Unfriendly Fire

by Dr. Nathaniel Frank

  A simple glance at the contents of the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network (SLDN) survival guide published for gay and lesbian service members is a powerful reminder of the string of unforeseen burdens the policy imposes on our troops: extra caution during room inspections, during phone calls, in online profiles, when receiving letters or magazines, during security clearance interviews and visits to doctors and psychologists, while filing insurance paperwork, and in any unexpected encounter with the law, civilian police, or during family or personal crises.2

  When asked, gay and lesbian service members tell. They tell about the absurdity of trying to abide by the “don’t ask” and “don’t tell” clauses in the real world where subtle cues, cultural norms, and reading between the lines can make it literally impossible to refrain from asking or telling; they tell about being forced to lie to their peers; about isolating themselves from coworkers to avoid awkward moments and coming off as aloof and distant as a result; about enduring harassment against which they are unable to defend themselves; about shunning the support of clergy, mental health counselors, and doctors that all other troops are encouraged to use, especially during deployment to hostile territory; about choosing to end their tours early or decline additional tours because of the hostile climate created in “friendly” territory by this flawed policy. They tell how the policy affects their morale, their preparedness, their commitment to the military, and their overall ability to do their jobs. They tell what it’s like to risk their lives alongside other soldiers in their unit while not being able to speak to these comrades about the most basic aspects of their personal lives. They recount the dramatic steps they sometimes take to avoid revealing information that everyone else spills without a second thought. And they tell what impact the ban has on the rest of the military—what it’s like for heterosexuals to be forced to live, fight, and work alongside peers who are forbidden to be truthful with them.

  As scores of these voices will show, it is not poor implementation but the policy itself that invites nonenforcement and abuse. Nowhere does the policy or its implementing regulations provide for the punishment of military members who do ask, do pursue, do harass. The policy does not even bar individual service members from asking others if they are gay. While the rules sharply limit investigations and the collection of evidence, evidence obtained improperly is nowhere disallowed.3 That means commanders are, by the terms of the policy, free to ignore these limits and launch discharge procedures even if they’ve run roughshod over the privacy of service members. The policy is not only a failure because of poor enforcement; it is a failure because it is flawed at its very core.

  THE COSTS OF “don’t ask, don’t tell”—even when it’s running as designed—are everywhere apparent. While Aspin’s policy memo had promised that religious conversations would be held in confidence, visits with psychologists and doctors are not protected by the letter of the law, a fact which Kevin Blaesing learned the hard way. The Marine corporal had some questions about sexuality that he wanted to discuss with a professional. Trusting a naval psychologist, he arranged a session for consultation. Fully aware of the rules, Corporal Blaesing was careful not to say anything that indicated he was, or even might be, gay. He simply asked questions. “I sat down and we discussed homosexuality in general—if you are gay, do you stay gay, how does that go along with being in the military,” he explained. “I never made a statement of what my sexual orientation was.” But even that was apparently too much. The naval psychologist turned him in and his commander ordered a discharge investigation, against the advice of military lawyers. Blaesing had been named Marine of the Quarter. “From my experience, I can tell you that this policy is a failure,” he said. “It’s like a mine field, and you’re just wandering in this mine field because they don’t advise you what the rules are. The military is basically waiting for you to step on that mine.”4

  Blaesing’s ordeal is a reminder of the uncertainty and insecurity under which gay and lesbian troops must live, ever under the whim of their commanders. Blaesing’s first commander, Ronald Rueger, chose not to pursue the allegations against him. The corporal had revealed “no inkling of homosexual conduct,” and Rueger “felt the young fella gave us really good service.” Since his contract would expire in a year, he “deserved to go all the way through.” Blaesing thought he was safe. But suddenly Rueger retired and was replaced by Lieutenant Colonel M. J. Martinson, who said homosexuality brought shame to the Marines. He warned Blaesing that if he returned to the barracks, “I don’t know what would happen.” The military, said Rueger after he retired in 1994, is “five to 10 years behind” civilian society. “We need to catch up.”5

  The Blaesing case is also a dramatic illustration of one of the more hidden costs of the ban: restricted access to support services. Because there is no guarantee of confidentiality, many avoid seeking out these services even though they’re considered vital during deployment. This pattern has been repeated countless times. Psychiatrists in the air force even reported that military physicians contributed to a hostile, anti-gay climate by their use of homophobic remarks, and that they had been directed by superiors not to provide mental health counseling on any matter related to sexual orientation—a shocking dereliction of duty in a nation that professes to do all it can to support its troops. As a result, the pursuit of gay soldiers in the air force has been particularly rampant. One psychologist forced an airman to choose between tending to his mental health and keeping his career, telling him that any revelation of homosexuality would be fair game for a discharge. For choosing his well-being, he was subjected to discharge proceedings. Astonishingly, an airman who spoke to his civilian psychologist about his private sex life faced discharge; a letter from the air force stated: “The evidence suggests you made statements to a civilian clinical psychologist that you had engaged in homosexual acts, had enjoyed a homosexual relationship, and had a ‘basic’ homosexual attraction.”6 While professional psychologists are supposed to be bound by ethical limitations on revealing information told to them in confidence, many are easily cowed when military officials appear at their doors or at the other end of a phone line asking questions about their patients. Too many, apparently, believe they have no choice but to turn their patients in.

