Unfriendly Fire

by Dr. Nathaniel Frank

  The next year, the Defense Department published a list of schools that were in violation of the Solomon amendment. Of twenty-two schools, seventeen offenders were in Connecticut, all of which lost federal funding, including the tuition assistance given to ROTC students. Although the ROTC programs remained, because of the land-grant requirement, recruiters were still barred by the state law requiring nondiscrimination. The result was that the students who enjoyed tuition breaks through ROTC would lose this assistance if they attended one of the seventeen offending schools.45

  The quandary required hours of attention by congressional committees, Pentagon lawyers, the state legislature, and the governor of Connecticut. In the fall of 1997, little could be done to resolve the situation because the Connecticut state legislature would not be meeting again until the next winter. So the congressional committee responsible for drawing up the National Defense Authorization Act got assurance from the state’s governor that he would pass a special law, a state version of the Solomon amendment that would dance around the nondiscrimination clause. Then the committee drafted special language to try to freeze the withheld funds before they were redirected to other uses—for just long enough that the Connecticut legislature could meet next winter and find a way around the provisions that were now inadvertently punishing ROTC students who depended on the now-inaccessible tuition aid to attend college and train as reserve officers. For good measure, the committee noted that, even though it was sequestering funds while awaiting future state action, the conferees “insist that military recruiters be afforded access to institutions of higher education or [the schools would] face the consequence of loss of federal funds.”46

  The governor of Connecticut was all too happy to toss aside his state’s principled policy of nondiscrimination. On October 29, 1997, he called a special session of the state legislature, which quickly brought the matter to a rest by approving a law forcing recruiters back on campus. Congress then amended the law to exempt student tuition assistance from any funds that would be cut off as punishment for barring recruiters.47 This particular embarrassing situation would not be allowed to happen again.

  In the years following 9/11, as recruitment needs became more dire, Congress became more belligerent. Early in 2005, Congress updated the Solomon amendment to reflect the urgency: “Congress remains committed to the achievement of military personnel readiness through vigorous application of the requirements set forth” in earlier renditions of the law. “It is the sense of Congress that the executive branch should aggressively continue to pursue measures to challenge any decision impeding or prohibiting” the freedom of military recruiters to access the enormous pool of young bodies needed to go off to war. Finally, the updated language recommended that the Bush administration follow a “doctrine of non-acquiescence,” which meant that any legal decision affecting one region’s freedom to recruit on campus should not be construed to similarly limit all other jurisdictions.48

  In none of the suggestions for how to “challenge any decision impeding or prohibiting” the access of military recruiters to college campuses did the Congress consider the most obvious decision impeding such access: the decision of Congress itself to leave “don’t ask, don’t tell” standing. College campuses had not gone out of their way to make trouble for military recruiters. Though some of the resistance to the military was rooted specifically in opposition to the Vietnam War, the universities presently had no policy singling out the military for impeded access to campus. It was simply a matter of enforcing nondiscrimination policies in an evenhanded manner. Despite complaints from the government, the military did enjoy “equal access” to campuses—the same access as all other employers who refused to sign a vow of nondiscrimination. Yet nearly all the lumbering instruments of federal and local government that got involved chose to fight a battle of spite and raw muscle; none of these elected officials or bodies ever seemed to consider that lifting the unnecessary ban would wipe away the problem overnight, without incurring the embarrassing costs of appearing to strong-arm academia with threats to cease funding for cancer research. And without, according to all evidence, any detriment to military readiness.

  Indeed, when the courts took up the case, a panel in the Third Circuit struck down the law, noting that the policy “generate[s] ill will toward the military” and “actually impedes recruitment.” Defenders of discrimination, however, such as a dissenting judge on the same panel, complained that “the court was interfering with congressional powers to raise and support the military.” Similarly, the Bush administration argued that the initial ruling against the law would “undermine military recruitment in a time of war.”49 In 2006, the Supreme Court agreed with President Bush, reversing the Third Circuit decision, and allowing Solomon to stand.

  Rather than take the simple step, which happened in this case to be the right step—both militarily and morally—for all involved, political leaders and their supporting lawyers have done everything they could to uphold discrimination against gays and lesbians in the military. The result is a crippling policy that is hampering recruitment, and along with it, military readiness at a time when we desperately need every tool at our disposal. Despite ample evidence to the contrary, these men and women refuse to acknowledge that they have created a fundamental problem that shadows the military’s every move. That problem is not a gay menace. That problem is discrimination itself.

