Unfriendly Fire

by Dr. Nathaniel Frank

  But men and women alike suffered these consequences, victims of a unique and unprecedented statute that targeted a particular minority group for unequal treatment and then wrote into law that members of that group—and that group alone—would be barred from speaking up to fight for their own rights and needs. “I feel unable to defend myself from these attacks without raising even more suspicion,” wrote a nine-year career officer, after his master chief began to verbally harass him with vulgar insinuations of his homosexuality. His master chief suggested the sailor might be turned on by seeing his penile implant. Similarly, by pointing to the word “homosexual” in a navy document, he gestured to the sailor as a way of calling him gay without saying the words. The behavior continued unabated. Fully aware of what happened to his gay and lesbian peers when they complained of anti-gay harassment, the sailor concluded he could have no control over his career and his life if something didn’t change. He wrote a letter to his commander stating the truth, saying, “The only means I see” to “avoid becoming a victim of harassment is by making this disclosure to you.”34

  Some view the persistence of anti-gay harassment in the military as evidence that the institution is too intolerant of homosexuality for the ban to end. They view calls for stronger leadership as naïve, unrealistic, or unfair to commanders, who, they say, are busy with other, more pressing leadership tasks. It is true that much of American military culture remains cool to gays and lesbians, although this is changing dramatically. But whatever the attitudes add up to on the ground, the policy is not helping, and is actually inviting anti-gay abuse. It does so in two ways. It sends a strong, clear message that homosexuals are, as the law puts it, “an unacceptable risk to the armed forces.” In other words, U.S. law tells every last member of the military that gays and lesbians—an undeniable presence in all parts of the military—are trouble. And by keeping heterosexuals in the dark about their gay and lesbian coworkers, the policy denies them the opportunity to challenge their own stereotypes; familiarity can and does breed tolerance.

  Plenty of research shows that when institutions make it official policy to denigrate the contributions of a particular subgroup, members develop or maintain negative attitudes toward that group, which are often expressed through disrespectful and destructive behavior. A perfect example of this occurred in 1996, when a Marine Corps major expressed an apparently popular sentiment at a conference at the elite Naval War College. “I can’t imagine a more basic violation of the natural law than homosexuality,” he said. “They are not worthy of our trust. It’s intolerable.” The room broke out in applause.35

  Melissa Sheridan Embser-Herbert, a sociologist and retired U.S. Army captain, has studied the link between the rules of an institution and the behavior of its members. Embser-Herbert says that the gay ban casts such an air of suspicion and uncertainty over everyone’s sexuality that it encourages “hypermasculinity” as a way of proving one is not gay. By mandating that all soldiers appear as straight, the policy requires both gays and straights to “go out of their way to be read as heterosexual,” which often entails making or engaging in homophobic or sexist comments and behaviors.36

  These findings were borne out by service members’ experiences serving in the Middle East wars. “I almost had to create some sort of macho thing,” said an infantryman who fought in Iraq. “That’s how I’m perceived now in my unit, that I’m a player and that I get women all the time and have these sex parties. Little do they know . . .” One petty officer first class in the navy revealed how the gay ban’s forced performance of heterosexuality results in antisocial and disruptive behavior. “On a daily basis, I’m an asshole,” he said. In order to avoid giving the impression that he was a stereotypical gay man, he acted out in ways that he thought projected heterosexuality, which, in his case, meant being “an asshole.” He learned that several members of his unit thought he was gay “because I have nice white straight teeth and I trim my eyebrows and comb my hair and I wear gold.” He said the implication was that “if I come to work with bad breath and I’m messy, then I’d be straight.” He also said he thought his peers suspected his homosexuality due to his silence on certain occasions, such as “when I don’t take part in conversations about demoralizing women.”37 His experience is also a reminder that it is impossible in many cases to successfully conceal one’s homosexuality.

  By discouraging people from coming out, the policy prevents what would be the single most important ingredient to generating tolerance of gays and lesbians: knowing someone who is gay or lesbian. Polls show clearly that when people personally know a gay or lesbian, they are more accepting of them. But if rumors and innuendo are left to fester, that’s when problems arise. A prime example comes from Brian Muller, a former army staff sergeant. Muller found that many young straight people he encountered had little exposure to open gays and lesbians, and when he did discuss his sexuality, “I think some of them changed their views.” He concluded that “the best thing the military can do if they lift this ban is to educate people. . . . Once they see that we have the same relationships, the same fears, go to the same restaurants [as straights do], they come around.” Regarding his sexuality, he said, “Some say, look, I don’t really like it, but as long as you can carry the same pack, I don’t care.”38

  “If they allowed homosexuals to be gay in the military, then a result of that would be teaching acceptance of another part of their family,” said Muller, who served in both single-sex and co-ed units and noticed a sharp difference in attitudes between the two. The co-ed units “were always the best units because you don’t have as much machismo floating around and you get people who are more tolerant and people realize they have to be more careful with their words.” In all-male units, he heard some of the most discriminatory language, largely against women. “So to me, the more diverse the unit, the more tolerant.” He saw an explicit analogy between gays and women: “When they mixed females with males, they taught acceptance, so they could do the same with gays.”39

