Bunk Mates

Martin Sutovec (Slovakia)

Because I could not stop for Death
He kindly stopped for me
--Emily Dickenson

Death is always the same,
but each man dies in his own way
--Carson McCullers

--I'll give you nothing more to eat.
--Then we'll die.
--I'll give you just enough to keep you from dying.
You'll be hungry all the time.
--Then we won't die
--Endgame, Samuel Beckett
________________

In a rather non-cohesive statement on unit cohesion and why the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy against openly gay service should remain intact, General James Amos -- new commandant of the U.S. Marine Crops said,

"There is nothing more intimate than young men and young women — and when you talk of infantry, we're talking our young men — laying out, sleeping alongside of one another and sharing death, fear and loss of brothers," he said. "I don't know what the effect of that will be on cohesion. I mean, that's what we're looking at. It's unit cohesion, it's combat effectiveness" (Marines' Leader: Keep Policy on Gays in Military.)

In Ranger's experience, death is never a shared experience; one is either dead or not, and no man can die your death for you. Everyone witnesses death as an individual, and one's confrontation with death does not change based upon one's sexual affiliation. Homosexual soldiers die and can witness death, too.

Pity the General does not abide by his word when he states his concerns: "This is not a social thing. This is combat effectiveness. That’s what the country pays its Marines to do."

If Gen. Amos was worried about Marines' combat effectiveness, he might remember Staff Sergeant Eric Fidelis Alva, the first Marine seriously wounded in the Iraq occupation; SSG Alva is gay.

Alva lost a leg to an IED. When asked by interviewer Paula Zahn if he had ever been attracted to a soldier in the field, Alva said, "I never took my personal life to work." Exactly, as it should be for hetero Marines and soldiers, too.

Alva has also said, "I come from a family of servicemen. My dad, Fidelis, is a Vietnam vet. My grandfather, also named Fidelis, was a World War II and Korean War veteran. I was named after them. My middle name is Fidelis. Fidelis means faithful."

Faithful. It is the least the Commandant can be to his fellow Marines.

Semper Fi.

Queer as Folk

Michael Jackson got married.
There are shows like “I Want to Marry a Millionaire.”
How sacred can it be?
--David Sedaris on gay marriage

Hans Moleman: Lesbian?!
This isn't my army reunion
Gay man in army clothes:
You're coming home with me
Hans Moleman: Yes, Colonel
--The Simpsons

[I]f God had thought homosexuality is a sin,
he would not have created gay people
--Howard Dean
_________________

Word, Howard. Too bad your masculine yawp has relegated you to the dustbin of history. There is simply no room for unrepentant male exuberance in politics today, as our president, the King of Cool, has demonstrated.

Ranger has some thoughts on the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" (DADT) policy. Since he entered active duty in 1968, it has been evident to him that bull diker types inhabit the U.S. Army in prodigious numbers and a freely accepted manner. Many of these women compete avidly with the men, and exercise so strenuously that they cease to have menstrual cycles. They are buff, hard and masculine.

These women do not threaten the male command structure and are therefore accepted. In fact, they reinforce the manly nature of the institution in their desire to compete on a man's playing field

At Ft. McClellan in the 1980's there was a Major General called "Mother Mary". She lived openly with a female Lieutenant Colonel an all knew her homosexual orientation, yet she was a Post Commander. Fellow writer FDChief speaks of his service in Panama, which was known as "Clam City" for its rampant lesbian activity among the ranks.

Compare this with the shelving of Air Force gayviator LTC Victor Fehrenbach. A decorated pilot, he will be discharged after 18 years of meritorious service because someone outed him as a gay man. Though Major Margaret Witt is fighting her discharge at the same time, the number of gay men discharged under DADT far exceeds the number of discharged lesbians. Why?

Gay men threaten to disrupt the masculine military ethos of the military. As friend Sheerahkahn wrote today: "thus the issue for the heterosexual men is that they feel like women around homosexual men." Het men feel feminized and thus vulnerable around gay men. Word, Sheerahkahn.

Those who say overturning DADT would disrupt discipline due to proximity in close quarters do not have a strong argument. In peacetime, we no longer have squad bay living; there are no gang showers or toilets.Officers have always lived in private or semi-private quarters.

Of course, neither applies in combat situations, but in Iraq and Afghanistan many troops live in modern billets. The fear of crazed homosexual overtures in the bunkers simply doesn't hold water.

That President Obama will be commemorating the Stonewall Riots Monday at the White House seems the height of hypocrisy to us. (The 1969 Stonewall Riots occurred in New York City when patrons of a city gay bar fought back against police brutality and harassment.) Obama could, with the flourish of a pen, roll back Clinton's DADT.

Whether viewed from a moral, military, legal or financial perspective, DADT makes no sense.