Gays responsible for Srebrenica massacre

[Alcibiades]

For general soldiers, I really don't think it's a big deal at all.  But when it comes to deployment and the infantry I think it would be a problem. We had a gay soldier serving in my company, an infantryman, and while he was an alright guy, he tried to bitch out many times to go home, openly being flamboyant and telling the chain of command while DADT was still in effect doing anything he could to get out of the deployment.  Now this is just one example, because of his situation he had to have separate living quarters, and made his situation much worse.

Was he really gay?

He was very much gay before deployment and before anything got tough, as in caught in the barracks with other guys, pierced belly button, would openly talk about gay sex to anybody who would listen.   

[garbon]

A pierced belly button?

[Martinus]

This is spot on.

Alci lad, you're a professional soldier - what did you think of the 'performance' of that general testifying before the senatorial comitee?  About his arguments and justifications to maintain the current DADT policy?  Do you think if things were in the open it would endanger units' cohesion and effectiveness?




G.

I wasn't able to hear his testimony, but my opinion on it, and I will say that many in my line of work in the military, being the infantry, is that flat out repealing it isn't a good idea.  With maybe some kind of stipulations or something to that effect I would endorse it.

For general soldiers, I really don't think it's a big deal at all.  But when it comes to deployment and the infantry I think it would be a problem. We had a gay soldier serving in my company, an infantryman, and while he was an alright guy, he tried to bitch out many times to go home, openly being flamboyant and telling the chain of command while DADT was still in effect doing anything he could to get out of the deployment.  Now this is just one example, because of his situation he had to have separate living quarters, and made his situation much worse.

When deployed, infantry are tasked out to small compounds usually living with 50-70 people in general in close proximity.  The way it is seen in general, is that combat troops can't mix gender, which is why no female soldiers are allowed in combat arms.  It would cause ridiculous amounts of problems, and I can see the same problems occurring if homosexual soldiers were intermixed within combat arms as well.  There would have to be segregated living quarters like there are for women in my opinion.  My combat outpost was all male, whenever female soldiers would come to our outpost for a night, they had to have their own room, and had to have their own bathroom and shower room guarded whenever they would use it, which was a real pain in the ass since we only had one shower and limited bathrooms as it was.  There is a zero-sex policy for deployments, and spouses are rarely together during deployments. 

There are a bunch of science tests and crap on the reactions in your brain when you see females and lovers in distress, favoritism, displaying macho tendencies, etc. 

I think that gays should be allowed in the military, but unless there are going to be all homosexual combat arms units, I don't really see it as very feasible for them to serve in them for the time being.  There's a lot of separating of the sexes in the military expressly because of the problems that arise because of it.  But I don't see that as very feasible, and I imagine that many people wouldn't see that as acceptable either.

(Haven't read over this gotta run so I'm sure its a jumbled mess, respond to it and ill clarify anything needed when I get home later tonight.)

Nothing like that has been experienced in the militaries that allow openly gay people to serve, and as far as I'm aware they are not segregating soldiers either.

Aren't there rules against "fraternization" between female and male soldiers in the US army as well? I cannot understand why such rules cannot be extended to homosexual sex either.

[Jaron]

Little known fact: My belly button is pierced.

[Martinus]

I'm more trying to say that people attracted to each other, or where one person is attracted to another whether reciprocated or not, should not be in such intimate circumstances for such a long period of time, I think it would wear on morale.  And whether true or not, if you think a person is gay and they're making remarks or looking at you funny you're going to take it differently than a guy you know is straight, just like a woman would from a man.

Basically what I'm getting at is what I said in the first sentence.  Urges become more acute, and rape and sexual assault will increase.  And then there will be cases of mixed signals etc.  It would get ugly in my opinion.  Which is why women aren't allowed.  It's not because they all can't do it, I've met many who are stronger than most men, and I'm sure many of you have as well.

Aren't there rules against sexual (or other) harassment, or sex between soldiers anyway, whether they are straight or not? This is a matter of professionalism and professional conduct, not sexual orientation. After all, gay soldiers already serve in the military.

The purpose of repealing DADT is not to have suddenly a gaggle of flamboyant nellies descend on your barracks looking for a sex adventure (this seems to be the homophobic stereotype here which appears to be completely unrealistic) but to retain professionals who are gay, but do not want to be fired because they have a same sex partner outside of the military, in the same way most straight soldiers (you included) do. (Incidentally, if you bother to take a look at all the DADT Repeal "poster boys and girls", i.e. ex soldiers who were discharged under the policy and now advocate against it, you would see how extremely restrained and professional they are in their conduct - are straight male soldiers really such horrible machismo male chauvinists and sexists that you believe their gay equivalents would be similar?)

Again, as I said, British army does not appear to be one big gay orgy despite gay (and transsexual) soldiers serving openly and not being relegated to "pink battalions" only.

[Admiral Yi]

So are most Israeli, British, for that matter, Dutch soldiers.

Even if we limit it to units deployed in the field?

