Comment on Newser: Pentagon Review: Troops Don't Care About DADT - ... and they don't need separate bathrooms

Pentagon Review: Troops Don't Care About DADT - ... and they don't need separate bathrooms

It took me a while to think about this. The Pentagon report proves two things and there are three possible responses.

The conditions;
1. People lie, that is especially true when authority is involved.
2. The growth of the non-combat gay friendly tail at the expense of the combatant teeth has gone to far.

The possible responses;
1. Abandon the combat focus of the military and increase the staffing of gays in support roles and in residual combat roles as warriors are driven out. (least desirable)
2. Civilianize the support functions and keep the warriors in lean focused combat units, like making everything in uniform resemble the traditional Marine Corps. (workable but limited)
3. Increase the number of trained combatants and use the support functions for relief and rotation, the naval "shore duty" concept. (best but has built in inefficiency)

Option 3 means accepting that support roles will be done less efficiently by people who do not have those jobs as their primary focus. That still seems a better program that one that appears designed to drive out the combatants from the Service.

There are efforts to equate this with the removal of discrimination barriers on the service of blacks by President Harry Truman. That is a false comparison. The question here is whether openly homosexual conduct is compatible with good order and discipline and the maintenance of a military that conducts effective combat operations. Given the involvement of of a hostile and disturbed homosexual in the current Wikileaks disclosure of classified information it is at the very least prudent to avoid any action that could make further such episodes more likely.