Don't Ask Don't Tell

Last week, the House Subcommittee on Military Personnel hosted a hearing on "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" and its impact on military readiness.

In 1985, several years before President Bill Clinton's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" compromise attempted to allow gays in the military to serve unmolested, I was a young soldier building bridges and blowing things up with C4 at Ft. Leonard Wood, Missouri. That summer, my roommate was accused of having sex with another soldier in the barracks. The investigation, as I recall, was handled discreetly by our commanders: He was a well-liked Midwestern kid, and although no one could bring themselves to ask him about the inquiry, we all knew he was suffering.

I thought about my roommate during last week’s hearings on the impact of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" - an impact that has included drumming out military linguists with expertise in Arabic in the midst of a Middle Eastern war - and particularly during the testimony of Elaine Donnelly, president of the Center for Military Readiness, who spoke in defense of the ban on gay service members. Her comments are worth examining in detail.