Mike Dunford was a graduate student in the Department of Zoology at the University of Hawaii, Manoa, where he studied evolution. Life as an army spouse has since moved him on to Pensacola, where he's currently trying to figure out what to do next. While he's doing that, he writes stuff here, although not usually in the third person. He's also a contributer to ...and he is us.
Once again, it apears that someone in the service has used the incredibly stupid "don't ask, don't tell" policy as a weapon against another service memeber, resulting in the army forcing out someone that they need. In this instance, the victim was a gay military intelligence [feel free to insert comments about oxymoronity here] sergeant, schooled by the army at great expense as an Arabic linguist. According to the Chicago Tribune/AP article cited in Ed's post, some 800 individuals with critically needed skills have been discharged as a result of "don't ask, don't tell" in recent years. Strange as this might seem, it's not the only way that the Army has been using its personnel policies as a tool for efficient self-mutilation.
Heterosexual sex, under certain circumstances, can get you kicked out just about as easily as homosexual sex can. In some cases, you don't even need to have had the actual sex - accusations are taken seriously, even if they don't come from an involved party, and are difficult to disprove. People have been fired left and right for having affairs while deployed.
Personally, I'm not a big fan of adultery, and there are circumstances where the activity is so inappropriate that action is warrented, but most of the things I've heard about don't come close to that threshold. I've heard of cases where good commanders were fired for sleeping with someone, and in at least one case the only real problem was that the two involved parties were deployed - the two weren't married, and they weren't in the same chain of command. It takes little, unfortunately, to destroy a good army career.
Right now, we've got a very small army that's being asked to do a very large amount of work. Recruiting people is difficult, and it takes years for people to develop good command skills (either as officers or as non-commissioned officers). Having the morality police running around firing people is just plain dumb.
Comments
Not to mention the fact that "Uncle Sam wants YOU to be chaste!" isn't the greatest enticement ever.
Posted by: pough | July 28, 2006 6:15 PM
I'm wondering...
Has anyone tracked whether or not the "don't ask/don't tell" dischargees have been dealt a favor -- for instance have any of them been re-engaged (for other federal services or as consultants) at much higher wages?
Posted by: evan | August 15, 2006 12:04 PM