, each base is different. Each base has it's own personality I guess you could call it. Even if the big wigs in DC do away with it it's the individual command at the bases,the command in the units that needs to be upholding this and I don't for one minute believe that it's going to be followed every where. They might say they might, but as I've pointed out before, the military and their individual commands have a way of sweeping things under the rug.

Nothing.

EDIT: I don't know if I can do anything about snide and ****, but I'll try to be less pompous.

Edited, Jul 2nd 2009 12:06pm by Ahkuraj

I don't suppose there's any non-pompous way for me to say this ... I was one of several squadron commanders at Air Force Basic Military Training for two years not too long ago. I was the lucky one who got to kick everyone out of the Air Force who wasn't meeting standards. We had very few homosexual discharge cases. Most of the people who claimed to be homosexual were more likely heterosexuals who couldn't take it and wanted us to kick them out. Once we told them they would have to complete Basic while we processed their discharge (which we told them would take more time than finishing Basic) most recanted their statement that they were homosexual and graduated Basic just fine.

We did have a couple of situations where people claimed they were being harassed by other recruits because they were believed to be homosexual. We investigated these cases without ever investigating whether the person was in fact homosexual. All we were interested in was whether they were being harassed; if we substantiated the harassment, we often kicked out the people doing the harassment. Even if we couldn't prove harassment, we moved the person complaining to another baracks for their protection, if they wanted to.

At Air Force Basic, these kids are put together from every conceivable background and put through tremendous stress, deliberately. In some cases, it seemed like specific people had hangups about homosexuals, very often resulting directly from whether or not they were raised to be tolerant. It was not generally a problem.

Now there was one ocassion (out of 76,000 recruits over 2 years) where there were multiple eyewitnesses to 2 male recruits kissing. Any kind of physical relations between recruits was against the rules. These two were already being discharged for other misconduct when this was discovered. We did kick out several male-female pairs who were caught in intimate acts because any kind of sexual conduct between recruits is against the rules (if it was minor, like holding hands or kissing, they would usually be given a direct order to knock it off, moved to different squadrons where they would have no contact, and given a second chance).

Now I know I can't speak for the other Services, but the Air Force is relatively benign toward its homosexual members. I've even had conversations with some Generals who have said they don't care one bit what consenting adults do as long as they follow the same kinds of rules that apply to everyone. Some older people in the Air Force might not like a change in policy allowing homosexuals to serve openly, but I think 99% or more would continue following direction from above, no matter what, and the rest would leave the Air Force one way or the other.

He won't do it. Some nonsense about how even though he can he'd rather do it through congressional legislation. A bunch of reps even wrote him a letter saying "No. Really. Do it." and he still refused.