Gay U.S Military Personnel Not To Be Fired Until 'War Ends'

(Santa Barbara, California) Scholars studying military personnel policy have discovered a document halting the discharge of gay soldiers in units that are about to be mobilized.

The document was made public Tuesday by Center for the Study of Sexual Minorities in the Military (CSSMM), a think tank at the University of California, Santa Barbara. It was found during research for a story for the ABC news program Nightline.

The regulation was contained in a 1999 "Reserve Component Unit Commander's Handbook" and is still in effect, according to the Center.

It states that if a discharge for homosexual conduct is requested "prior to the unit's receipt of alert notification, discharge isn't authorized. Member will enter AD [active duty] with the unit."

The document is significant because of longstanding Pentagon denials that the military requires gays to serve during wartime, only to fire them once peacetime returns. According to the "don't ask, don't tell" policy, gays and lesbians must be discharged whether or not the country is at war.

Gay soldiers and legal groups have reported for years that known gays are sent into combat, and then discharged when the conflicts end. Discharge statistics corroborate a pattern of rising expulsions during peacetime and plummeting rates during military conflicts, and Pentagon statistics confirm that, as has been the case in every war since World War II, gay discharges have declined during the current conflict in the Middle East.

But the Pentagon has consistently denied that, when mobilization requires bolstering troop strength, it sends gays to fight despite the existence of a gay ban, and some observers have insisted there is no evidence of such a practice. During the first Gulf War, Pentagon spokesman, Bill Caldwell, said the military would "absolutely not" send gays to war and discharge them when the conflict ends.

Shortly after the terrorist attacks of 9/11, a Pentagon spokesman said that the military was not modifying its regulations on gay troops. And a May, 2005 study by the Congressional Research Service says that although gay discharges do decline during wartime, the decrease is the result of .random fluctuations in the data," not an intentional Pentagon policy of retaining gays during wars".

Meanwhile, the Pentagon acknowledged Tuesday that it would again fail to meet its monthly recruiting goal and for the first time since 1999 would not meet its goal for the year.

In July, the the Williams Project at the UCLA School of Law issued a report showing that if the ban on gays serving openly were lifted the military would gain 41,000 troops. (story)

Especially in the wake of Katrina, as some have concluded that a National Guard stretched thin by deployments abroad was limited in its ability to respond to a catastrophe here at home, the added strength of more than 40,000 recruits has the potential of making a significant difference," Steve Ralls, spokesperson for the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network told 365Gay.com.

"And, as we've seen Coast Guardsmen rescuing the trapped in New Orleans, it begs the question: Did those being rescued really care about the sexual orientation of those men and women who came to save them?

"Now - especially now - the Army needs every recruit it can find. Not only for war operations abroad, but for rescue missions here at home, too. If ever there was a wake-up call about the need for qualified people on the ground, it came last week in New Orleans."

http://www.365gay.com/newscon05/09/091305military.htm

Crazy stuff, the fact that a reported 41,000 additional troops would enlist if the militarys ban on gay personnel alone should be more than enough for them to take action and lift it.

Although, i cant help but think that number will be dropping after reading they can be fired once 'war ends' that really is a scary decision :eek:

Regards,

Lee