Military Recruits Felons While Discharging Gays
The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee today released data showing a dramatic rise in the number of moral waivers issued to recruits joining the Army and Marine Corps. The number of waivers granted to recruits convicted of manslaughter, rape, kidnapping and making terrorist threats, doubled between 2006 and 2007. During that same time, the Pentagon continued discharging service members under the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” law banning lesbian, gay and bisexual personnel from serving openly in the military.
This data shines a bright light on the outrageousness and absurdity of "Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell." On the one hand, the Pentagon is discharging highly-qualified, honest, law-abiding men and women because they are gay, while on the other hand granting waivers to rapists, killers, kidnappers and terrorists. Repealing "Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell" will reduce the need to grant felony waivers.
Keeping "Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell" on the books hardly helps the military’s personnel crisis. In fact, if Congress got rid of the law there would a need for fewer waivers. Click here to learn more.
Labels: recruiting, waivers
04-21-08
3 Comments
Comments for this entry are closed.North Dallas Thirty on December 31, 1969 at 02.00 pm
Problem is, it DOES go into the specifics of several of the Marine cases, just to use examples.<BR><BR>The “killer”? Felony DUI resulting in involuntary manslaughter.<BR><BR>The “terrorist bomber”? The person built a bomb using gunpowder in a soda can and blew up a mailbox.<BR><BR>The “rapist”?<BR><BR>(C5): Applicant was 13 yrs old and admitted to touching 13 yrd old classmate on chest and buttocks while both were fully clothed. Applicant convicted of Sexual Abuse. Offense occrred 5 years prior to waiver submission.<BR><BR>Add to that the fact that the waiver process is hardly guaranteed, and in fact requires an extensive amount of review and documentation, including character evaluations from coaches, teachers, probation officers, and others, and this is hardly the fact of the armed forces allowing hardened and evil criminals to serve. If anything, it’s a great example of how the armed forces can participate in and provide opportunities as a part of peoples’ rehabilitation and return to society for mistakes. As a nice punctuation point, waivered soldiers do better by several measures than non-waivered.<BR><BR>Unless SLDN wants to argue that all felons, or even those convicted of minor misdemeanors, are unfit for military service, I fail to see why this argument is being made. It seems rather petty for a group that supposedly opposes discrimination in the military to argue that another group should be arbitrarily discriminated against.
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Andre Boulanger on December 31, 1969 at 02.00 pm
Of course.<BR>And with the new recruits it doesn’t appear that things will get any better.<BR>So much said for the personal values of our military.
NaturallyGay on December 31, 1969 at 02.00 pm
I would encourage people to read the PDF of the offenses for themselves (follow the released data link). Although it doesn’t go into the specifics of each case, it’s still unbelievable some of the thing that they let slide.