When it comes to kicking Americans out of the military because they’re gay, the occasional defense — offered by conservatives who know the policy is absurd — is that the Pentagon is merely following the law. If Congress wants able-bodied, patriotic, American volunteers to join the Armed Forces, regardless of sexual orientation, lawmakers should change the policy. If not, the Defense Department doesn’t have a lot of choice.
Except, that’s wrong. “60 Minutes” is scheduled to have a report tonight on gays in the wartime military, and the apparent trend to occasionally disregard “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” in the face of recruiting difficulties, retention challenges, and a severely overstretched fighting force. In one instance, CBS’s Lesley Stahl spoke with a gay solider who not only disclosed his sexuality to his superior officers, but “even offered graphic proof.” He was neither discharged nor reprimanded, DADT be damned.
[Army Sgt. Darren Manzella], a medic who served in Iraq for a year, currently serves as medical liaison for the 1st Cavalry Division stationed in Kuwait, where he says he is “out” to his entire chain of command, including a three-star general. After leaving Iraq, he started receiving anonymous emails warning him about his openness that suggested he was being watched, so he went to his commander to head off an investigation he felt was coming. “I didn’t know how else to do it,” he tells Stahl, acknowledging that he initiated an investigation of himself by violating the policy. “I felt more comfortable being the one to say, ‘This is what is real,'” Manzella says.
He then says his commander reported him, as he was obliged to do, and then “I had to go see my battalion commander, who read me my rights,” he says. He turned over pictures of him and his boyfriend, including video of a passionate kiss, to aid the investigation. But to his surprise, “I was told to go back to work. There was no evidence of homosexuality,” says Manzella. “‘You’re not gay,'” he says his superiors told him. This response confused him and, he says, the closest a superior officer came to addressing his sexuality was to say “I don’t care if you’re gay or not.”
It’s apparently part of a trend. Gay soldiers discharged under the DADT policy have dropped from 1,200 a year in 2001 to less than half of that now.
A few months ago, John McCain said gay people in the military represent an “intolerable risk” to morale, cohesion, and discipline. When push comes to shove, the military apparently disagrees.