Thanks for your work on this. As I have posted before, I took the survey, and it was obviously slanted to generate a benign response. Only one area for text entry, and I gave them an earfull, although I imagine I’ll be relegated to a certain “demographic.”
Also, as I’ve mentioned before, the survey was coded with a specific number attached to my name, so I didn’t have high confidence that it was truly confidential. So now I hear that there was only a 28% response, and Mullen and Gates are claiming that a majority of the military is for the repeal of DADT? These are out and out lies! Where is the press on this fraud?
I watched some of the briefing on CSPAN. Adm Mullen is claiming he has battle experience working alongside gay personnel, and he “knows in his soul” the repeal is the right thing to do. Whatever happened to logic and knowing something in your brain, especially at his level?
Also, there were a lot of questions regarding living quarters, showers, etc, but not much in the way of concrete answers. My favorite moment was when the DoD lawyer on the panel intimated that gay soldiers would have the right to designate their chosen partners, who would receive full military spousal benefits. How the hell would that work, without the legal binding of a legal marriage ceremony? Would everyone have the right to have a designated partner who would recieve health benefits, military housing, travel benefits overseas, etc? How would those costs affect operations? Obviously this is not a well thought out and planned transformation, just a weak willed go-along-to-get-along response by political officers who don’t really give a damn about the military. Whatever happened to RESIGNING if you profoundly disagree with a decision? Maybe if all the senior folks who really didn’t believe in this change resigned together something good would come of it. Most of them can retire with full benefits anyway.
Anyway, we’ve all been told that if we don’t like it, too bad, we can find another job. So much for appreciation for the small segment of our society which has actually sacrificed during this long period of war while life went along as usual for everyone else.
None of the quotes sounds supportive, although the “interpretation” by the report writers is all editorial opinion. When I have all of the report read thoroughly I'll post a critique of the report here and ping you.
Thank you for your service again. I didn't know about the number either.
If you are still interested in the topic, I wrote a long piece on it:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2638468/posts