Easy for you to say, since you’ve obviously never seen “Towel-Snapping & You: The Hidden Casualties of Depravity-Tolerant Combat.”

Because no Marines have been injured in any war. Ever. But allowing gays to openly serve will ruin that remarkable record.

Or. He doesn’t mind Marines with no arms or eyes or faces, but Marines with no legs freak him out.

Or. He doesn’t want to visit Bethesda Naval without his own legs.

OR

HE’S AN ASSHAT.

Way to make the Marines look like a bunch of wusses who are lead by an incoherent douche an run around squealing “Eewww! Gross!”

This general has issues.

If you drew a Venn diagram illustrating A) people who make silly arguments like this against integrating the military, and B) people who are just googly-eyed over the legendary toughness and effectiveness of the Israeli military, the overlap would be around 100%. And yet gays serve openly in the Israeli military, which never seems to occur to these ass berets.

Maybe he means the gay marine will be distracted by the hot sweaty hunk next to him, and won’t be able to do his muslim shooting job.

i see his point sexual oreintation refers to more than sexual behavior. it includes feelings as well as identity.it is used to describe someones romantic,emotional or sexual attraction.being in certain situations may pose as a problem to and effect the overall capability to perform with out detering your attention from the task at hand for instance a guy driving down the street sees a hot girl jogging and it draws his eyes away from the road causing him to get into an accident the same would pertain in most other situations if im in battle i want the guy behind me watching my back not my backside.this issue is signifigant to me seeing as im enlisted in the marines. i am not biased but being a heterosexual going into basic i want to know that in combat i have the most compatant people with the least distractions to avoid getting me killed

@ j.j.r.laureano—So should hot chicks be banned from jogging next to public streets?

Better trolls please!

the most compatant people

I worry more about the gay guy who’s behind you in any battle that involves reading street signs or warning labels.

j.j.r.laureano, you’re the first one I’ve seen that actually makes sense about this.

although I wasn’t a Marine, I did cross train with the Marine Corps and operated with them in some missions.

Frankly, the discussion of combat effectiveness is the least of the problems. Naturally, combat is the civilian sector’s biggest payoff in terms of tax dollars spent, and so the brass will focus on that in Congressional hearings.

However, the thing that is missed by that presentation is that fact that the military is a society.

From the point of view of the civilian world, the closest thing I can think of with a similarity to military society is prison. Naturally, some would say the police force, but a cop checks out at the end of his shift and is surrounded by civilians and civilian society until it’s time to go to work.

Military is a highly structured society with rigid demarcations of status, dominance, power, and can easily be corrupted by favoritism, blackmail, dislikes, and personal animosity. And, to be candid, it’s tough. It is not easy to survive, and you have to be tough in order to face the challenges it presents—physical, social, teleological(I mean, ultimately what you are training for is to face enemies and kill them).

So I’m going to say in a completely ideal situation, a perfectly harmonious relationship between gays and straights could exist in the military. Obviously, some missions would more easily accommodate gays than other missions. However, the idea that a perfect integration can be achieved simply because some groups would prefer it to be that way is a fantasy.

From the point of view of the civilian world, the closest thing I can think of with a similarity to military society is prison.

MUCH better. Take notes j.j.r.l.

However, the idea that a perfect integration can be achieved simply because some groups would prefer it to be that way is a fantasy.

Amherst, perfect integration between different groups of people is rarely, if ever, achieved anywhere in society.  But segregation/discrimination is not the answer.  It’s only by working together and getting to understand each other better that we can hope to at least approximate perfect integration.  Because to go the other way continues to create hate, divisiveness and intolerance.

@j.j.r.laureano - your argument is just as ludicrous as General Amos’.  On the one hand the Marines are a highly skilled professional and dedicated force.  On the other they’re all a bunch of squealy children saying “Mom - he’s looking at my BUTT!!  Skreeeee!!”  Which way do you want to have it?

Which way do you want to have it?

Must. Exhibit. Class. And. Exercise. Restraint. ;-)

marindenver,
we have not had a draft in the US for quite a while. As a consequence a huge number of young men are not forced to go through the military experience. Because of this there is many voices speak without any experience.

The goals you mention in your post are of no interest to me as they pertain to military experience. Being involved in the military and experiencing combat are tough enough. The last thing on earth I want to do is saddle my comrade in arms with yet another social hypothesis generated primarily from academia.

Maybe if gays are integrated into the military it will provide a basis of equality that would provide justification for reinstatement of the draft. I hope you are young enough to go and I can find out what you think of it. If you live.

