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January 4, 2015 · 22:06

Conduct Unbecoming II: Tell the Story of DADT Discrimination

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Friends of Padre Steve’s World

Those of you who follow this blog or know me understand that I have served in the military since 1981. In that time I have served as an enlisted man, a Medical Service Corps Officer and Chaplain in the Army and a Navy Chaplain. I am coming up on 34 years service. In that time I have had a chance to see the military justice system up close and personal, when I was a company commander and later a brigade Adjutant the military prosecutors were my best friends, defense attorneys, not so much.

Sometimes, the military judicial system is better than the civilian system, but other times it is hopelessly prejudiced, especially against Gays and Lesbians.

This was especially true when I first entered the Army in 1981 before the implementation of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, as well as after that policy was enacted during the Clinton Administration. I cannot tell you how many men and women that I saw, or heard about being railroaded out of the military simply because they were gay.

Before DADT the process was incredibly brutal. Gays and lesbian could simply be accused of being such, even with no corroborating evidence and put out of the military with a discharge that ensured that they would have difficulty finding employment when they were thrown out of the military. Military officials of the Army Criminal Investigation Division (CID), the Naval Criminal Investigation Service (NCIS) and Air Force Office of Special Investigations (OSI) had free reign to use all means, fair and unfair to ferret out and prosecute anyone suspected of being gay.

I never was a fan of such tactics even though at the time I would have considered myself a Christian conservative who believed that gays were sinners and if they did not repent would go to Hell. But that being said, I never believed that gays were un-patriotic or unworthy of serving in the military so long as they conducted themselves in a manner that heterosexual service members should. Since I knew that homosexuals could not legally marry I figured that their sex life, so long as it did not interfere with their duties was not my concern.

When I was a company commander I knew that I had a number of gays and lesbians in my unit. They were all outstanding soldiers and unlike many of my heterosexual soldiers were never on the military police blotter. You see when I was made a company commander the unit I took command of had the highest drug positive rate in Europe and so many un-adjudicated criminal cases that I spent countless hours after normal duty hours do dealing with them. I had no reason to go after people who were not causing problems and who always could be counted on to go beyond what was required to accomplish the mission. The were great and it would make me proud to hear from them again.

That being said, one could December day the CID came knocking. The two special agents said that they wanted to put an undercover investigator in my company, allegedly to uncover someone suspected of trafficking American cigarettes that they had obtained with their ration cards on the local economy. I asked if they had a warrant or even probable cause for their action. They could produce neither. So I told them that I would not consent because a “spy” in the unit would destroy moral and esprit that I had been working to restore and told them if they could not show me a good reason why I should allow them to do this to get out of my company. After threatening me with investigation for harboring “black marketers” they never came back, so I doubt that they had anything.

However, when they left I wondered if there were any other motives, especially since they had no warrant and no probable cause. I wondered if they were fishing. Since medical units were known to have more homosexuals than other units I wondered if this was a reason, after all I wasn’t kicking anyone out for being homosexual, which back in those days was pretty big business.

When AIDS was finally recognized as a problem, long after it had already killed over 20,000 people, I helped develop some of the Army’s personnel policies for those infected with HIV, and did the counseling and support from an personnel point of view for officers who were infected. I also reviewed

After DADT was passed I was a Chaplain, first in the Army and then the Navy. Sadly, though over-zealous commanders and investigators no longer had carte-blanche to investigate suspected homosexuals, Gays and Lesbians still had to live under-cover. They could serve, but they could not admit that they were homosexual. As such they lived constantly under threat that the slightest mistake could cost them their military careers. I provided pastoral care for a number of those service men and women.

During the DATD era, thousands of Gay and Lesbian service members were drummed out of the service. Others, including a young man who had come to me for counsel, could not handle the pressure or the shame of losing their careers because of being identified as Gay killed themselves.

Even after the end of DADT the stigma of being homosexual has resulted in the prosecution of personnel who were guilty of nothing. I had to testify at the court-martial of a Marine Corps Officer who was the target of one of these witch hunts. I testified during his sentencing that the only reason that he had been prosecuted was because he was Gay. That made it into the record of the trial and I am proud that I could testify on his behalf. It was a travesty of justice engineered by the policies of the former Commandant of the Marine Corps, General James Amos. It was a shame and dishonor to the Marine Corps that a distinguished combat veteran be tried and convicted even though every command and civil police authority up to the Commandant refused to charge him of any crime.

I know several who managed to make it through their career until they could retire. They included distinguished combat veterans and senior officers and non-commissioned officers. One Chief Petty Officer I knew came out at his retirement ceremony, he was so nondescript in his behavior that no-one ever suspected that he was Gay. I do have to admit that coming out at his retirement ceremony had a certain amount of panache which I admired. I have a friend who spent eighteen of 21 years of service before DADT was overturned under constant threat. She gets to retire this summer. I hope to do the invocation and benediction at her retirement.

But I digress…

I have been reading Randy Shilts’ book Conduct Unbecoming: Gays and Lesbians in the U.S. Military. The book came out the month that Shilts, who had written the book that defined the tragedy of the AIDS crisis in its first years died of AIDS. The book is the most comprehensive treatment of the persecution of Gays and Lesbians in the military ever written. However, the book, published shortly after the establishment of DADT when Shilts was dying does not deal with what the Gays and Lesbians who served under DADT went through.

