Dont ask, dont tell

Also not published for some reason not yet divulged to me.

Over the years I have watched many friends and colleagues go through Army, Navy, Marine, and National Guard training and preparation. An old high school classmate of mine has just come back from a tour in Iraq and another has just shipped out, and every time I read the paper cant help but feel nervous as I scan over the news.
The military has been a huge part of our country for as long as anyone can remember and since 9/11 even the most socially inept and current event oblivious individual will have some opinion on what’s going on overseas. Wars are going on everywhere it seems, and fighting mounts even within the military itself. I speak of social fighting; the activist movements against the DADT: “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”
As someone who was in the process of enlisting in the National Guard but was forced to stop because of this aggravating “rule”, I figured it was finally time for me to give justice to all the able bodied and eager young men and women who have been hindered by this policy.
For those of you who have heard of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” but aren’t exactly familiar with the concept, allow me a moment to explain the history.
During preparation for WWII the US military added psychiatric screening to its induction process. Homosexuality at this time was labeled as an indicator of psychopathology and for the first time, homosexual people were differentiated from “normal” people in the military. In the following decades new regulations were passed concerning homosexuals serving in the military and the terms “desirable” and “undesirable” discharge were commonplace. President Bill Clinton, who had campaigned on the promise that all citizens should be allowed to serve in the military regardless of their sexual orientation, aimed to change these ways of the military. Opposing Clinton however, was the Congress. After Clinton was inaugurate Congress rushed to enact the existing gay ban policy into federal law. The policy they strove for (Defense Directive 1332.14) was that homosexuality is incompatible with military service and those persons whom engage in homosexual acts or state that they are homosexual or bisexual, were to be discharged. In order to combat this onslaught of opposition, on December 21, 1993, the Clinton Administration issued a compromise: Defense Directive 1304.26, which stated that military applicants were not to be asked about their sexual orientation. This policy is known as “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”
The DADT policy has sparked heated debate among Democrat, Republican, pro-gay, and anti-gay groups and those debates show no sign of cooling until another drastic change occurs.
Since it was implemented, Nathaniel Frank of the Advocate writes, DADT has ended the careers of more than 13,000 service members. Because of this policy, while at the time it was implemented seemed to be the only way to go, the growing awareness for gay rights has given people the opportunity to understand just how unfair the “rules” are. The pressure to conform to the hetero stereotype in the military forces people to act differently –often in negative ways such as bashing women and gays,- just so that they can stay in uniform. However it’s not just the military members that suffer. Because gay troops are prohibited from revealing their sexual orientation, their families and partners have no way of accessing the resources offered to most military families and are denied access to information about deployed family members, including their status, condition, and return dates. To anyone who has a loved one in the military, I ask you, would you be able to deal with not knowing if they had been hurt or killed in the line of duty just because you had to keep your relationship a secret? I think not.
And for those of you who have been “prematurely banned” from military service due to publicly coming out, (or even publicly advocating gay rights and issues like myself) the sad fact of the matter is that this policy prohibits good people from protecting their country and their loved ones just because they happen to be the same gender as themselves.