  The consequences of this reality can be disastrous. Fred Fox was an enlisted infantry soldier deployed to combat in Somalia during the infamous battle of Mogadishu that prompted President Clinton to withdraw troops following heavy U.S. casualties. Ten years later, Fox became an officer supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom. His time in the army was a valuable part of his life, but, for much of it, he struggled mightily with anxiety around trust and relationships, particularly feelings of anger and fear of violence—his own and that of others. By the end of his service in 2003, Fox was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) by the Veterans Administration during out-processing. The tragedy was that he had been unable to speak openly with army counselors during his service. He had occasionally sought such help, but each time he was asked pressing questions about his inner life, he hesitated, and ended up lying about all the things that he really needed to say to address his vulnerable mental health. “I was asked if I was having problems with relationships,” he said, which he was. “But it was easier just to say I’m not having any relationships rather than open up a whole avenue of other questions you can’t respond to.” Worst of all, it was impossible for Fox to parse whether his relationship problems were due to unresolved issues about his sexuality, the strictures of the policy, or some form of traumatic stress disorder, which in the military continues to be a source of shame, just like homosexuality. “Having spent twelve years in the Army denying my homosexuality, this was just one more thing that’s easy for me to bury,” he said of what he eventually learned was PTSD. “And this isn’t something you want to bury, because then it becomes a bomb you’ve sort of hidden somewhere.” “Don’t ask, don’t tell” just helped him repress his feelings furth
er, which was not, Fox concluded, a recipe for mental health.7

  The military provides substantial support services for its troops both stateside and during deployment: legal assistance, paid time off, life insurance, health care, death and burial benefits. There is also a large array of family support services, including chaplains, counseling, crisis assistance, personal finance management, spouse employment assistance, adoption expenses, and more. In addition, individual branches offer their own networks of support. For example, the navy’s Morale, Welfare and Recreation (MWR) offers child development and youth recreation programs, educational benefits, medical care, housing, legal assistance, and an array of insurance options for sailors, spouses, and children. The army has long attracted recruits with its popular scholarships, loans, and other educational opportunities, and it also offers its own employment assistance, health care, civilian transition and relocation support, retirement benefits, and a variety of religious and psychological consultation services.8

  These services are designed to make living, training, and combat conditions as appealing and stress-free as possible so as to maximize recruitment, retention, readiness, and combat effectiveness. Support services are also offered to families of service members both as added incentives for recruitment and to help relieve troop stress during deployment. The logic is that if troops can rest assured that things at home are taken care of, they will be less concerned with matters outside their training and combat missions and more able to focus on their military objectives.9

  But gays and lesbians are routinely cut out of these support networks. When you don’t feel at liberty to seek help, a central premise of readiness—troop support—is torn. And it’s a burden that’s dramatically worsened for troops who are deployed overseas, where they have no outside recourse to obtain support that they can’t get from the military itself. There is a certain absurdity to this cost; it buys the military nothing but grief. The “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy is meant to shield the rank and file from gay service. But in reality, gay troops can effectively assess which peers to confide in and when to remain discreet. Instead, it’s the military bureaucracy that soldiers must hide from: commanders, administrators, physicians, clergy—in short, those whose knowledge of a soldier’s sexuality is least likely to be disruptive, and whose familiarity with his personal life is most essential to helping him prepare for the demands of war. The rationale for the gay ban was that it was needed to protect the comfort and privacy of young, enlisted men—not the administrative and professional support staff. What could the military possibly gain by keeping its service members from speaking candidly with the professionals who are there to ensure troop readiness?

