Well I don't know. I posted as an individual Marine. I do not lead the team of service members around here. This thread is about the Marine Corps, not the general service member. This situation is going to affect all four differently because of the specialized natures and missions. Unit cohesion in the Marine Corps has a great deal more importance attached to it than in the Air Force. The close living conditions of Marines and Sailors are not mimicked in the Army. Etc. So when people produce Pentagon numbers that do not reflect the branches broken down, the numbers are a bit deceitful.
DADT is also an issue largely misunderstood by civilians. As the numbers show, the DADT has been a burden. It was a way for non-gays to get out of obligation....
Code:
YEAR Coast Guard Marines Navy Army Air Force Total
1994 0 36 258 136 187 617
1995 15 69 269 184 235 772
1996 12 60 315 199 284 870
1997 10 78 413 197 309 1,007
1998 14 77 345 312 415 1,163
1999 12 97 314 271 352 1,046
2000 19 114 358 573 177 1,241
2001 14 115 314 638 217 1,273
2002 29 109 218 429 121 906
2003 - - - - - 787
2004 15 59 177 325 92 668
2005 16 75 177 386 88 742
2006 - - - - - 623
2007 - - - - - 627
2008 - - - - - 619
2009 - - - - - 428
Total 156 889 3,158 3,650 2,477 13,389
Notice how the numbers rose when the order to get rid of "gays" came down? Notice how these numbers escallated all the way to 9/11? And do we notice how quickly it became unacceptable to simply proclaim homosexuality to get out of war deployment? This is no coincidence. The military has largely been ignoring DADT because it's BS. This is why the Air Force quickly jumped on that federal judge's band wagon and ended DADT as their policy. This is why the Pentagon came out and suspended DADT for all branches shortly after. We are fed up with it. But wasn't it the White House that came out later and insisted that DADT remain the policy until they decide? It's the same old story. Good credit will always be stolen by politicians and bad credit will always be hoisted towards the military. Politicians drive us into war via their failure and then insist that the military bring them victory while following their irresponsible politically based rules. Of course, any military imperfection (under Republican and Democrat meddling) becomes an excuse for civilians to declare total failure, but when that victory comes its all about what great diplomats the fat asses in Washington were. And here we are with DADT being an issue that the military was all about ending, but are not allowed because Washington politicians want their credit for getting rid of it in the end.
It's Washington that forces the issue and non-serving gays that insist that serving gays bear their social burdens. Most of the military is just fed up with the whole affair. But like I stated, loong after gays have "rights" in the military, they will still be denied marriage in the same civilian courts that insist that they have the right to die for their coutnry, but not allowed to be happy in it. Add Hollywood, TV, the NFL, and any other organization of civilian manhood and gays are hardly achieving equality. People want the military to be the last bastion of anti-gay hold outs, but forcing an organization of professionals to obey orders is far easier than asking a bunch of civilians to live up to their bitching and do the right thing. Good luck forcing the civilian world to obey orders so that gays can feel better about themselves.
