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Does not matter if he passing on his opinion, information he believes is correct or just pulling an answer out of his ass. He doesn't make the call or get to decide whether or not the action will be for the best "interests" of the Corp.
The fact that they do deal w/ violence and death day in and out makes the "argument" even more clear. Here is a group of patriotic young men & women who have chosen to heed the call, have taken the same oath and are trained to the same standards and excellence as all others in the Corp. The only significant factor is: Do they do their job when the **** hits the fan. Do they bring honor and unit cohesion to repel and quash any enemy action their squad or platoon encounters? Basically, can they be Marines? Just as their is no such thing as an atheist in a fox hole, there is no such thing as a homosexual in a foxhole. There are Marines, doing their jobs, keeping each other alive and secure by doing so. No matter if they are straight, gay, Catholic, Jew, Black or White. If they can't do the job, their gone. If they can, and can hold it together while doing it, that's all that will matter in the end.
And I do know better than the Commandant. It's the beauty and structure of our National Command Authority and Constitution. The CIVILIAN leadership makes the decisions. The MILITARY arm then carries them out.
Again I answer the question. It's not his call to make. It's just his to carry out to the best of his abilities and the best esprit de corps.
...and our Marines put faith in their comrades, their unit commanders and generals, not in our politicians, which is what you want us to believe.
A Marine who serves for 20 years can serve under 4-5 presidents, while his fellow Marines serve along with him. Marines know that the civilians are in ultimate control of the military, but their loyalty is with the country and the Corps, not to the politicians. As soon as the men figure out that they are being disrespected, and treated like a social science experiment by the civilian leadership, they will leave the Corps.
I knew of men who left the Corps simply because they refused to serve under Pres. Clinton.
For all of you who do not understand the Marine mentality I will help you a little bit. As a former Marine and child of a father who chose the gay lifestyle, I share my point of view.
The Marine Corps is the elite club designed for one purpose and that is to kill the enemy without having to think about it. You may not like this club because we are designed for a purpose you can not understand, but we exsist for a reason.
The problem with gays or women in combat has less to do with the surface problem and more to do with one simple thing, CHANGE. Injecting anything that is percieved to be a threat to the trust level is a threat to the unit.
To be a MARINE you have to trust, and have the trust of each and every member of your unit. If you have one homophobe in that group that cohessive nature is lost and that is the true threat the Marines face with this.
I would ask the question of gay Marines, would they tell if they could, I would say that for all the reasons I have given here they would answer NO 9 out of 10 times.
And so we see that the problem is the homophobes and homophobic attitude, not the homosexuals.
...and our Marines put faith in their comrades, their unit commanders and generals, not in our politicians, which is what you want us to believe.
A Marine who serves for 20 years can serve under 4-5 presidents, while his fellow Marines serve along with him. Marines know that the civilians are in ultimate control of the military, but their loyalty is with the country and the Corps, not to the politicians. As soon as the men figure out that they are being disrespected, and treated like a social science experiment by the civilian leadership, they will leave the Corps.
I knew of men who left the Corps simply because they refused to serve under Pres. Clinton.
As they should have, they put their political believes above their oath to the Constitution and their service to all Americans.
For all of you who do not understand the Marine mentality I will help you a little bit. As a former Marine and child of a father who chose the gay lifestyle, I share my point of view.
The Marine Corps is the elite club designed for one purpose and that is to kill the enemy without having to think about it. You may not like this club because we are designed for a purpose you can not understand, but we exsist for a reason.
The problem with gays or women in combat has less to do with the surface problem and more to do with one simple thing, CHANGE. Injecting anything that is percieved to be a threat to the trust level is a threat to the unit.
To be a MARINE you have to trust, and have the trust of each and every member of your unit. If you have one homophobe in that group that cohessive nature is lost and that is the true threat the Marines face with this.
I would ask the question of gay Marines, would they tell if they could, I would say that for all the reasons I have given here they would answer NO 9 out of 10 times.
I was not a Marine. I was however a member of the U.S. Submarine forces. I respect what the Marines do, (I couldn't do it), while all of the Marines I have met, respected what I did, because most of them stated they could not do what I did.
I also understand what unit cohesion is all about. Just like Marines, we on a sub have to work together, in very close quarters. After 6 months at sea, pulling back into home port, puts tensions very VERY high. (Sailors call it channel fever). I have seen fistfights over a dirty look, I can't even imagine throwing any more tension into that. Let's magnify that by introducing that into a group of people trained to kill...
No one has answered my question.. What if the Commandant is right?
Then he must feel the nation is safer with felons and high school drop outs to fill the ranks. The militiary has always been a conservative organiztion, betweeen 1940 and 1946 surveys of the troops reflected extreme ignorance and fear of Jews and African Americans being in the service.