I want to write that book.

If you or anyone you know served in the military after DADT experienced the persecution that still occurred during that time I would like to hear from you. You can contact me by e-mail. I will maintain your confidentiality, after all, I am a priest.

That being said, the story of the Gays and Lesbian patriots who served during the DADT era needs to be told. That era encompassed more deployments and combat than any time since the Vietnam War. Many homosexuals put their lives on the line and even so still suffered great stigma and sometimes persecution. Under DATD 14,346 Soldiers, Sailors, Marines and Airmen were thrown out of the military. 

You may e-mail me, contact me through this site, Facebook or Twitter and I will contact you. Please spread the word. This part of history should not be forgotten, otherwise it may be repeated.

Peace and blessings

Padre Steve+

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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February 7, 2012 · 23:59

Padre Steve Reviews “The Wounded Giant: America’s Armed Forces in an Age of Austerity” by Michael O’Hanlon

The Wounded Giant: America’s Armed Forces in an Age of Austerity (An eSpecial from The Penguin Press)

• Format: Kindle Edition
• File Size: 1685 KB
• Publisher: The Penguin Press (November 15, 2011)

I was recently asked to do a review of Michael O’Hanlon’s new book The Wounded Giant: America’s Armed Forces in an Age of Austerity by the folks at TLC Book Tours http://tlcbooktours.com/ I am a historian and have served 30 years in the United States Army and United States Navy. As such I try to look at the nuances of Defense policy from a historical as well as current point of view.

O’Hanlon’s book deals with a topic that is receiving much attention and debate in the wake of the 2011 Congressional Budget impasse and deal and the recently release of the 2012 Defense Strategic Guidance and the FY 2013 Department of Defense Budget request. O’Halon’s book was published in the midst of the budget impasse in which could bind Congress into cuts well in the excess of the proposed $500 Billion in cuts proposed by the Pentagon and the Obama Administration. Cuts that could total over a trillion dollars over the next decade.

O’Hanlon deals with the economic necessity of Defense budget cuts laying out his thesis in the first two chapters dealing with the history of US military budgets since the Second World War with particular attention to the post-Cold War cuts under the Bush and Clinton administrations. In the following chapters O’Hanlon argues for what I would call a strategy of calculated risk in which Defense budgets and the necessary force cuts are balanced with the economic realities of our present time. He does not argue for massive cuts and disengagement from the world that some argue for, at the same time he realizes that defense cuts are necessary but cannot be too great.

He then goes on to discuss the potential reductions for ground forces as well as air and naval forces within the context of potential threats, especially those posed by Iran as well as the potential threat from China.  He argues for a leaner military but also acknowledges the danger of cutting too much.

His conclusions regarding force size and composition will be attacked by some and defended by others.  I think that his arguments regarding ground forces which support going back to the approximate numbers in the Army and Marine Corps in 2001 are reasonable presuming that there is a substantial reduction of US forces in Afghanistan and no other major ground campaigns arise.  The current personnel authorizations were only made reluctantly after years of war by the Bush administration whose first Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was no advocate of large ground forces.

O’Hanlon also discusses the possibility of savings through some base closure as well as reductions in some Air Force and Naval capabilities while attempting to minimize the effects of the reductions by crew rotations of forward based warships and more use of drone aircraft. He also discusses the US capabilities in intelligence and Homeland Security in the context of the overall defense structure.

One thing that I find lacking in O’Hanlon’s treatment of the defense strategy and budget is the lack of attention paid to the overall industrial base required to support the replacement or modernization of our current forces. He argues in favor of keeping production lines open but neglects the fact that most of the US defense industrial base is now the property of about five major corporations. At one time we had more shipyards  and other facilities that made the rapid production of war materials in times of national emergency which at the end of hostilities could revert to civilian industrial production. Much of that capability is now gone, outsourced to China and South Korea.

O’Hanlon has some good proposals and his numbers are not much different than those proposed by the Pentagon. His analysis does included what is called the DIME, the diplomatic, intelligence, military and economic aspects of national security strategy. He describes his vision for a military that despite cuts can still be mission capable. One may argue with his overall strategic thinking and his detailed proposals and many will. I have issues with some of the proposals.  Likewise anyone attempting to project a vision of a national security strategy and military force structure is always fraught with the ever present reality that no one can predict the future. However history tells us time and time again that we seldom are right and that threats yet unimagined can shred the most well thought out and detailed plans.  Making such decisions in an election year makes them all the more prone to being wrong because the political establishments of both parties

It is a good read for anyone seriously interested in national security strategy.It is not perfect by any means but worth the read.  It it is published in paperback as well as the Amazon Kindle edition.

The Author: Dr. Michael O’Hanlon is is director of research and a senior fellow in Foreign Policy at the Brookings Institution, where he specializes in U.S. defense strategy, the use of military force, homeland security and American foreign policy. He is a visiting lecturer at Princeton University and adjunct professor at John Hopkins University. O’Hanlon is the author of several books, most recently A Skeptic’s Case for Nuclear Disarmament. His writing has been published in The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, among other publications, and he has appeared on TV or radio almost 2,000 times since 9/11. Before joining Brookings, O’Hanlon worked as a national security analyst at the Congressional Budget Office and served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Congo/Kinshasa (the former Zaire). He received his bachelor, masters, and doctoral degrees from Princeton, where he studied public and international affairs.

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