Rainbows and olive drab

AP ran this yesterday:

The Defense Department starts the clock next week on what is expected to be a several-year process in lifting its ban on gays from serving openly in the military.

I don't know about you, but that wording makes it sound like it's a done deal.  The impetus behind the article (you can read the rest of the article here) was President Obama's State of the Union Address where he stated,

This year ..., I will work with Congress and our military to finally repeal the law that denies gay Americans the right to serve the country they love because of who they are. It's the right thing to do.

First things first.  Barack Obama commands our military.  One of the little-honored aspects of our nation's greatness is that our military is run by civilians.  At the tippy-top of the chain of command in every service branch is a civilian Secretary (Secretary of the Army, Secretary of the Navy, etc.).  Over those folks is the POTUS.  The civilian says, "Jump!" and the general with his entire service behind him says, "How high?" as they're already getting into their pre-leap crouch. 

So if the Commander in Chief of the military, Barack H. Obama, tells the military that homosexuals will now be allowed freely and without retribution, that's the way it is.  You don't need some high fallutin study to figure out how to implement it.  Officers carry out the orders of their commanders...whether they agree with the order or not.

Now that I've acknowledged that the CinC can do as he pleases (for the most part), let's move on to green-lighting homosexual behavior in the military.  It is dumber than a pile of rocks.  That said, bring it on!  Whoa.  Yeah, that was a bit abrupt on the turn reversal.  Sit with me a spell.  Here's why I believe it to be crazy.

Our national defense is not the place to experiment with social mores.  Culture can vascillate from chastity belts to Chastity Bono, but that doesn't mean that our military should follow suit.  It must maintain the core character necessary to defend our nation.

An example of such tinkering was Bill Clinton's opening up more front-line roles for women.  With the job market wide-open for women, it seemed a natural progression to put Tanya in a tank.  So thinking that flying fighters and fomenting filibusters was no different, we now have women carrying rifles wearing flak vests in Iraq.  Some problems have surfaced, known for millenia by men of the military but unforeseen by myopic politicos.

1. Men and women are different - Strength.  Yes, Virginia, a few women can lift more and run farther than their peers of the testicular gland, but they are the rare exception.  Most women do not come close to the sheer strength or stamina of a man.  What's that mean to a combat unit?  A handicap.  Here's the deal.  We don't need women in those roles.  So why put them there at all except for the fact that Helen Reddy is woman.  Hear her roar.
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2. Men and women are different - Making babies.  Leftist sophisticates look down their teleprompter raised noses at those who would suggest that men and women in high-stress, close-quartered jobs with little by way of recreation in their off-duty hours will end up making babies.  Generals and admirals agonize over what to do to prevent copulating within their commands.  One poor general went so far as to prohibit it under penalty of UCMJ action.  That went over like a SCUD missile (here).  Still, pregnancies are epidemic (but we do know what causes it).  A woman in a combat environ or aboard ship who winds up with a little swabbie in the galley oven will soon find herself with a one-way ticket stateside.  Her replacement?  Hah!  With as thin as Congress has cut our military, most positions are barely one-deep as is.  The unit will be left one man short.  Twice over.
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3. Men and women are different - Chivalry is not dead.  If Billy Hank and I share a fox hole, when shells start exploding a sand wedge to our right, Billy Hank is going to be concerned for his posterior and I will be concerned with mine.  That innate fear and self-preservation will serve to make us a lethal tandem.  Substitute Billy Hank for Billy Jean and I'm more apt to be looking over my shoulder at how she's doing.  Why?  Because man, by his nature, will seek to protect the filly's posterior than he will his own.  No, it's not environmental.  It's natural.  It's how we are created.  By my flinching toward Billy Jean, I put the both of us at greater risk.  It doesn't matter if she's in the fox hole next to me or in the airplane at one-mile line abreast in an air combat element.  Do we want to improve combat lethality or women's self-esteem?

Those three little items, seemingly as obvious as the difference between boy and girl, received no attention when President W. J. Clinton deemed the lassies fit for more rigorous military positions.  Inserting women into such positions has caused some problems within combat and near-combat units.  And here's another point.  Because someone can does not mean someone should.

