Commanders Ordered Not To Fire Gays Until War's End

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http://www.365gay.com/newscon05/09/091305military.htm

 

 

 

 

Commanders Ordered Not To Fire Gays Until War's End

by 365Gay.com Newscenter Staff

 

Posted: September 13, 2005 5:00 pm ET

 

 

(Santa Barbara, California) Scholars studying military personnel

policy have discovered a document halting the discharge of gay

soldiers in units that are about to be mobilized.

 

The document was made public Tuesday by Center for the Study of Sexual

Minorities in the Military (CSSMM), a think tank at the University of

California, Santa Barbara. It was found during research for a story

for the ABC news program Nightline.

 

The regulation was contained in a 1999 " Reserve Component Unit

Commander's Handbook " and is still in effect, according to the Center.

 

It states that if a discharge for homosexual conduct is requested

" prior to the unit's receipt of alert notification, discharge isn't

authorized. Member will enter AD [active duty] with the unit. "

 

The document is significant because of longstanding Pentagon denials

that the military requires gays to serve during wartime, only to fire

them once peacetime returns. According to the " don't ask, don't tell "

policy, gays and lesbians must be discharged whether or not the

country is at war.

 

Gay soldiers and legal groups have reported for years that known gays

are sent into combat, and then discharged when the conflicts end.

Discharge statistics corroborate a pattern of rising expulsions during

peacetime and plummeting rates during military conflicts, and Pentagon

statistics confirm that, as has been the case in every war since World

War II, gay discharges have declined during the current conflict in

the Middle East.

 

But the Pentagon has consistently denied that, when mobilization

requires bolstering troop strength, it sends gays to fight despite the

existence of a gay ban, and some observers have insisted there is no

evidence of such a practice. During the first Gulf War, Pentagon

spokesman, Bill Caldwell, said the military would " absolutely not "

send gays to war and discharge them when the conflict ends.

 

Shortly after the terrorist attacks of 9/11, a Pentagon spokesman said

that the military was not modifying its regulations on gay troops. And

a May, 2005 study by the Congressional Research Service says that

although gay discharges do decline during wartime, the decrease is the

result of .random fluctuations in the data, " not an intentional

Pentagon policy of retaining gays during wars " .

 

Meanwhile, the Pentagon acknowledged Tuesday that it would again fail

to meet its monthly recruiting goal and for the first time since 1999

would not meet its goal for the year.

 

In July, the the Williams Project at the UCLA School of Law issued a

report showing that if the ban on gays serving openly were lifted the

military would gain 41,000 troops. (story)

 

Especially in the wake of Katrina, as some have concluded that a

National Guard stretched thin by deployments abroad was limited in its

ability to respond to a catastrophe here at home, the added strength

of more than 40,000 recruits has the potential of making a significant

difference, " Steve Ralls, spokesperson for the Servicemembers Legal

Defense Network told 365Gay.com.

 

" And, as we've seen Coast Guardsmen rescuing the trapped in New

Orleans, it begs the question: Did those being rescued really care

about the sexual orientation of those men and women who came to save

them?

 

" Now - especially now - the Army needs every recruit it can find.

Not only for war operations abroad, but for rescue missions here at

home, too. If ever there was a wake-up call about the need for

qualified people on the ground, it came last week in New Orleans. "