  The badly stretched U.S. military is firing badly needed, capable troops because they’re gay and filling slots with exconvicts, drug abusers, and high school dropouts. And why? Because top military brass, and a handful of their friends in Congress, have their fingers in their ears: They do not want to hear that patriotic gay Americans are serving their country valiantly, because admitting that gay soldiers are good soldiers threatens to upend the self-image of traditional American manhood. Politicians either believe this, too, or are unwilling to say otherwise and risk alienating their political base. That this policy is about politics and prejudice rather than military necessity is made abundantly clear by the line drawn in the sand around gays and lesbians. Again and again, military officials are willing to take major risks and make compromising exceptions in order to fill the ranks with warm bodies—unless those warm bodies prefer warm bodies of the same sex. As put by the father of a mentally ill recruit who was enlisted by desperate recruiters, despite being warned of his unsuitability: “They were willing to put my son and other recruits at risk” just to fill a slot. And yet, to the Pentagon and Congress, letting openly gay patriots serve their country constitutes “an unacceptable risk” that could undermine unit cohesion (never mind that, actually, it doesn’t).

  The army’s commander of recruiting, Major General Michael Rochelle, defended his compromising recruitment tactics by describing a “shift in thinking,” saying that in the past, “if an individual was accused of doctoring a high-school diploma, it was an open-and-shut case,” but that “now, I look at a person’s value to the command first.” Why not do that with gays, who are surely more valuable to the military than the mentally unfit? In truth, this “whole person” philosophy makes sense when assessing difficult personnel decisions. “The Army has always issued waivers to otherwise qualified applicants who may not meet all our stringent requirements,” said another recruiting official, S. Douglas Smith. “Waiver authorities apply the ‘whole person’ concept when considering waiver applications. This is the right thing to do for those Americans who want to serve.”50 The right thing, indeed.

  11

  Rainbow Warriors

  AS THE PENTAGON’S RECRUITING WOES mounted and homosexual discharges continued, though at lower rates than before 2001, a less-reported narrative was emerging that starkly contradicted the very assumptions of “don’t ask, don’t tell”—that gays couldn’t serve openly without causing problems. Reflecting dramatic shifts in American attitudes about homosexuality and a gradual crumbling of the civilian closet, more and more gays and lesbians were refusing to conceal their true
selves and were serving in the military without pretense. Judging from the actions of commanders, we can see that the upper echelons of the military are thinking differently than they did even a decade ago. When a service member says to a superior, “I’m gay,” the most common response may now be, “That’s nice. Now get back to work.” But commanders continue to be hamstrung by the law, and enough of the old brass, born in the 1940s and 1950s, still support the law or toe the party line because they believe their colleagues demand no less. What has emerged is a vast population of young people who simply don’t care about sexual orientation, a growing number of senior military officers who find the policy wrong and destructive but won’t or can’t say, and a growing number of top military brass who—once they retire—feel free to say what they really think and condemn the policy. The result is enormous momentum for change, both inside and outside the military, but the ban persists, with its arbitrary enforcement, because of a small group of powerful politicians and military officials.

  In this climate, some service members get lucky. They serve openly without any consequences or hostility and they live their lives just like their heterosexual friends and colleagues, serving their country with the necessary focus on their training and mission. Others are not so lucky. They continue to live and serve in fear and uncertainty, face hostility, and even vengeance, sometimes from homophobic superiors and sometimes from colleagues who will simply use whatever tools they can to settle a totally unrelated score. They serve their country hampered and diminished, and all too often lose their jobs and benefits because of a policy that never should have been created in the first place.

  What explains why some gays and lesbians serve openly without problems and others continue to suffer under the weight of “don’t ask, don’t tell”? In part, nothing. It is simply a testimony to the utterly arbitrary reality of living under a policy that is based on regulating the unregulatable, on deception and denial, and on assumptions about reality that are false. But there are some explanations for the patterns, and many of them echo what the evidence reveals from foreign militaries. As we’ll see, many commanders have no problem letting gays continue serving so long as they don’t make the commander look bad. That is, they expect discretion from gays and lesbians, though not formal compliance with “don’t tell.” A second explanation of successful open service is the capacity of service members to use good judgment about when and where to come out. And a third factor is good leadership. Whatever the views of an individual commander about homosexuality, strong leadership means making clear what is expected of the rank and file and the chaotic, unrealistic dictates of “don’t ask, don’t tell” make this essentially impossible.

  The policy relies on the assumption that straight service members are more comfortable and more willing to serve with gays if they do not know about their sexual orientation. It also assumes that formally lifting the ban will cause many more gays to come out than are already out under the existing rules. The argument that has prevailed in retaining a ban linked these factors to military necessity, suggesting that “don’t tell” could successfully preserve privacy and that doing so was essential to preserving unit cohesion. Though no evidence ever proved the link, enough people thought it was “common sense” that the argument carried the day. Is it still, though, common sense? As we near the second decade of the twenty-first century, is sentiment in the U.S. military still fiercely opposed to knowing about the presence of gays and lesbians in the barracks? How much has changed since 1993 in attitudes and understandings about gays in the military? And how accurate are the guiding assumptions of “don’t ask, don’t tell” that a federal law can keep American service members from knowing which of their coworkers are gay?

