I enlisted in the U.S. Army as a Private to answer the nation’s call for volunteers to fight in the Korean War. After completing basic and advanced training I was posted to Germany where I was assigned to an all-Negro cavalry squadron. Thirty-four years and three college degrees earned through night school later and after working my way up through the enlisted and officer ranks to Major General, I retired from the Army back into civilian life.

Along the way I learned many things, one of the most important of which was identifying what behavior was acceptable and what behavior was unacceptable in military life. I also learned that in America racial segregation was based on one’s race, not on a chosen social behavior pattern.

The pigment of my skin could not be changed by my simply intensely willing it to change. But with effort any unacceptable social conduct or traits that I had developed could be changed. Those of us who chose to live according to the rules were rewarded by the military. Those who chose life styles that were unacceptable to the military had to accept the hard consequences of their choices and the social rejection they caused.

For example, during my time in the Army adultery was unacceptable behavior and resulted in involuntary separation from military service for what was termed “conduct unbecoming an officer.” Incest, having sexual relations with animals, as well a pedophilia fell into the same unacceptable category. During my thirty-four years of active duty, the Army’s policy toward homosexuals was that this was prohibited behavior. The policy worked well in WWI, WWII, Korea and Viet Nam.

At the start of President Clinton’s Presidency a determined, but ill-advised and unsuccessful effort was made by him to force the homosexual life style onto the military. In the process of failing, it almost crippled the Clinton Presidency and caused a near revolt in the military.

Now we are faced with a newly sworn-in President who has outstanding debts to pay to the homosexual lobby because they worked hard to help get him elected President.
What the American people think and what the military is willing and able to accept concerning homosexuals seems immaterial to him and to his advisors. They haven’t even asked the public for its opinion or seemed to have considered what such a radical change in social policy will do to the morale, training, fighting spirit of the military, and how it will affect volunteer enlistment rates.

My guess is that this new policy would cause such an exodus from the armed forces that Congress would have to pass an emergency draft. Because this policy did not exist when the current recruits volunteered to serve in the military, legally the terms of their contracts would be violated and they arguably would not be obligated to remain on active duty, and if their departure is resisted there would no doubt be law suits in abundance.

From a foreign affairs stand point how will we deploy these homosexuals to Muslim countries where the punishment for homosexuality is beheading? Or will the non-homosexuals in the military be forced to pick up the slack for them?  Has anyone in the Obama Administration carefully thought through what this policy change might really mean and what its implications really are world wide? If so, why haven’t they already initiated a national debate on the subject?

Shouldn’t the American people have a chance to express their opinions about how they feel about this new policy? Or doesn’t the Obama Administration care what the people of America think? This policy change is too important and its affects on the security of the country too far reaching for it to be casually implemented without discussion just to pay off a political debt.

Shouldn’t there at least be a blue-ribbon panel or study group appointed to examine this proposed policy change and its implications? For example, how will the lives of our soldiers, sailors and airmen be affected and will they accept this social experiment without revolting? From the stand point of projecting military force abroad, will it enhance the cutting edge of our military or dull it to the point of ineffectiveness?