  In one of the most troubling cases to come to light, Captain Monica Hill, who joined the military in 1994 after winning an air force scholarship to medical school, learned in 2001 that her partner of fourteen years had developed lung cancer that had spread to the brain. Her prognosis was grim, and Hill requested a deferred report date so she could care for her dying partner. Hill explained the minimal details of her predicament that she deemed necessary to make her case a compelling one. When her request was received, it was met instead with an investigation into Hill’s sexual orientation. The inquiry was hostile. Hill faced demeaning and invasive questioning about her sex life, and investigators’ insinuation that she had sought the deferment only to get out of her service. After her partner died—on September 11, 2001—Hill was required to produce a death certificate to prove she had not made the story up. She was discharged on October 2, 2002, and the air force subsequently sought to force her to pay back the cost of her medical school scholarship.10

  A related cost is the impact on morale and readiness of gay troops who cannot access the family support programs and networks that are offered to all other service members. Because it is a violation of policy to reveal that a service member’s spouse or partner is a member of the same sex, gay and lesbian troops are banned from designating members of their family as beneficiaries of support, access, or even information. The statute also prohibits marrying or “attempting to marry” a member of the same sex, further precluding gay and lesbian service members from forming and designating recognized family units with access to support and services. Since phone calls and e-mails are often monitored for operational security, gay and lesbian service members report that they are not free to contact their partners without resorting to extraordinary means, including changing names and pronouns, writing or speaking in codes, or leaving the base to make phone calls. As the military well knows, family ties and communication with loved ones at home are the first line of recourse to ease the stresses borne by those deployed to combat. Not all service members enjoy such ties, but to have them and be barred from using them seems to be the height of senselessness.

  Service members deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan have unfailingly cited these constraints as sources of stress. “We always had to be ready,” explained a senior noncommissioned officer in the air force in 2004. “Before you hop on a plane” for a deployment, he said, “you hope you’ll have peace of mind. That means having your personal affairs ready, such as a will, power of attorney, etc.” But the officer said he could not put his partner’s name in the will he had on file without risking raising a flag and prompting an investigation. And so he departed to the Middle East with the worry that if something happened to him, his partner would have no way of knowing about it because he could not be listed on the next-of-kin form. “This guy would have pretty much been left in the dark; he would have probably found out on the news,” he said. For his second deployment, the two worked out a plan where they added an e onto the partner’s name to make it look female while still remaining legally valid (in court, it could be chalked up to an error). “It was almost impossible to remain in the service and still be gay,” the officer concluded, especially once he was deployed for war. “The DOD is cutting their own throats with this policy.”11

  As more gays and lesbians seek to have their relationships recognized in state marriages or civil partnerships, the situation for gay military families becomes even more strained. Any record of a marriage or civil partnership (which vary in name and form by state, among those that offer them) is publicly available and constitutes evidence of “homosexual conduct” under “don’t ask, don’t tell.” Service members with dependents are actually required to inform the military, compelling the creation of paperwork that automatically puts their jobs at risk, particularly because adoption paperwork will list the second parent if there is joint custody.12

  Service members are beginning to leave the military to avoid this double bind. This is just what Army Staff Sergeant Jeffrey Schmalz did in 2004 when Massachusetts legalized same-sex marriage. The problem is compounded as civilian society continues to speed past military policy. After Massachusetts legalized marriage, many companies eliminated the ad hoc benefits that had been offered under civil partnership laws, because they deemed them no longer necessary. This was an added incentive to get married. When Lieutenant Colonel Peggy Laneri took that step, she remained in the army and listed her new wife as a beneficiary of her military life insurance plan, putting at risk her job and future retirement benefits.13

  Every time her paperwork surfaced, her heart skipped a beat. Ultimately, her decision to take an early retirement was prompted by the adoption of her daughter. Enrolling the child in the Defense Enrollment Eligibility Reporting System, the database that manages family benefit eligibility, would essentially out Laneri. Ditto Tricare, the military’s vast health-care benefit program that offers everything from dental care to emergency medicine to service members, retirees, and dependents. Much of this care was offered on military base facilities. Just imagine the questions and risks that would attend walking your small daughter to a military medical facility on base. Meanwhile, if anything happened to Laneri in the military, her family would not be notified and would not get survival benefits. Faced with choosing between continuing her twenty-two-year mil
itary career and looking after the needs of her family, she retired in the summer of 2005 and became an executive coach. The cumulative package of benefits and protections that most military members take for granted is simply not available to gay military families. If children are involved, the scenario is even worse, as it not only forces military members to provide evidence of their homosexuality, but it can make the economics of having a family prohibitive.14

  The army JAG officer who served in Afghanistan faced the same set of problems. Her command “made it a point” to encourage personnel to use support services that were available for significant others. But she and her partner could do no such thing. She could not designate her partner’s name on the list that the ombudsman used to convey certain information to family members of deployed troops, such as their whereabouts, condition, and points of contact. “There was this whole network at home designed to help with significant others, and [my partner] couldn’t do that because that would have outed me,” she said. “Just to be on a mailing list would have raised eyebrows and could have gotten me kicked out.”15

  Captain Austin Rooke said he would not have considered availing himself of many of the support services available to straight troops in the army. “I never would have gone to clergy, to discuss anything about my particular issues with my sexuality,” he said. “I might have, if I could have been open, but it was so far removed from anything that would have been an intelligent thing to do.” He said he never would have brought up anything having to do with sexual health to a military physician, and instead had to use outside clinics.16