Turning toward the homosexual question, the same leftist ignorance surfaces.  No, we don't have to worry about pregnancy (though that does cause issues with trying to call such a union a family, doesn't it?).  We don't have to worry about strength, either, but there are issues.

1. Habitation.  Enlisted troops within all services are bunked en masse.  Barracks full of dudes.  Hot bunks stacked within the confined spaces of naval vessels.  How are these quarters divided?  Boys and girls.  Pray, tell, how do you divide them when men can live out their sexual urges?  How do you separate homosexual partners?  Do you ask them to simply curtail their hunger?  How has that worked with men and women?  How comfortable will guys be with guys with homosexual appetites living in close proximity?  If you say they shouldn't have an issue with it, then men and women who are not involved in a relationship should be able to cohabit, too.  It's a ludicrous rationale.  When you begin to tear down one wall, you put the entire structure in jeopardy.
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2. Sexual creep.  An eighteen-year old, male private loves another eighteen-year old male private.  Cool, says the CinC.  But what if the first private loves a male from his high school who happens to be seventeen years, three hundred days old?  Is that a crime?  What difference does two months make?  Two years?  What if the 35-year old major loves the thirteen-year old boy in his neighborhood?  Where do you now draw the line?  Why?  If Lois can love Louise, why can't Larry love his labrador?  You may say that's extreme and hyperbolic reasoning, but when any sexual appetite outside the natural appetite between man and woman gets blessed by the government, every other group will want recognition.  Ask the polygamists in southern Utah.
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3. Discipline.  Serving in the military in times past meant saying "no" to your libido.  Going away to war meant leaving the ladies behind.  While raping and pillaging has been the way of conquering militarys in past centuries, that was not how the American military began.  Such conduct flew in the face of Washington's General Orders and in the early army's idea of good order and discipline.  The man who could discipline himself in small things could be trusted to discipline himself with greater responsibilities.  With "Don't ask/Don't tell" in place, the soldier with homosexual proclivities subordinated his appetites for something greater, serving his country, moreso than the airman who was making it behind the hangar with another airman and ended up getting her pregnant thereby hurting the entire unit.
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4. Him.  There's another problem, one we don't like to talk about.  It's God.  Rather, he's not the problem but our ignoring his directions and designs is a problem.  He created Tab A to fit into Slot B.  He states that misusing that glorious design is a serious offense to Him.  That would indicate that while I might have a particular desire, dwelling upon it and acting upon it become the problem.  It is interesting to note that past civilizations that have embraced homosexual normalcy have gone the way of the dodo.

With that kind of pile, why do I think the military should dispense with its sexual distinctions?  Because they haven't kept their own UCMJ for years.  Adultery is punishable under the UCMJ (here).  When's the last time you've heard anyone hit for such an offense?  We have erroneously come to believe that what takes place in the bedroom has no impact upon what I do on the battlefield.  The ancients of the military (those who crafted the UCMJ) think it bears directly.  The occasional colonel will get a slap on the wrist for a dalliance with an enlisted troop, but adultery?!?  The masses titter.

Drinking and driving?  Huge punishments here, but with the number of kegs that flow at parties, you have to wonder what's going on.  Drunkenness?  Not a problem as long as you don't drop trou in the middle of the street.  If you're an "ugly" drunk, then and only then will you get conduct unbecoming.

And what about "carnal knowledge"?  Was a time when that was seen as an affront to military integrity.  It's still on the books.  Sex outside of marriage as punitive?  How Ozzie and Harriet!  No, how biblical.

Our military's law is rooted in Judeo-Christian morality.  Since our nation continues to divorce itself from God Almighty, why would we expect the military to follow suit?  Who cares whether such restrictions improve their ability to meet the enemy in battle, we want to appease the loins of the masses, don't we?

So where to from here?  As Archie Bunker would say, "Right down the terlet, Edith.  Right down the terlet."  Homosexuality will be blessed within the military within a year.  No surprise.  But if we're going to drop the moral pretense regarding homosexuality, let's drop the moral hypocrisy in other areas.  Why are strippers forbidden at the clubs?  Why can't General X romance Technical Sergeant Y as long as they're both happy?  Who cares what their families think?  We'll let them use medicinal pot to get over it.

Or perhaps the military could simply honor the God who made them.  No, he has been dismissed from the discussion long ago.