Courage will Persevere
While it was great to hear the President’s vow in his State of the Union address to end “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” this year, we know he can’t do it without Congress. And there are some pretty powerful members who will try to stop him. One of them is Rep. Ike Skelton, the House Armed Services Committee Chairman.
So when I heard that Ike was going to speak at a Rotary Club meeting in Kansas City Thursday, I jumped at the chance to join several members of the City Council and Jackson County Legislature for a press conference at the site where the Congressman was speaking. The bitter cold didn’t matter—this is too important to let that stand in our way. In fact, repealing DADT is too important to let a powerful chairman stand in the way.
Three local TV stations, a couple of newspapers, and one talk radio station were at our press conference. A group of concerned, supportive citizens came out into the frigid cold to hold signs asking Ike to hold hearings on repealing the ban. I introduced myself as a member of the Class of 1989, United States Air Force Academy, and explained why the repeal of DADT is so important to me.
While in medical school, I became a victim of the oft-ignored “Don’t Pursue” portion of the policy. After being stalked and threatened to be outed, I was forced to out myself in an attempt to keep my sanity and protect my honorable service record. If it wasn’t for SLDN and countless hours of work on my behalf by Stacey Sobel and Kathi Wescott, I’m not sure I could have survived the two-plus year process of being investigated prior to being discharged.
I was discharged from the Air Force on September 10, 2001. It was ironic that just a day before it became clear our military was going to need the best and brightest to defend our freedom, I was kicked out. I am a doctor; I have valuable skills to offer my country. But simply because I am gay, my government said I’m not fit to serve.
According to the Kansas City Star, Skelton still opposes repeal—not a big surprise. But, now he knows, and the media and our other elected officials in Washington now know we won’t sit idly by while some, who stand in the way of doing what’s right, try to keep honorable men and women from serving our country with integrity and dignity.
01-29-10 By Beth Schissel, USAFA graduate |
9 Comments
Comments for this entry are closed.Ranger in Afghanistan on February 05, 2010 at 04.16 am
I think it is possible that I may be an idealist as some of Phillip’s narrative suggests. The reason I am still in the military is because I really do believe in all those values that we say we have—integrity, honor, respect. Will this change be difficult? Yes. Will this take time and patience? Yes. Is this change the right thing to do? Absolutely. As a leader of soldiers, I have found that when you really lead the unit by taking care of every soldier, you can do amazing things. We need to expect the highest values of our soldiers and let the existing regulations against discrimination, harassment, etc. work by enforcing them appropriately. Both officers and NCOs have an obligation to do this. In all the issues you mentioned, these should be dealt with the command like any other disciplinary issue. If you feel you are being harassed, then you have an obligation to tell that person and if it continues, then raise the issue higher. This system is already out there—use it. I think the apparent deliberately planned process will make this road least disruptive to the force—not that it will be smooth necessarily. But that’s OK. All we can do is the best we can. So I’m OK with maybe being an idealist. If we do not have the highest expectations for our profession, then we will never attain them.
Phillip, sometimes doing the right thing is hard, but it is still the right thing to do.
Tom, thanks for putting this in perspective.
Tom Carpenter in Los Angeles on February 04, 2010 at 05.12 pm
Phillip: Thank you for your very thoughtful post. You raise some interesting points. I could respond to each one but I think all I really have to say is that this is a matter of individual and institutional integrity. It is also a matter of leadership and if Ranger in Afghanistan is correct, I am sorely disappointed in our Commandant. Finally the policy shouldn’t be DADT it should be “Don’t Misbehave.” And that applies to all Marines. Thank you for your service. Semper Fi.
Shelly on February 04, 2010 at 11.27 am
Phillip I totally agree with you. I was in the Navy and we had girls in our berthing when we were out to sea that would talk about getting some and then look at us and they would stand in the bathroom while we were showering and watch us get out. Men and women can’t shower together so why should the gay men shower with the straight men and gay women shower with straight women. I’m not saying that I’m all that and I think she just wanted me or something like that no what I’m saying is that it is very uncomfortable for a person being straight and having to stand naked to a gay person and having those thoughts going through your head like are they looking at me, are they going to touch me and so on and so forth. It is just really uncomfortable. It would be like a gay man standing naked next to a women. Wouldn’t that be uncomfortable? I know it was uncomfortable for us when we did know somebody was gay.
phillip in deleted on February 04, 2010 at 02.29 am
First of all enlisted personel in the mlitary have to earn respect, that is why we have “non” comissioned officers and warant officers. It is a completely different world from comissioned officers where a 20 year old college grad is saluted by a 45 year old seargent major. Officers can’t fraternise with enlisted, staff nco with nco, nco with non rate and for very good reason. The military is the dictatorship that defends our democracy and without it we would have anarchy. Do you even understand the logistical nightmare this integration would be? Officers rarely do.They can’t even provide our troops with adequate gear. For example the way that artillery units work is at levels, regimental is logistics and do not go into battle while batterys are victor coded (they go in to battle). 15 batterys can be under one regiment. When I was in they decided to take all of the field cooks from their batterys and transfer them to the regimental level. At the time it seemed like a good idea. When a battery needed cooks to go to the field they were assigned. Little did we know that this decison caused marine logistics headquarters to close hundreds of victor coded billets throughout the maine corps. 9 months later when we needed new cooks to replace ones that seperated we recieved tons of female cooks that were recuited to fill this quota which caused quite an emergency. The corps had to activate reservists taking them away from their families and jobs for long eough to recruit and train replacements. There was nowhere for these female cooks to serve so they had to be re-trained for other billets or released for breach of contract with full pay. It took over a year to fix and negatively affected hundreds of enlisted and civilians. Do you think the officers responsible suffered for this mistake?
