Deb Price: Don't Ask, Don't Tell weakens military

The Detroit News ^ | Monday, January 5, 2004 | Deb Price

[presidio9]

When President Bill Clinton moved to lift the discriminatory ban on gays in the military 11 years ago, veterans bombarded Capitol Hill with angry letters and phone calls. Clinton and the gay community got a quick, painful education about the clout of America

[LiberalSlayer99]

How does NOT knowing someone's sex life weaken the military? This is par for the course for Deb Price.

[Support Free Republic]

Without the support of Freeper donations, Free Republic would go belly-up, leaving guys like The French Gynecologist to be unopposed. And we can't have that!

[King Black Robe]

Does this person write on any other subjects?

[2banana]

Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell weakens military readiness, unit cohesion and troop morale by gnawing away at the essential bonds knit by an allegiance to truthfulness, honor, integrity and teamwork. The divisive law breeds deception, harassment and distrust — hardly the attributes of a well-oiled fighting machine. What’s more, our entire nation is less well-defended every time talented, trained members of the armed forces — linguists fluent in Arabic, for example — are booted out for being gay.

The author needs to put his 18 year old son in an infantry unit. 100 dudes sleeping in a WWII barracks with 2 showers and three toilets (no stalls) for all of them. Sharing everything including sleeping bags when in the field. I am sure homosexuality, homosexual relationships and homosexual anal and oral sex will "build" up a combat unit.

We have an army to do two things - kill people and destroy things. Any social experiments that take away from that mission weakens the army and puts us all in danger.

[Remole]

If my memory is correct, the author wrote weekly short essays on her personal web page (that was linked from Drudge); very perceptive and elegant stuff. She disappeared from view for a few years and it now looks (mirabile visu) that she has returned to the public square. She was also a frequent lurker/contributor to FR back in the day.

[presidio9]

The author needs to put his 18 year old son in an infantry unit.

Not much chance of that (having an 18 year-old son I mean).

[OldFriend]

I'd like to know how many active duty soldiers want to get a battlefield blood transfusion from a practicing homosexual?

[presidio9]

The divisive law breeds deception, harassment and distrust — hardly the attributes of a well-oiled fighting machine. What’s more, our entire nation is less well-defended every time talented, trained members of the armed forces — linguists fluent in Arabic, for example — are booted out for being gay.

I can't help but wonder how many "linguists fluent in Arabic" have been booted out for being gay. We need those linguists dammit! When will the insanity stop?

[presidio9]

Cleghorn plans to draw on both the 1 million gay vets

Since there are roughly 2mm gay men in this country, is Deb estimating that half of them fought in a war? Or is she including gay animal doctors in her statistic?

[tdadams]

I can't help but wonder how many "linguists fluent in Arabic" have been booted out for being gay.

Unless you think gay soldiers are more of a threat to this country than Arab terrorists, I'd say even one is too many.

[presidio9]

Unless you think gay soldiers are more of a threat to this country than Arab terrorists, I'd say even one is too many.

That's my point. It does not happen.

[Remole]

To KBR and all: deep apologies. The person I was thinking of was Deb Weiss. Very different from Deb Price. Gotta start that medication . . .

[tdadams]

Sorry, it does happen. There was quite a high profile case within the last year of about 6 Arab linguists being discharged under for being gay.

[TenaciousZ]

Sorry, it does happen. There was quite a high profile case within the last year of about 6 Arab linguists being discharged under for being gay.

Cunning linguists?

[Poseidon]

"Cleghorn plans to draw on both the 1 million gay vets...

Prove it! I wanna see 1,000,000 gay vets lined up in DC. Secondly, she may have a point...the DADT policy is not good. The better approach is just to ban homosexuals all together.

It's not just tranfusions that's a concern. Why don't we have co-ed berthing? Isn't allowing gays to serve and live in same sex berthing the same as co-ed berthing?

[presidio9]

Sorry, it does happen. There was quite a high profile case within the last year of about 6 Arab linguists being discharged under for being gay.

Sorry, but that's just not the way things went down. Two of the six were ousted after being caught having sex (it was termed a "cerfew violation"). The other four became disillusioned with military life and voluntarily notified the Army in writing that they were gay.

[tdadams]

So, now after saying it doesn't happen, you're trying to explain to me why these six discharged linguists don't count? Give me a break.

Bottom line... they're gone and not available as a valuable resource for the U.S. military. No other way to spin it.

[presidio9]

So, now after saying it doesn't happen, you're trying to explain to me why these six discharged linguists don't count? Give me a break.

No, I'm saying that the military is discharging individuals who choose to make an issue of their homosexuality. Deb is suggesting that the military is activly hunting down and removing homosexuals. This is not the case. I think that homosexuality provided a convenient out for people who had no real interest in being in the military in the first place. There was a newsweek article about the woman who was discharged because she repeatedly wrote letters to her local newspaper. My sense was that she joined the military to acquire a skill, but sought out when war became a possibility. She later took a higher paying job as a translator with an arab company in Dubai. Deb's oversimplification has led people like you to believe that the Army's policy is squandering valuable resources. My response is it tends to weed out people who don't belong in the Service in the first place.

[ShadowDancer]

Does this person write on any other subjects?

Nope, not one. What a sad, small world she must live in.