esrosedotblog

NOT ONE FAULT

Today's report on DADT a year later.

An Accountability Moment

Nothing adverse. Everything good.

There are still some gay bashing incidents by, usually Marine, enlisted men but these are isolated and probably the same as if these thugs were on the outside.

Leonard Matlovich did not live to see this.

Labels: gay military, gay rights

BIG GAY HISTORIC DAY

Labels: gay military, gay rights

DONE AND DONE

Navy Lt. Gary Ross, Partner Dan Swezy Wed As Military's Gay Ban Formally Ends

Just as the formal repeal of the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy took effect, Navy Lt. Gary Ross and his partner were married before a small group of family and friends.

The two men, who'd been together 11 years, decided to marry in Vermont in part because the state is in the Eastern time zone.

That way, they were able to recite their vows at the stroke of midnight - at the first possible moment after the ban ended.

"I think it was a beautiful ceremony. The emotions really hit me...but it's finally official," Ross said early Tuesday.

Labels: gay military

LIVING UNDER DON'T ASK DON'T TELL

Labels: gay military, gay rights

HISTORIC

Army Sends Official Notice That 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' is Repealed.

Do you know how long this has been coming and going?

Done. Over. Finished.

Hurray.

Labels: gay history, gay liberation, gay life, gay military, gay rights

ARRIVED

John is in Milan, in his room at the hotel and has already had a gelato.

There is a fuckup with the phone he rented for use there but we can deal. It is OK.

We aren't going to talk much and had already decided on rendezvous times.

Booker is a little spooked. This morning's schedule was not the same. We did an early walk, I am not going to the gym but will be going to Meetings and the store every other morning.

He is getting it.

I managed to make the bed by myself. I don't think I have done it in twenty years.

When I was in the Army I was the best a couple of times in boot camp. A model soldier when it came up to the trivial but high leverage skills. I was also best dressed at the guard duty showdown every time and was let go for the night.

How did we get to the Army from John being in Milan?

Labels: gay military, travel

FROM THE PAST

Charles Manatt, Former Democratic National Chairman, Dies at 75

I was in ROTC summer camp with Chuck in 1956. Quartermaster Corps. Fort Lee Virginia.

We never connected again but I kept track of him over the years and watched, with pleasure, his tenure with the Democratic apparatus including being DNC chair and also the head of Bill Clinton's campaign.

I think Michelle Obama spent some time in his firm or something like that.

It is not unusual to see people my own age felled by a stroke or heart attack.

It's weird.

I notice the age and then pull back and disqualify myself from contention for the big prize. The last one.

When I know or knew someone it is a little more sobering. But not much.

There is some nostalgia, the memory of younger days and then, blam, into the present and back to work.

So long Chuck. You and I had about the same proficiency for the military. Couldn't even shoot straight. But we had a lot of fun trying.

Why were we even there?

In those days of the draft, one alternative open to a college guy was to go into ROTC and sign up for six months active duty and six and a half years in the Reserve or go on active duty for two years and then Reserve for four. Or something like that.

It was known that one could negotiate the Reserve part and I did. I served the time but not very seriously and not in a unit.

That summer when Chuck and I met, the ROTC camp at Fort Lee was filled with people like us who saw this option as the best of a set of bad choices. It also seemed as though my company and platoon had more of us fake soldiers than any other.

We excelled at fooling around.

Always well dressed, passing inspections, gung ho on field exercises, we were, in a way, mocking the reality by taking it seriously in an unseriously way. Irony.

If you look at this official photo of the older Mannatt, you will see a slight glint of a smile that says "even this isn't to be taken too seriously".

Our platoon won the mock battle at the three day bivouac which everyone dreaded but somehow converted into a lark. Camping. Chuck and I were on the CO's staff. Another buddy who couldn't not take it seriously even if he did not.

The conversion of a painful duty into a brilliant experience with intensity and purpose for an ironic end was a great lesson for us.

We would never, ever be in the Army. This was it. So we made more than the most of it.

"If you are stuck in an asshole situation, get over yourself, take it in, have fun. Make it your own. Join others in the fun."

Labels: Democrats, gay military, nostalgia

CERTIFIED

The official end of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’

It has been a long trek from the days that Sam Nunn (a Democratic senator from Georgia) got all hot and bothered about protecting navy men in submarines from gays particularly when they were showering.