  Since 1993, several remarkable things have happened. More and more gay people have refused to hide their identities when they don their country’s uniform; at first they did so out of righteous defiance and then, more and more, they stopped hiding because they simply found they didn’t need to. The law was still in place, but their peers, their subordinates, increasingly even their superiors, made it clear they didn’t care whether their coworkers loved men or women, so long as they could do their jobs. Over the last decade and a half, poll after poll has confirmed what story after story has told: Adamant opposition to homosexuality is simply less common. With each passing year, it seems, prejudice and fear are the weapons of an increasingly marginalized minority. At the same time, pop culture has made leaps and bounds in expanding tolerance of homosexuality and, for the first time in history, a generation of young people has emerged in which many never knew the inside of a closet. Eventually, military experts—from academic researchers to retired senior officers—followed suit and have acknowledged publicly what others had known for some time: You don’t need to be straight to shoot straight.

  AS WE’LL SEE, the changes in the experiences of gay and lesbian troops have been most dramatic in recent years. But openly gay service is by no means new. Even in the policy’s infancy, many gays and lesbians served openly throughout the ranks. Notably, the kind of harassment that was rampant in some units was significantly less of a problem in units with open gays in their ranks, a finding borne out by the research on foreign militaries. In the first full year the American policy was in effect, Servicemembers Legal Defense Network knew of more than a dozen gays and lesbians that were out to their peers. In their units, harassment had become “almost non-existent,” according to a 1996 report. (That figure would explode from a dozen to five hundred by 2008, and that’s just the number of openly gay troops of which SLDN was directly aware.)1

  Many of the service members SLDN documented, such as Zoe Dunning, were serving because highly publicized legal or administrative challenges were pending or had resulted in mandated reinstatement, setting up a situation where the homosexuality of a member was widely known. Consider also Keith Meinhold, the sailor who had made waves when a federal court ordered his reinstatement after he challenged a discharge in 1993. Some navy officials had used the incident to argue that known gays caused disruptions, citing the media racket and the hubbub caused by a small number of sailors who fussed about his return. The claims were utterly disingenuous, however, as the incident had become just one more opportunity for moralizers to vent their anti-gay feelings. In reality, the minor disruptions caused by Meinhold’s return were temporary and unique, and largely spurred by the grandstanding of senior officials who were bitter about the exercise of judicial power in their military. And as previously stated, none of this would have occurred if the policy hadn’t caused his ouster in the first place. In any event, during Meinhold’s three additional years of open service, his unit fully embraced him. His crew was named the most combat-ready in his fleet, and his final evaluation said that his “inspirational leadership has significantly contributed to the efficiency, training and readiness of my squadron.” One of his coworkers, a self-described “bigot from hell,” said that knowing Meinhold had “totally changed” his feelings about the service of gays.2

  Another case was the high-profile service of Colonel Margarethe Cammermeyer. In 1994, a Washington state judge ordered her reinstated, prompting joyous phone calls from high-ranking officers welcoming her back. She served openly for three more years, and her story was broadcast to the world in 1995 in a TV movie while she was still serving. There were others. In the mid-1990s, Justin Elzie served four years openly and was named NCO of the Quarter and top marksman for his base at Camp LeJeune. One of his reports touted his “leadership abilities to lead the Marine Corps into the twenty-first century.” Coworkers of Petty Officer Mark Phillips celebrated the anniversary of his coming out by giving him a chocolate cake, and a surprise birthday party while he was in the thick of battle—a legal challenge to his discharge for homosexuality.3

  Steve Clark Hall also served openly in the early years of “don’t ask, don’t tell.” Hall entered the navy as an officer out of the Naval Academy and, after four consecutive sea tours, rose to commanding offi
cer of a nuclear submarine. Before the 1990s, Hall recalls, it was a common understanding that there were plenty of gays in the navy, even open ones. Once while training over one hundred people in the engineering department, he was suggesting bars to visit while in port, and one man known to be gay asked in a high-pitched voice where the bars were for him. Without missing a beat, Hall referred him to several gay bars by name, an indication to all present that there were gays in their midst and that this was not a problem. “So not only was he totally out, I was also pretty open to my department in the early ’80s,” Hall recalled.4

  In his own case, Hall said, “everybody else figured it out before I did.” Eventually, he bought a house in the Castro, San Francisco’s gay district, which was widely known in the navy. He even hosted parties there with other officers, the source of many good-natured jokes referencing his neighborhood and what it suggested about Hall’s sexuality. Though he did not announce his sexuality, he was later told by peers that his entire crew knew he was gay.5

  For Hall, “don’t ask, don’t tell” was worse than the previous policy because the times were changing around it. When he was promoted to commander, his momentum was toward coming out, toward ceasing any final vestiges of lying, deceiving, or concealing. It had become clear to him by the early 1990s that people did not care about his sexuality—only about how he did his job. He told his men that it was important to respect differences, a thinly veiled reference to his sexuality. But suddenly came a policy that defined certain differences as a threat to cohesion and an “unacceptable risk” to the military.6