  A petty officer first class drew the very same conclusion from his experience in the navy. The sailor was deployed twice to the Persian Gulf since 2001, having joined the service in 1990. As a nuclear operator with a top security clearance, he spent time in both all-male units and mixed-sex units. “As the navy changes and allows women on combat ships,” he said, “I have found that conversations have changed over the years. They’re not quite as trashy toward women.” Straight men, in particular, he reported, “are not as demoralizing toward women as they used to be because we work with them.”40

  Other service members echoed the importance of allowing gays and straights to get to know one another and speak freely. “I’ve had people come up to me who were dead set against [letting gays serve openly],” recalled one, “and then they found out I was gay and they changed their minds.” Thus the policy, by keeping people in the dark about sexual orientation, breeds a culture of ignorance and prejudice, which perpetuates the anti-gay sentiment, which is then used to justify “don’t ask, don’t tell.” Many people wrongly believe they are not even allowed to discuss the issue of homosexuality. This perceived gag rule on ordinary conversation and political expression erodes the opportunity to hear, contemplate, and weigh information about gay service. By contrast, in those situations where people knew they were allowed to discuss the policy, open debate prevailed. In a Marine Corps training office of six people, for instance, a service member reported that after a discussion of gay service, one person’s opposition to letting gays serve evolved into support. “People in the office convinced him otherwise,” he said.41

  As these examples remind us, and as the study of foreign militaries reveals, the tone in the military is set by clear signals from the leadership and simple policies effectively communicated. “In the military,” said an army JAG officer who deployed to Afghanistan while serving in the navy, “we learn to follow rules, and we promote what we’re told to promote.” She said that laws and policies send clear messages about w
hat is and is not acceptable in the service. “The best thing you can do as a soldier or sailor is to stand up for what the military says is right.” If the military said that gays and lesbians were welcome, it would have an enormous impact on attitudes toward them in the service. But “when the military is giving the message that there’s something wrong and shameful about being gay, then we’re also giving the message that to hate gays is acceptable.” She also pointed out that the policy deprived people in the armed services of the opportunity to understand and come to accept all the people they’re serving with. “If you’re in the military, then you’ll never be exposed to anyone who’s gay unless they out themselves and you choose not to turn them in.”42

  Part of leadership is carrying out the prescribed training on existing rules, including the “don’t harass” component of the policy. But leaders charged with training their subordinates on what the law says and how to enforce it have been missing in action, and their lackluster performance when they did go through the motions was the mark of those with a vested interest in the policy’s failure. A gay senior noncommissioned officer in the air force said commanders ignored training on the policy, and, as a result, few people understood what the law said and required. “The first time young troops hear about ‘don’t ask, don’t tell,’ it’s in basic training,” he said. “And there’s no refresher training at all.” He noticed it was in the lesson plan but recalled that his instructor at Lackland Air Force Base said they would skip right over it. An army staff sergeant had much the same experience: “They’re supposed to have annual training on the policy, but in eight years I had one. They don’t follow their own policies.” He said that, although the training is supposed to be a part of the policy, “because of the personal beliefs of some commanders, it doesn’t happen. It’s not something they like to talk about.”43

  Training does not have to be this hard. In fact, the Pentagon already has an office in place that would be a natural source of training and oversight to ensure that anti-gay harassment is taken seriously: the Defense Equal Opportunity Management Institute. Established in 1971 by the military to teach and enforce racial tolerance and cultural diversity, DEOMI’s mission is to optimize “combat readiness by promoting human dignity through equity education, diversity, cultural competency, research, and consultation worldwide.” The Pentagon could rather easily extend the sway of DEOMI to include tolerance of sexuality, an effort that would simply work to implement a policy—“don’t harass”—that’s already on the books, using an existing mechanism designed for this very purpose. But a representative from the institute has said they “do not teach courses relating to gayism.”44

  Indeed, the very leadership and training that turns a socially diverse population into a unified, cohesive fighting force centered around the task at hand is the same leadership and training that could be used to stigmatize and minimize anti-gay harassment. And it’s not a one-way street, but a compromise. Starting in basic training, gays—like everybody else—learn they must not stand out; and at the same time, heterosexuals who might prefer not to serve with gays can learn that part of military service is enduring minimal privacy and even less choice over the people who live and work with them.

  This, after all, is the purpose of basic training: to strip the prior identities of all recruits—Christians, Jews, and Muslims, Republicans, Democrats, and independents, urbanites and country folks, coastal ones and plains ones, older and younger, liberal and conservative, male and female, black, white, and other, and yes, gay and straight—and resocialize them by way of molding them into one effective fighting force. “A cadet training a basic cadet can be shorter, smaller, and of a different gender, but the basic is required to respect rank, no matter what,” writes Reichen Lehmkuhl, an actor and model who publicized his experience as a gay air force cadet in a 2006 book. The point is to reduce individuals to nothing, break their identities, deprive them of sleep, frighten them, shatter them—until the only way they feel they can survive is to seek one another’s help and support. Cadets quickly learn not to stand out; the only way to make it is to stand with the others.45

