I finished my 6 year enlistment in the Navy a l-o-n-g time ago (30+ years), and there were lots of gay and lesbian people in the military back then. The fact is, there have always been gay people in the military.
There is a degree of homophobia in the military, but overall, most people I served with didn't care about anyone else's sexuality as long as they did their job.
It's odd, but I think that integrating women more into the military in the past few decades, in more and more non-traditional roles, helped the military to accept gay men more as well, since there are lots of lesbian women that join the military (well, at least the Navy from what I could tell).
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?In another five years,? Thomas G. Kelley (Medal of Honor recipient in the Vietnam War) was saying, ?I doubt this will be an issue. Remember, in 1948, people blasted Harry Truman for integrating the military. They said mixing blacks and whites could never work.
As it turned out, the military was ahead of the rest of society on that issue. On this issue, the military is years behind.?
Kelley, who is secretary of the Massachusetts Department of Veteran?s Services, a naval officer and a Medal of Honor recipient in Vietnam, had followed coverage of testimony on the ?Don?t ask, don?t tell? policy last week before the Senate Armed Services Committee.
?No matter how I look at the issue,? Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the committee, ?I cannot escape being troubled by the fact that we have in place a policy which forces young men and women to lie about who they are in order to defend their fellow citizens. . . . Allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly would be the right thing to do.?
Shortly after Mike Mullen spoke his mind, Kelley sent his friend an e-mail congratulating him for articulating the view Kelley has held for more than 20 years.
?Admiral Mullen was honest enough to say that he?d served with homosexuals since 1968,? Kelley said. ?It was the same for me, when I was commanding a ship more than 25 years ago. There was no secret about who was gay . . . and it didn?t matter. What mattered was that they were good sailors, trustworthy and reliable people you could depend upon.?
Like so many others, Kelley believes the resistance to scuttling ?Don?t ask, don?t tell? falls largely along generational lines. The older the soldier, the harder to let go of outdated stereotypes and caricatures that don?t apply.
?You hear this nonsense about gays threatening unit cohesion,? Kelley said. ?The real threat to that kind of cohesion, that sense of family, is when people are forced to acknowledge a lie. You have to be able to trust the soldier precisely for who he or she may be. That?s the only way cohesion takes place. It?s called integrity.?
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