Don’t Ask Don’t Tell
April 21, 2008 by Sweet Pea
Don’t Ask Don’t Tell; Unless Your Recruits are Felons
By Sweet Pea
Something is very wrong with an institution that throws out law abiding gays and lesbians but which will then turn around and recruit convicted felons to help fill its ranks. What am I talking about? I am talking about the fact that the United States Army and the United States Marine Corps has been openly recruiting convicted felons to help reach desired recruitment levels.
In 2007 the United States Army recruited 511 convicted felons. That’s an increase of 262 from 2006. In a similar vein the United States Marine Corps recruited 350 convicted felons in 2007, marking an increase of 242 over the 2006 level. Most of the felonies involved drug offenses and burglaries although there were several incidents of aggravated assault,robbery, and incident with weapons while nine involved manslaughter or vehicular homicide. In defense of the military some of these offenses were convicted while the recruits were still minors, but that doesn’t change the fact that while thousands of patriotic gays and lesbians would be willing to serve their country, the military has opted to enforce a Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy which still punishes those gays and lesbians who are either outed or who decide to leave the proverbial closet. Hell, even retired soldiers can be both, personally ostracized and financially penalized if their sexual orientation is uncovered or revealed, but here we are recruiting violent thugs, essentially giving social approval to everything from burglary and drug crimes to manslaughter and vehicular homicide. What’s wrong with this picture. Oh. I know. Could it be that the United States military is sending the message that it’s better to be a violent, convicted felon than it is to be a patriotic, law-abiding gay or lesbian? And please, don’t hand me any drivel about how homosexual acts are illegal in certain states. those laws were rendered moot and irrelevant when a conserative Supreme Courtstruck down that Texas Sodomy law. We are not talking about illegal sex acts. But we are talking about how the military is sanctioning violent crimes against society and how the United States Military is playing a sick, demented game with the American people,the GLBT community in particular.
Moreover, the fact that the military even considers recruiting convicted felons tells us that the right wing is lying when it says that recruitment is up and that we have an excess of 3000 soldiers and marines over the stated recruitment goals. What it does tell us is that this war is so unpopular that the military, the Army and Marines, have been forced to scrape the bottom of the barrel to meet its goals for the year 2007. This despite claims by Fox News and other Republican mouth pieces that everything is just peachy and that young men and women are breaking down the doors to sign up.
In closing I would like to add the following. I really don’t know why I am surprised about this. It was only a few years ago that we learned that the military was recruiting skin heads and gang members who were serving their time and then bringing what they had learned in the military about guerrilla fighting, house to house combat, to the American Streets. Again the military overlooked patriotic gays and lesbians and gave an official thumbs up to the recruitment of Nazified gang members. Additionally the military never bothered to consider the fact that America’s police forces might not be prepared to handle military-trained gang members.
That’s a rather high price to pay for institutionalized homophobia in the United States military.
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I saw a documentary about how the military is also *looking the other way* re gays in the military. Some have outed themselves & because times are hard & recruits are down, they have let it go. One soldier said he told his commanding officers he was gay & they ignored it- until the soldoer did te on national news interview, and then they were forced to dismiss him (follow their own convoluted rules). But the military is convoluted & they function (if you can call it that), however ever they want, and manipulate the data to their liking. That is old news.
But I must admit, passing over potential recruits that are highly qualified with clean records for felons is just a sign of how desperate times call for desperate measures.
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Here’s the irony: If a soldier is convicted of a felony while on active duty, he can be kicked out of the military (and usually is) because once you have a felony you are not supposed to have access to guns. But, now, due to severe shortages on the front-lines, they are allowing felons to join the military, despite the fact that in the civilian world many of them would not be allowed near guns and in some cases (sexual offenses) would not be allowed near children (there are usually a number of schools on military bases). Where I am there have been confirmed reports of rapes in military housing (these are private homes, not the barracks). I have seen young men beat each other to a bloody pulp in ways I have never seen them take each other down before (more ruthless than ever). The incidents of violence are more prevelant and devastating after they come back from a war zone (Afghanistan/Iraq). It’s actually getting scary around here because where you used to have a false sense of security that most recruits were trying to be upstanding citizens, knowing that your neighbor might likely be a convicted felon gives many of us hives. That’s why I thank my lucky stars that I work very close (within 5 minute drive) of my home and that my son stays up and waits for me, no matter how late I am. My husband has suggested that I consider carrying, I just don’t feel like jumping thru the Provost’s or Garrison’s hoops to be able to do so.
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