Defend Don't Ask, Don't Tell

The Honorable James Webb, Mark Warner, and Rob Wittman,
I spent 22 years of my life in as an officer in the United States Marine Corps. My time covered the change in policy towards homosexuals in the military now known as “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” While it didn’t alter the makeup of the Marine Corps immediately, it did radically change the way my Marines and I viewed our Commander-in-Chief. All of us took it very hard that President Clinton had so little regard for us that he was willing to jeopardize our welfare for a gesture to the radical left wing of his party. Now another President with no military experience or appreciation for what the military means for this country if floating a pacifier to the radical wing of the Democrat Party. The American military is the finest, most trusted institution of the United States Government and it is the envy of the entire World. Were President Obama to break it for political points with the homosexual community he could be risking the security of all free people everywhere.
The American military may be the last bastion of bedrock American values. Members of the military are uniformly hard-working, patriotic, and truthful to a fault. These are the most loyal of Americans and they deserve to be treated better.
I dealt with the discharge of homosexuals when I was the Executive Officer of a Recruit Training Battalion. The Marine Corps didn’t miss any of the recruits that we discharged; in fact most of them exposed themselves in order to leave training. One other discharge in an infantry battalion was investigated only because the Navy Corpsman concerned exposed himself in order to secure a discharge. In that regard the legal position of the service worked more as a safety valve for homosexuals who wanted to leave the service. We weren’t looking for them and they would have served until the end of their contract had they not made an issue of their sexuality. I suspect that most of the discharges for homosexuality are done specifically with the express desire of the homosexual service member. The other discharges that I knew the particular circumstances of were not merely for homosexuality but rather for inappropriate senior-to-subordinate sexual relationships that just happened to also be of a homosexual nature. So be very careful of the statistics that you are presented on this topic. Many of those discharged for homosexuality are the moral equivalent of a self inflicted wound.
There are absolutely no benefits to the men and women of our military services for them to be forced to serve with homosexuals – none. Rather the government will be trampling on the rights of the majority of Americans in order to satisfy the desires of an exceptionally small part of the population. As such, you owe your allegiance to the service members and not to a tiny potential constituency that happen to be gay and hungry for acceptance.
Your duty is to vigorously defend the United States Military from those who desire to turn it into some big social experiment. They deserve your respect and your best effort to protect them from debasement for political purposes. It ain’t broke and it sure as hell doesn’t need Barack Obama to fix it.
Sincerely Yours,