Did you guys ever get used to Blacks being in the military? Just wondering. As social experiments go, that was probably a biggee.

The last thing on earth I want to do is saddle my comrade in arms with yet another social hypothesis generated primarily from academia.

Can’t we give this guy some sort of prize? I haven’t seen this level of craftsmanship since DougJ settled down and became a respectable blogger.

The last paragraph was a bit over the top though, so I can only give this one a B.

“Did you guys ever get used to Blacks being in the military? Just wondering. As social experiments go, that was probably a biggee.”  —StrangeAppar8us

Strange, that’s a good question. (Hey, I’m not that old!) When I was in, of course the services had all been completely racially integrated.

Would I say that the racial integration was a success?  Depends.

In terms of carrying out the mission I would say success.

In terms of social wear and tear I would say a qualified maybe.

I think a lot of improvement has occurred since I was in. And of course having an all-volunteer military helps a great deal.

When I was in, there was a lot of racial tension. Blacks ate with blacks, and whites ate with whites. If a white guy and a black guy got into a fight, every black guy in the room would pile on the white guy. Animosities were sometimes taken into town and settled in some way off of official military territory.

About 10 years ago I was thinking about some of these matters. White supremacist groups were doing a lot of recruiting from the Marine Corps. Bloods and Crips were intentionally sending their people into the services to acquire experience with arms and tactics. Los Zetas are essentially a drug cartel trained by American special forces. (They were the military wing of the Gulf Cartel but went independent and now have a criminal enterprise of their own.)

In my experience, civilians either have idealist Tom Clancy fantasies about the military, or they see it as a vehicle for their ideas of social progress.

In real life, everything is a lot weirder than that. One guy in my outfit was a former Hell’s Angel. Another was closely connected to a New York organized crime family. (He ran an illegal gaming concession and would come back from overseas and have enough money to buy a couple of new cars.)

I guess I’m going to have to give a qualified success to racial integration in the service. People bring their social mores with them into the service, and a lot depends on the society that they come from and that they represent and want to promote.

Into this comes some hapless middle class black or white guy who for one reason or another has decided to join the military. If he’s got the right stuff and he winds up in the right place, he might do OK. If not, and he gets caught in the culture clash between high-testosterone groups of antagonists, good luck to him.

My supervisor served four tours of combat duty in two different Iraq wars. Twenty-four months under fire. We talked about this specifically this Summer, and he said, “if he can handle a gun and cover me under fire, what do I care if the guy’s gay?”

In a live-fire situation, nobody’s going to be admiring anybody’s ass. If you’re going to be basing your argument on what happens in barracks, the military code of conduct applies to everybody anyway. There are already gays in every branch, and the demoralizing effects of their being driven out on a BS pretext should also be given a little weight. God knows it pissed my supervisor off.

Ps: Blackmail?

I hope you are young enough to go and I can find out what you think of it. If you live.

LOL, Amherst.  As a 61 year old Mom I’m not too worried about getting drafted.  But I do worry about the way my sons would be treated if they were.  I also don’t think you were on active duty all that long ago.  My niece was in the military for several years and managed to avoid culture clashes between high testosterone groups of antagonists without a whole lot of effort.  I think the troops can absorb gay/lesbian troops as they have, like it or not, absorbed non-white troops (despite your prevarications on the subject) and it’s time to just get it done.

This is not whether there should be gays in the military. There ARE gays in the military. This is about whether they should be accorded the benefits and honor due them as soldiers and citizens, or whether the Armed Forces should indulge the fears of some of its troops to the detriment of others.

The threat that there’d be such an exodus that we’d need toreinstitute the draft is easy enough to make, but seems pretty empty. Back to Stateside, unemployment and the heck with defending the country!

But if we are to decide discipline by popular vote, and deny gay citizens their rights, perhaps we can do something to compensate the Gheys, like a partial citizen tax rebate.

As usual Mrs. P. you are exactly on target.

amherst and j.j.r.laureano - you two don’t have a clue about gays or combat.  My dad was in WWII, Korea, and Vietnam, and he wasn’t askeerd of a gay soldier putting the moves on him in a fox hole.  He was too busy making sure he didn’t get his ass blown off. Nobody is getting hard while their life could be on the line. But further to the point, a rebuttal from a real live USMC Staff Sgt. that DID get his leg blown off -http://joemygod.blogspot.com/2010/12/homoquotable-usmc-staf f-sgt-eric-alva.html