  During Nunn’s Senate hearings, William Henderson, a retired colonel who taught military psychology at West Point, had explained the crucial role of resocialization in boot camp, a process that is further evidence that combat readiness depends not on uniformity of prior cultural values but on the effective creation of task cohesion during intense military training. Referring to the core values of the soldier, he said that “when recruits come into the service, they do not come into the service with those values,” but are put through an “intense resocialization” program to achieve those values and build loyalty to the group and its mission.46 The idea of boot camp is to isolate and stress new recruits to such an extent that they yearn for the support of the group. This is the purpose, in part, of the intense schedule, lack of sleep, demanding physical requirements, and various other endurance tests that greet new members of the military. Anyone who has been through it understands its effect on the process by which a new group identity is formed with a sense of shared values that sets the group apart from anything outside or previously known.

  And yet, somehow, champions of the gay ban want us to believe that tough young Marines will be able to endure every last slight, months of sleep deprivation, hazing so fierce it’s caused litigation, and even the prospect of making the ultimate sacrifice, but they will wilt at the sight of a gay coworker? These scant few minutes of passing through group showers to rid yourself of a day’s or a week’s grime, sweat, and worries are the site of all this drama, the source of U.S. senators’ endless consternation that America’s sons and daughters will not be able to survive if they know there are gays in their midst? The military can successfully eradicate the individual identities of these young people and create for them from the ground up a new persona as a Marine, a soldier, a sailor, an airman—but not if it includes standing in the same room with a known gay?

  THE SILENCE REQUIRED by “don’t ask, don’t tell” has created untenable situations throughout the ranks, often made worse by abuses and violations of the policy. In 1998, Midshipman Robert Gaige, a member of Cornell University’s Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC), wore a red ribbon in solidarity with AIDS victims, a gesture that is supposed to be entirely protected under the policy. When his instructor asked him about the ribbon, Gaige told him what it signified, prompting the response, “What are you, some kind of fucking homo?” His instructor, Major Richard Stickel, began to harangue Gaige, asking him about his sexuality in front of others and suggesting he was sexually involved with another cadet. These two are always working out together, said Stickel of Gaige and his workout partner, Mark Navin. “I don’t know what else they do together,” he sneered, “but we’re not allowed to talk about it anyway.”47

  Having stoked rumors that Gaige was gay, Stickel encouraged others to join in the harassment. The perfect opportunity arose during summer training cruises when the ship was in port and it was time for sailors to pay a visit to the local brothel. Gaige, not surprisingly, opted out, spawning more suspicions and more questions. “Don’t tell me you play for the other team, kid,” said one shipmate, creating a moment when Gaige might have sought to end the raucous, divisive speculation once and for all if the rules hadn’t barred him from saying, “Yes, I’m gay, what of it?” Instead, Gaige reluctantly agreed to visit the brothel, stepping into a room with a prostitute but refraining from sex. The experience was more than he thought he should have to take. Soon after, he acknowledged his sexual orientation and was fired.48 His story, unfortunately, is common.

  The fear created by a climate of threats, harassment, and insecurity could lead service members to behave in ways that ended their careers. During advanced training, Private First Class Gabrielle Butler was asked by a noncommissioned officer if she planned on “marrying a female.” Shocked and unsure what to do, Butler took an unauthorized absence, worried that the sergeant had learned of her homosexua
lity. Butler recalled that she “dreaded the possibility of an intrusive investigation, it getting back to my peers, or having punitive actions taken against me.” The experience was a wake-up call that she would have to “live in constant fear of being ‘found out’ no matter how discreet my private behavior.” Though Butler returned to face the consequences of her unauthorized absence, her defense of her actions required her to explain what caused her fear, which meant disclosing her sexuality. She was subsequently discharged.49

  The rules on security clearances, whether they were followed or flouted—put service members in a double bind. SLDN found that security clearance investigators both denied clearance to some people whose homosexuality was revealed in the inquiry and threatened denial if they did not reveal their homosexuality.50 These were clear violations of the policy. But even when no abuse was taking place, gay and lesbian troops were damned if they did and damned if they didn’t: They were told to be honest about their sexual orientation—after all, national security was at stake in these investigations—they were also told to be honest with those close to them outside the military, so as not to create a situation where they could be blackmailed. Yet if they were honest with those at home, they risked discharge. Friends or family with a score to settle could actually turn them in and prompt a discharge. Even when they didn’t, friends and family could be contacted by investigators seeking wider evidence of homosexual conduct.

  Sure enough, with no protection against the questioning of family members, troops have faced embarrassing, dangerous, and humiliating invasions of family privacy. Those under investigation learned that their parents, siblings, and partners were sought out for detailed questions about sexual orientation and past history. In an air force criminal investigation, investigators even questioned a young child to find out if her father was gay. The mother of a Marine Corps helicopter pilot was questioned about whether her daughter had “a propensity to engage in homosexual behavior in the future.” The pilot’s chaplain was also contacted, despite promises of confidentiality for conversations with religious leaders. Trusting another chaplain for counseling during the discharge process, the pilot was met with judgment and disdain. She was called a “sinner” and told she needed to get help for her “un-Christian tendencies.”51