Gay Shipmates? Senators Listen As Sailors Talk (1993)

He didn't know, apparently, that you can have sex with your clothes on or off and not only that, you can have sex in a senate office on the desk without anyone being the wiser.

To say nothing about the fact that all submarines had some gay men on them just based on the odds. And surely there was sex.

Sam Nunn.

Now women serve on subs and whether sex occurs or not is the least important part of it if it is consensual and all. Not fraternizing. And so on.

I am probably too crude about this but DADT has been an incredible waste of political rhetoric and, shamefully, the loss of careers and even lives for gay men and women who only wanted to serve proudly.

The dark night is over.

More crudities.

For Sam Fucking Nunn. Wanker.

Labels: gay military

TELL IT TO THE MARINES

This is great.

How to End a Culture War

Marine Sgt. Maj. Micheal Barrett is almost a textbook Marine. He’s the service’s top non-commissioned officer; he’s enjoyed an extraordinary career including combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan; and when Barrett, the Command Sergeant Major of the Marine Corps, talks, those around him are inclined to listen.

With this in mind, Barrett was recently selected to be the senior enlisted adviser to Marine Corps Commandant Gen. James Amos, and joined Amos last week in visits to Marine bases in the Pacific. After addressing several issues of importance to the Corps, Barrett talked about the end of the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy.

“Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution is pretty simple,” he told a group of Marines at a base in South Korea. “It says, ‘Raise an army.’ It says absolutely nothing about race, color, creed, sexual orientation.

“You all joined for a reason: to serve,” he continued. “To protect our nation, right?”

“Yes, sergeant major,” Marines replied.

“How dare we, then, exclude a group of people who want to do the same thing you do right now, something that is honorable and noble?” Sgt. Maj. Barrett continued, raising his voice just a notch. “Right?”

Marines!

Labels: gay military

IN CASE YOU WONDERED

This is good news and shows, still, that the GOoPers just don't get it, even when their hearts seem in the right place. Or not.

DADT Repeal Going Smoothly

I like that part where "it happens to be the truth".

Something unique in the annals of congressional hearings, I suppose.

Labels: gay military

SOON

We read that the branches will be given a three month deadline for getting it done.

He gave it all his stuff last night.

Labels: gay history, gay military, gay rights

DON'T ASK DON'T TELL BEHIND THE SCENES

Labels: Administration Obama, gay history, gay military, gay rights

IT IS DONE

You may not have time to watch all of this but it is historic. Watch at about 6:30 for a story and toward the end for the grand stand up and cheer finale. About 22.

The room is full of people who were drummed out of the military for being gay. Very moving.

Labels: Administration Obama, gay liberation, gay military, gay rights

Labels: gay liberation, gay military, gay rights

THE PROCESS COUNTS

Obama held to his wish to have a good process to institute the new rules on gay and lesbian military. He wanted the full Congress to repeal the act and he wanted the Services to agree that it was OK. They didn't have to like it although some of them do.

The NYT summarizes his victory thusly.

More than 12,500 service members have been discharged since
the policy was mandated by Congress in 1993. A Pentagon
report released on Nov. 30 concluded that allowing gays to
serve openly in the armed forces presents a low risk to the
military's effectiveness, even at a time of war, and that 70
percent of service members believe that the impact of
repealing the law would be either positive, mixed or of no
consequence at all.

There could not be a finer foundation.

And what now? I am sure that the whiny bastards will say that it is his fault that it took so long. Fuck them.

Progress takes awhile.

I was turned on by boys when I was four or five. I got into trouble for hugging too much.

In 1951 or 2 when I knew that I liked boys better than girls there was nowhere to go. When I went to college I had gay experiences within the first month. He hid.

In 1975 when I had a boyfriend/partner it was risky to be seen as intimate in public. We danced at the South End Historical Society Ball and got the tsk tsk from the old queens.

In 2008, we got married.

Fifty years.

Take a breath you guys. Be grateful. Now that you have bitched so much, how about some of you enlist!

Labels: Administration Obama, gay liberation, gay military, gay rights

THIS JUST IN

Repeal of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ Advances

This is very exciting.

I think that I had decided that it was a goner when the bills started to back up in the Senate.

Obama wanted START, there was the DREAM act for illegal immigrant college students and the Omnibus budget bill.

The Omnibus bill failed for GOP political reasons and so the way was opened up. Today they didn't go for DREAM. And so the doors opened to the DADT vote.

This give plenty of time before START.

