News Reel

7/21/2009 6:01:35 PM

Army Specialist D.C.

I'm a U.S. Army veteran. I served in the military before and after 9/11; stationed both overseas and in the continental United States...

I'm a U.S. Army veteran. I served in the military before and after 9/11; stationed both overseas and in the continental United States. I'm not gay, I've never been affected by DADT and I can't be sure that I even knew any soldiers who were. But I can tell you, that for the most part, there wasn't a single member of my battery that I wouldn't have gone to war with. Things aren't always in a battery or company; some people you get along with, others you don't. But you do learn to trust each other and you can't trust someone in slices. You either do or you don't. And for politicians and higher ranked military leaders to say that having gay soldiers in a unit will destroy cohesion; that's just wrong. It implies that there is something not right about these people and that "regular" soldiers can't deal with it. We're expected to handle war, death, going for long periods of time without our loved ones, and yet respecting another person’s sexuality is somehow beyond us. I feel insulted, and I can't even imagine the amount of pain gay soldiers must experience when the people they're supposed to look to for guidance at best remain silent about DADT, and at worse promote it. When I finished Basic Training, my entire graduating class was presented with an Army Values tag. We were told to keep it attached to our dog tags and to keep it there. There were seven values; combined they made up what a United States soldier was supposed to be. Loyalty, Duty, Respect, Selfless service, Honor, Integrity, and Personal courage: put together, you end up with LDRSHIP. During my time in and since I've gotten out, I've often wondered which of those values have been sacrificed in recent years. In order to serve their country, gays are being forced to give up their integrity and respect, and given the recent behavior of our leaders in Congress and in the military I won't even go into what values they've tossed into the trash. DADT is harmful to the military and its members on many levels. There are a hundred good reasons to shut it down, and none to support it. D.C.