The Marine corps does not teach discrimination. Our sevice members come from all walks of life and were civilians for a minimum of 17 years before they entered service and they bring this diversity with them. There are far more gay service members who do fine than don’t. The current policy is designed that way and to prevent witch hunts. Besides if the military wants you out they will find a way to get you out, The UCMJ is harder to abide by than the bible. Most that have been affected get caught while engaging in sexual activities or sexually harassing another service member while on duty. Alot are caught in boot camp. How would you like to wake upin the middle of the night to people having sex in the bunk next to you and the next morning have to shower and use the toilet with them? It happened twice in my wifes unit, would you not feel objectified and violated like she did? is she not a victom of sexuall harassment? To do things properly we would not only have to seperate by gender but also sexual orientation and then what about those who have gender identity issues, where do you assign them? If a gay servicemember has the right to express their sexuality at the cost of others rights against sexual harassment (look up the UCMJ definiton) then shouldn’t a male that thinks he should have been born a female have the right to be put in female boot camp, have long hair, wear makup and female dress uniforms? If they can have bumper stickers and t-shirts that say “GAY PRIDE” than shouldnt I be able to have ones that say ” I LIKE BOOBIES”.You simply can’t turn this into a Lincoln Douglass utopian style debate full of ought to and should be. This is about policy, money, facilities, logistics, practicle application and has to be done with everyones best intrest in mind. If this is so simple than explain to me how it would be done without completely restructuring an entity that is larger than most countries.
and to respond to rich I am no longer in the service. I am a theatre technician and member of the I.A.T.S.E I work, live, and party, with the largest collection of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and hermaphrodites than you will find anywhere else and I love it. It is an enviroment that has few taboos concerning culture. I do not make a habit of categorizing them or making the “most of my friends are black” claim but in this situation I felt it was appropriate to do so. I made the choice to live this life when they were born that way. I still have my macho manly friends too. I am smart enough to know that while it is perfectly normal for someone to be born different and not be able to change it is also perfectly normal for someone to be uncomfortable around those who are different. because they are emotions and do not fall into the catagory of things that can be reasoned with for many people. get mad about it all you want. so please understand that this is not about me understanding their side of the issue it is because I give both sides equall validity that I understand how complicated an issue this is.
Ranger in Afghanistan in Afghanistan on February 02, 2010 at 11.02 am
Phillip, everyone in uniform should be required to show respect to everyone else. If we cannot do this, then a certain amount of indiscipline already exists. By maintaining ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’, have institutionalized discrimination… teaching our young soldiers/marines to belittle those who have been deemed not worthy of being recogized as contributors to the force. Your argument suggests that it is more important to maintain this perceived privacy than to expect servicemembers to treat eachother respectfully. I hope we have enough professional officers and NCOs out there to lead this effort professionally. If not, we are seriously lacking in leadership at all levels.
Speaking of… GEN Conway’s extreme open opposition to the President isn’t a good start from a leadership perspective. The rest of us give our opinion behind closed doors and then move out smartly. Open opposition like this is considered unprofessional in my officer upbringing. When will he start moving out and facilitating this process? Will the Marines have more problems with integration because their leadership shows they will to not follow?
Rich on February 02, 2010 at 09.12 am
@phillip: My primary care physician in the military is a woman. I am a man. In fact, on the list of available primary care physicians, there were no men available. Should I avoid going to the doctor because it is inevitable that my doctor will be making sexual advances at me? I mean, how can she possibly not want to have sex with me when I’m naked on the examining table?
Sexual orientation does not equal sexual misconduct. Your characterization of gay and lesbians as human beings who are entirely focused on sexual activities without any regard to decency, privacy, or standards of conduct is regrettable. I encourage you to get to know some gay and lesbians in the community as friends. You are misinformed.
phillip on February 02, 2010 at 02.09 am
I am a Marine Corps veteran 1999-2003 and would like to share my experience in this matter. I served in 2/10 golf battery which is a field artillery unit. While on a field operation we recieved a navy corpsman that was obviously gay. He was not discriminated against but having him as a corpsman caused many problems. In the field you go many days without showers which commonly causes rashes and ingrown hairs in private areas. We would also have the occasional std. During this field operation my men were forced to either go without treatment or subject themselves to the gay corpsman. Part of the way that we achieve unit cohesion is for the men to get use to seeing each other naked. most showering and toilet facilites are open with no privacy. They do this to prepare you for the conditions on the battlefied. We regularly checked eachother for ticks in areas you can’t check yourself for example. These reasons are why we don’t victor code women. The military can’t provide the personal privacy between genders that is morally required in our society. If we are made to accept their sexual preference then they should be made to accept our right to not be sexually
objectified by them. This opens up a whole new chapter to military sexual harrasment. In the military men get seperate quarters, bathroom facilities corpsmen and doctors from women. In order to fullfil moral obligations to straight men and women there can be no other solution than to do the same for homosexual men and women. in order for this to work
Tom Carpenter in Los Angeles on January 30, 2010 at 12.59 pm
Keep pressing on, Beth. This is exactly what we need to be doing. Hold his feet to the fire as well as all those who oppose what is best for our country. You give voice to those who serve in silence. Bravo Zulu! from this former Marine.
Michael @ LeonardMatlovich.com on January 29, 2010 at 07.40 pm
Brava for you, Beth! Thank you for your service and the witnessing, even in the face of bitter cold outside the Rotary Club and inside Cong Skelton, by you and others to Truth.
“It’s our love we’re fighting for!”
http://www.leonardmatlovich.com/images/Love_Worth_Fighting_For3.mp3