From Mr. Conservative, Barry Goldwater:
"It's no great secret that military studies have proved again and again that there's no valid reason for keeping the ban on gays...Nobody thought that blacks or women could ever be integrated into the military. Many thought that an all-volunteer force could never protect our national interest...
The conservative movement, to which I subscribe, has as one of its basic tenets the belief that government should stay out of people's private lives. Government governs best when it governs least - and stays out of the impossible task of legislating morality. But legislating someone's version of morality is exactly what we do by perpetuating discrimination against gays...
When you get down to it, no American able to serve should be allowed, much less given an excuse, not to serve his or her country. We need all our talent."
It's not about discrimination, as if being a gay man is the same as having a different color skin.
If you fling open the door and allow gays and lesbians to serve openly, then you have just created a logistical nightmare. How long have women been a part of the active duty Naval forces? And only just now, we built a submarine with birthing and shower areas for women. Why do you think we bothered doing that? Now tell me how we address the life on a submarine when we go from having only two sexual variations of sailors, to having six? No, it is not about bigotry.
I was not a Marine. I was however a member of the U.S. Submarine forces. I respect what the Marines do, (I couldn't do it), while all of the Marines I have met, respected what I did, because most of them stated they could not do what I did.
I also understand what unit cohesion is all about. Just like Marines, we on a sub have to work together, in very close quarters. After 6 months at sea, pulling back into home port, puts tensions very VERY high. (Sailors call it channel fever). I have seen fistfights over a dirty look, I can't even imagine throwing any more tension into that. Let's magnify that by introducing that into a group of people trained to kill...
No one has answered my question.. What if the Commandant is right?
Then you know what i mean, we just want to do our jobs, and not be distracted. The sailors and Marines i knew talked about sex day in and out, and we are supposed to believe submarine life would remain the same if the Navy tossed in a few women on the boat? You saw a fist fight over a skin mag, can you imagine if it was over the real thing? But at least the sub with women on it has separate living and shower areas.
...and our Marines put faith in their comrades, their unit commanders and generals, not in our politicians, which is what you want us to believe.
A Marine who serves for 20 years can serve under 4-5 presidents, while his fellow Marines serve along with him. Marines know that the civilians are in ultimate control of the military, but their loyalty is with the country and the Corps, not to the politicians. As soon as the men figure out that they are being disrespected, and treated like a social science experiment by the civilian leadership, they will leave the Corps.
I knew of men who left the Corps simply because they refused to serve under Pres. Clinton.
Marines do put faith into one another, but they do so on the fact that those marines can do the job. They put their faith in their chain of command. That chain of command involves the civilian command authority. It's the way it is, the way it was and has been. A Marine's loyalty is to the Constitution of the United States. That Constitution lays out the chain of command. Men and women of the armed forces are always disrespected and used and abused by those who wish to use them as pawns, as advertising material, as a talking point, as a means to an end for as long as they've been in existence, especially by those who wish to advance their own political agendas.
I know several enlisted and officers who left the Corp and other branches simply because they refused to be used as fodder and serve under another Bush. I understood their positions.
However, those who leave simply due to political concerns, never really were true to the calling in the first place. Those who stay, know that while the more things change, the more they stay the same.
I was not a Marine. I was however a member of the U.S. Submarine forces. I respect what the Marines do, (I couldn't do it), while all of the Marines I have met, respected what I did, because most of them stated they could not do what I did.
I also understand what unit cohesion is all about. Just like Marines, we on a sub have to work together, in very close quarters. After 6 months at sea, pulling back into home port, puts tensions very VERY high. (Sailors call it channel fever). I have seen fistfights over a dirty look, I can't even imagine throwing any more tension into that. Let's magnify that by introducing that into a group of people trained to kill...
No one has answered my question.. What if the Commandant is right?
If he's right, then it's a very, very sad commentary on the character and professionalism of our fighting men. Some 40 countries have integrated open homosexuals into their militaries, without separate accommodations, and without any difficulties whatsoever (and as early as 1974 to boot).
Then you know what i mean, we just want to do our jobs, and not be distracted. The sailors and Marines i knew talked about sex day in and out, and we are supposed to believe submarine life would remain the same if the Navy tossed in a few women on the boat? You saw a fist fight over a skin mag, can you imagine if it was over the real thing? But at least the sub with women on it has separate living and shower areas.
Women on subs are fine, as long as you staffed the sub with only women. Based on the amount of tension on a submarine, let alone the close quarters and the temptation it may cause, I don't believe a mixed crew is a good idea.
I may very well be wrong, but years of experience tell me something else.
Having served in the Marine Corps in Vietnam I know a little bit about unit cohesion and morale. The last thing you want to be thinking about as you're trying to patch together a buddy who is wounded is whether you need to worry about contracting AIDS from his blood. Is that nitty gritty enough for you?
So the HIV positive Medic will think twice before exposing his contaminants to a wounded soldier?
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Eloquently put
