‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ military discharges on the rise

[racaulk]

The U.S. armed forces discharged 742 gay service members last year, an average of about two per day, according to new data from the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network.

SLDN spokesperson Steve Ralls said the tally, confirmed by the Pentagon and the Department of Defense, represents a loss of 386 from the Army, 88 from the Air Force, 177 Navy personnel, 75 Marines and 16 from the Coast Guard.

Those numbers are up 11 percent from 2004, when 668 personnel were discharged. Since the military began discharging gays in 1994 under the policy, more than 11,000 men and women have been removed from the military.

The military does not generally reveal the circumstances leading to the discharges, Ralls said, but the losses are believed to include gay service members who out themselves as well as straight service members who pretend to be gay to avoid serving in the Middle East.

<---snip--->


Link: http://www.sovo.com/2006/6-9/news/national/booted.cfm

I know this is old news, but this is another article discussing how our troops are "supported" in the current environment under DADT. That law needs to be repealed...today!

[msongs]

1. let the heterosexuals do their own dirty work I say .

not sure second class citizens should put it on the line for a nation that disrespects and brutalizes them. African Americans had the same situation in world war two, fighting and dying for the USA then being lynched when they came home victorious. The good thing for the AA's was that so many of them got out of their narrow home environments and saw the real world and found that there were actually places they were welcome and treated with respect, even places populated by....gasp....white people. Then the AA's went home and refused to put up with the old jim crow ways. This had a lot to do with the rise of the civil rights era.

“Karl Rove and New Hampshire GOP: Where criminals congregate.”

Msongs
www.msongs.com
batik & digital art

[progressivegunowner]

4. I agree

I personally think all homosexuals in the military should speak up now, so that they can get sent home and not have to worry about dying for Bush's personal interests in some god-forsaken desert. After all, this country isn't treating them well enough to justify them dying for it in any war, let alone an illegal war launched without a just cause.

[progressivegunowner]

5. oops

double post deleted. Why is my computer doing this to me?

[cboy4]

2. So what? It's not like we're currently fighting two wars half way across

the world, and a war on terror in this country and need extra soldiers.

Who says, except for everyone, that our National Guard is stretched so thin, we can't respond adequately to multiple national disasters here at home, and that we can't adequately protect our borders?

And who can forget about the need for Arabic and Farsi translators but yet the military is firing these people just because they're gay.

SAN FRANCISCO -- Nine United States Army linguists, including six trained to speak Arabic, have been dismissed from the military because they are gay.
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/1115-03.htm

What a shame.

No, what a crime.

[swimmernsecretsea]

3. Kind of a dream anti-war protest

Everyone comes out at once. Not gonna happen, I know. But it'd certainly grind things to a halt.

[gaspee]

6. Use their own rules

Use their own rules against them. Anyone in the military who doesn't want to be there, stop-lossed or for whatever reason, immediately get a boyfriend/girlfriend and get "caught" making out by someone high enough up the food chain that you get kicked out. Simple, non?

Of course, I'm on the dyke side of Bi, so I think it's a great plan. And if you can't mack on someone of the same sex to get out of a war you are morally opposed to, then just how morally opposed can you be?**

(By dyke side of Bi, I'm a masculine woman who prefers women but has dated men and would again if I ever find myself single again. Only femme men though.)

**Tongue firmly in cheek in most of this post

[Meeker Morgan]

7. My baleful prediction:

If recruitments fall off enough to "need" a draft, the military will suddenly decide that gay is OK.