Admiral Mullen, the current Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and those in the military under him live in a world where your personal opinions and concerns must only be voiced in a certain way and absolutely never in a way that undermines leadership. I know because I lived it for 24 years in the United States Navy starting on day one at the Naval Academy. To serve professionally in the Armed Forces, you willingly give up your freedoms so that the people in our country keep theirs. If the Commander in Chief wants the military to do something, like invade a country or change a policy, we in the military figure out how best to do that.

We also take an oath similar to the one our elected officials take, swearing allegiance first to the Constitution. So, the military will obey any legal order from the Commander in Chief other than one that violates the Constitution. This gives the President great latitude in what the military does. My point is, if you expect Admiral Mullen to publically criticize the President on his stand, you will be disappointed. You can probably find some spirited folks within the military to speak out but, they will be quickly squashed because it isn’t their place to exercise free speech.

I on the other hand, am enjoying my new found freedom of speech and hopefully articulate my concerns with changing a policy, put in place by President Clinton, which has worked well up to now. To me, it is not a morality issue. Frankly, when I served with folks I had one concern with them individually and that was, can you do your job? I didn’t care about your gender, the color of your skin or your sexual orientation. All I cared about was if you were going to run through a fire with me, operate our weapon systems, keep us from crashing, watch my back, etc. I am pretty sure I served with gays, and if they did their jobs, I was happy with them…and I didn’t ask. And I believe that should be the deal out here in the civilian world as well, can you do your job? If a person can do a job professionally, then they should have the same opportunities…but the military is not quite the civilian world and if you have never experienced it, you may not realize the concern that I do have.

Imagine a college dormitory, not a newer one, but an older one where you have 100 or more bunk beds in a large open room with open showers and facilities. (This is how most of the crew on our aircraft carriers live.) This dormitory is filled with 99 nineteen year old men… and your daughter. I would argue that until our society feels safe putting their daughter into that dormitory to sleep, change, shower, that openly gay military service cannot work. Now, imagine the flip side of that. 99 nineteen year old women with one 19 year old man. Some may laugh at this, but allowing gays to serve openly is very similar to these situations. If you don’t allow that one nineteen year old guy to bunk and shower with the 99 women, why would you allow the 1 gay guy to bunk and shower with 99 men that he is openly sexually attracted to? Is it not the same situation? Don’t you think the 99 men would have the same level of concern as the 99 women? Do you see the danger, especially to the one person who has been outed in the male berthing area?

In cases where a person has openly professed to be gay, we had to separate him from the crowd. Not because he was immoral or we didn’t like him, but for his own safety. The general society in that 110 man berthing area in the close quarters of the ship didn’t tolerate the situation. Just like the 99 women probably wouldn’t like that one guy in their area. Only when you are talking about 109 nineteen year old men, you are putting that one guy in a bad situation. We had no choice but to get him off the ship.

Now, if we are ready, as a society, to have everyone mixed together in unisex berthing areas, showers and bathrooms (as depicted in the movie, Starship Troopers) then I believe we can have gays serve openly. Until we are willing to take that step, we are putting the morale of our units at risk as well as the safety of the minority in question.

I don’t think our society is ready for this. You have to ask yourself, why? Why change the policy? Will it make the military better and enhance morale? Will it become a more effective fighting force because of this? Will gays who serve openly be as safe as the gays currently serving?

Similar to the environmental and health care policies that are being pushed, I feel there is an underlying agenda being perpetrated here and it all has more to do with the teachings of Rev. Wright, Saul Alinsky and Karl Marx than it does with a care for the environment, taking care of Americans or strengthening our military. Here’s an interesting aside: [On Jan. 10, 1963, Congressman Albert S. Herlong Jr. of Florida read a list of 45 Communist goals into the Congressional Record. The list was derived from researcher Cleon Skousen’s book “The Naked Communist.”] Some people called him extreme; I would say the people who are behind pushing this agenda are not only extreme, but dangerous to the fabric and strength of our country.

My opinion is that openly gay service is not good for our men and women in uniform and I think President Barak Obama, and his supporters like Congressman David Wu, are making a mistake with this policy. We must resist using the military as a social experiment and see this agenda for what it is; pure partisan politics as usual, pushing toward an increasingly bigger and more intrusive government control agenda.

Join the resistance!