Recruitment Shortfall: Try Everything Except You-Know-What
The United States Army fell 6,600 people short of its 80,000 recruiting goal for the twelve months ended September 30, 2005. The other branches met their goals, although the Marines struggled to do so.
As a result, the military not only continues to raise financial incentives to attract new recruits, but may also be forced to consider “radical” new approaches to finding willing soldiers:
Michael O’Hanlon, defense specialist at the Brookings Institution, said Monday that if conditions get worse the future of the all-volunteer force could be in jeopardy.“Unless the situation in Iraq improves, or unless we drastically enlarge the pool of possible recruits in some way — for example, lowering academic standards for them, or even considering an extreme option like allowing foreigners to gain U.S. citizenship by serving — one would have to expect continued tough slogging for the Army,” O’Hanlon said.
So it’s better to have semi-literate flunkies, or foreign mercenaries who want to bypass the traditional immigration provess, joining the military than to allow openly gay citizen-patriots the opportunity to serve their country?
How much more blatant does the stupidity of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” have to become before the military concedes defeat and allows gays to serve, even if only in non-combat roles at first (so the “unit cohesion” gobbledygook becomes moot)?
If one good thing comes from the Iraq War, it will be the end of DADT. A bittersweet result, perhaps, but every gain counts.
POST SCRIPT: I never miss an opportunity to remind readers that “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” was brought to you, as was federal DOMA, by the Democratic pervert-president, Bill Clinton.
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Also don't forget to remind everyone that DADT was an unfortunate compromise that effectively ended an all-out ban on gays in the military, and was only put in place because Republican politicians refused to allow a complete repeal to happen. Also don't forget that DOMA (as horrific as it is) was probably the number one reason cited by most Republicans who opposed the FMA. Without it, we potentially could be in the process of getting the FMA added to our Consitution.
[Kip replies: Are you suggesting that it would have been easier for Republicans to amend the Constitution than to override a presidential veto of DOMA?
The notion that Bill Clinton was a noble, gay-championing, "glass is half full" master of political compromise is laughable.]
I'm suggesting that were it not for DOMA, there would have been many more votes for the FMA. I'm not defending DOMA, I think DOMA is awful. I'm not defending DADT, I think DADT is awful. What I'm saying is that instead of attributing those things as part of Clinton's master plan, it's worth noting his alternatives.
He had to make a choice on the military ban. He could either compromise or leave the all-out ban in place. You can definitely make the argument that leaving the all-out ban in place would have been better (I'm not sure I agree but there is enough evidence to make the case). What's unfair is to paint it as if DADT was Clinton's plan. Clinton wanted to end the ban altogether and would have were he not stopped by Republicans.