[Martinus]

Marti's problem isn't his fundamental point so much of his inability to scale his response.  Martinus seems to have maybe two posting styles that of a normal poster with a penchant for slightly over the top analogies and GOING NUCLEAR.  That's nothing to do with sexuality

Indeed. I just think nuance doesn't lend itself well to Languish discourse. Nuanced posts either get ignored or (which is worse) they get a flaming response that is no different from the one an inflammatory post would get (just look at Larchie's nuanced posts recently about uniform-worship in the US, which met with a reaction from grumbler and Berkut which would be no different, had Larch said that America is a Third Reich totalitarian country).

So the cost-benefit analysis suggests you should make inflammatory rather than nuanced posts (the former requiring less energy/mental exertion than the latter) because the response will ultimately be the same. It is a classic prisoner's dilemma - do I want to be the solitary Sheilbh in the forum of Berkuts, grumblers and Martinuses (just look at PDH - he apparently made the same calculation and went from his original style of making thought-through relatively longish posts that everybody ignored to barbed Brain-style one-liners mixed with an occasional Neil-style troll ).

[Martinus]

So are most Israeli, British, for that matter, Dutch soldiers.

Even if we limit it to units deployed in the field?

Yes. Remember Prince Harry's unit being deployed to Afghanistan?

[Martinus]

Here's an article following a 19 y.o. British soldier in Afghanistan for example:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article6164691.ece

[Admiral Yi]

It does/would take a little 'getting used to'.  Of course men and women intermingling in the workplace is nothing new - even though in most cases it's under less... intimate conditions.  But we're not talking about females here since gay males are male first - homosexual second.  All iin all, nothing a thorough education cannot iron out.

And female soldiers are human first and female second.  You yourself seem to be aware of the problems that might arise when men and women are sleeping in the same foxhole under high-stress combat situations.

And I'm interested to know what that thorough education would look like in practice.  Let's say the US Army hired you to educate new recruits to be indifferent to the sexuality of their comrades.  How would you go about doing it? 

[Martinus]

For the record, the average age of the US soldiers in Iraq/Afghanistan (according to wikianswers, but still: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_average_age_of_u.s._soldiers_in_iraq) is 30.

This hardly seems like "2 years out of high school".

In short there is no reason to assume that an average British soldier being deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan is older than an average American soldier. QED.

[Martinus]

It does/would take a little 'getting used to'.  Of course men and women intermingling in the workplace is nothing new - even though in most cases it's under less... intimate conditions.  But we're not talking about females here since gay males are male first - homosexual second.  All iin all, nothing a thorough education cannot iron out.

And female soldiers are human first and female second.  You yourself seem to be aware of the problems that might arise when men and women are sleeping in the same foxhole under high-stress combat situations.

And I'm interested to know what that thorough education would look like in practice.  Let's say the US Army hired you to educate new recruits to be indifferent to the sexuality of their comrades.  How would you go about doing it?

Err, the point is NOT to educate new recruits to be indifferent to the sexuality of their comrades. 

The point is to educate new recruits (whether gay or straight) that they should conduct themselves professionally and should not sexually harass other recruits and soldiers. If a gay soldier is open about his sexuality (for example he is known to have a boyfriend) but he does not make uncomfortable passes against other male soldiers, does not try to sleep with them or otherwise sexually harasses them, this is it - I don't see what else you need. If others have a problem with his sexuality in such circumstances (where he does not behave inappropriately towards others), then it is their problem, in the same way a racist soldier may have a problem with a black soldier.

[Martinus]

Incidentally, I wouldn't have a problem in principle with abolishing sex/gender segregation in the military either - isn't this what some armies have done, to some degree, already?

The thing is, gender/sex segregation is relatively easy to accomplish and is something that has been culturally ingrained in our society (we have toilets for men and women; we don't have - except for some weird experiments - toilets for gay men and straight men, for example; and besides, it's not like sex/gender separation in case of toilets for example has as much to do with preventing unwanted sexual tension, but more to do with different intimacy expectations, not to mention biological differences; on the other hand, gay and straight men usually pee and shit in the same way; same with showers: our cocks look the same, irrespective of sexual orientation). So it's not like without separate male and female units in the army, the entire military would descend into some wild orgy - soldiers can be expected to obey the same professional standards I mentioned earlier to conduct themselves well.

[Winkelried]

For the record, the average age of the US soldiers in Iraq/Afghanistan (according to wikianswers, but still: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_average_age_of_u.s._soldiers_in_iraq) is 30.

This hardly seems like "2 years out of high school".

In short there is no reason to assume that an average British soldier being deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan is older than an average American soldier. QED.

The average age is increased by the age of the realtively few high ranking officers and long serving NCOs. The median age is much lower and the modus is probably around what Yi said, late teens early twenties.

[Martinus]

For the record, the average age of the US soldiers in Iraq/Afghanistan (according to wikianswers, but still: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_average_age_of_u.s._soldiers_in_iraq) is 30.

This hardly seems like "2 years out of high school".

In short there is no reason to assume that an average British soldier being deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan is older than an average American soldier. QED.

The average age is increased by the age of the realtively few high ranking officers and long serving NCOs. The median age is much lower and the modus is probably around what Yi said, late teens early twenties.

Yeah but Yi's question was whether Brits are doing it completely different. There is no reason to assume this is the case.

Besides, the average age for Vietnam was 19. Surely your explanation wouldn't hold water (assuming both figures are calculated in the same way).