There is sufficient support that the DADT will be repealed. But it hasn't happened yet.

A lot of people worked very hard for this. It is a good thing that has happened.

Obama took a lot of heat for not pouring it on but he is not King. And he had other priorities. Mostly that START get done.

What happened here is that a number of GOP Senators had their heads turned by the relentless work of the "gay lobby". I know. There isn't supposed to be one but there is.

We wait. It is a big day.

Labels: Administration Obama, gay liberation, gay military, gay rights

DON'T ASK BUT TELLupdated

Days of yore when pirates sailed the sea and men were men.

What I like about this video is that it shows the enduring power of gay love in spite of devastating punishment and even death. A serious side to a kind of funny number but there it is. A lot of strength here.

It's a pretty good video.

Labels: gay military, music

VETERANS DAY

I am not a veteran. I am a retired USAR. US Army Reserve.

A six month wonder. Summer camp and six months active duty. Three months of that was more training and three months were to protect my nation from the rowdies at the Fort Lee Officers' Open Mess (Officers' Club).

Then six years of weekly meetings with a reserve unit and two weeks summer camp with an obligation to be called up with my unit, if I had one which I did not, or as an individual in my specialty. Quartermaster. Club Officer. I had a nice military presentation.

Of course, this is absolutely correct. I should not be thought of as a veteran. I was ROTC because I did not want to get drafted.

Even in my six years I didn't do much. I went to summer camp but my advisor in Philadelphia, where I was located then, got me out of unit activity. A thing about my civilian work. I had to do correspondence courses.

Not very distinguished.

But here is what my brief time in the military taught me.

I met the guys who were the real soldiers. They were dedicated. They were fine people.

They knew who they were and were willing to do the ultimate to meet the mission goals.

They were fun and funny. They had a lot of ideas that were different than anything I had seen before.

My CO was a Captain who really had not much of a career. He had been passed over several times. But he stayed. He liked the life. I would not have wanted that life myself but I honored that in him.

I learned a lot from this man. One thing which sounds negative was how to work the system.

He could yank the cords and get stuff done. It is just that he was a little lazy and his private poker games got some publicity.

He was funny as hell.

I suppose that isn't a meritorious military story but he was a great boss. He was clear in his orders. And most of all, he backed me up. I was on nights when all hell could break loose at the bar or anywhere on the grounds. He was always there on the phone and I used him but he let me carry the thing out and to use my judgement.

So I got a lot more out of the Army than it got out of me.

My summer camps were non-unit. We were sent to Ft. Lee to be attached to some real military group so we could learn something. We often did. I had several friends and we would go together.

Once, we got the guy we were attached with to let us go south to Fayetteville to be with a group of Rangers who were practicing air drops. They did not want us around. So we stayed in the motel for a few days and the guy signed our papers. Laid back.

So thank the gods that I never got sent to war. But pray for the ones who do and are committed and are there because they want to be and are proud to be.

Labels: gay military, life

OK TO BE GAY

This is good news.

Troops OK With Gay Troops

70% think it is fine to get rid of DADT.

You realize, of course, that the gay troops are already there. It is not going to increase the percentage of gay men and women in the military.

This has always been the case.

Without knowing it, straight men and women have been working, socializing and yes, that old bugaboo, showering with gay men and women. It is just that no one could ask or tell.

The Marines are less enthusiastic. I suppose because the Marines are so homoerotic in the first place. It will take the sting out of shacking up with a buddy for the weekend. Less of an SM experience. Low risk.

I am only working with the data on ex-marines anecdotes here.

OK. What next? How can we get a few old men like John McCain who will never shower with anyone, not even Cindy, to get over themselves and their harrumphing and just get out of the way.

I am guessing that there are at least two gay men in this shower.

Labels: gay military, gay rights

AT EASE

So we get held up again.

Military Policy on Gays to Stand, Pending Appeal

The old army line was "hurry up and wait". That is so descriptive of this process.

People are impatient. But it does have to go down the right way or it will not work.

Forget executive orders and the like.

I know that people who have not served find it difficult to see what is so hard about implementing this. But the military runs on manuals and regulations. All of these will have to be rewritten. And no, I am not an apologist for the Obamas.

Not one step of the process in achieving gay rights has been either easy or quick. The reason for doing this, in the first place, is to undo the things that have been done for centuries.

And believe me, it will take less time than that to turn the tide back.

Labels: gay military, gay rights