The Repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell In 1950, President Harry S. Truman implemented discharge policies for homosexual service members in the Uniform Code of Military Justice. This would allow military leaders to discharge any service member who was thought to be homosexual. In 1992, during President Bill Clinton’s campaign, he promises to lift that ban. Not being able to do just that, President Clinton issued a directive referred to as ‘Don’t Ask Don’t Tell’. This stated that no service member should be asked about their sexual orientation. Mackubin Thomas Owens wrote the article “Gay Men and Women in the Military Disrupt Unit Cohesion” in 2009 right after President Clinton was again calling for the end of forcing homosexuals to live in secret. In his article he states that homosexuals living openly in the military will take away from military effectiveness and put the other service member’s lives in danger. Throughout most of the article he uses other resources, polls and opinions on the matter verses clearly stating his own. Most of the resources he uses are military connected or …show more content…
His use of pathos to support his argument was fantastic. Using the quotes and thoughts of others, as well as his own, to explain how loyalty could be jeopardized if gays were allowed in the military was a perfect way to urge the readers to worry about military members. Overall he is very qualified in terms of military necessities and needs. Any article he writes about pertaining to the specific resources or the ways to carry out a successful mission in the military, I would agree with. Unfortunately when it comes to the topic of the LGBT community serving in the military, I don 't believe he provided enough evidence or Logos to prove that it would adversely effect our nations
Martin Blumesfield's writing of this book is a very interesting book. His way of writing really gets the point across and makes you think like you there. He uses many rhetoric devices to enhance his writing and get what he's trying to do. He uses many similes and figurative language to back up his point of him being there. He has many of Patton's paper and he actually can relate to whats going on through his interpretation of the "Patton Papers." Many say this is the greatest Patton book out there and I agree. The way Blumesfield makes you feel is so real, you can appreciate a good writer when you find one like Blumesfield.
From the end of the draft in 1973 to the military data from 2003, the number of women in service rose from 2 percent to 12 percent. A sample of military women studied in 1991 showed 69 percent to have experienced sexual harassmen...
Overall I honestly enjoyed reading this book. The amount of evidence and truth that was provided in this book really makes it worth reading. It was like stepping into a time machine, which I believe was really beneficial to all of the ROTC cadets taking this class because it allowed us to comprehend what it was like for soldiers during the Civil War. Even though the U.S. Army is completely different than it was back during the Civil War, a lot of the motives, mentalities, and values that were expressed back then are still relevant in the Army of today. I would definitely recommend this book to all soldiers in today’s Army and to people who would like to find out information in regards to the Civil War.
He makes some very valid points pertaining to the zero tolerance policy practiced by schools and how it has a negative effect on children in our school systems and essentially pushes them into our juvenile and prison systems. I am a firm believer that the zero tolerance does nothing good for students in school. In my mind it completely goes against everything our schools supposedly stand for. We tell kids to go to school to learn, but the first time they break a rule we suspend them and send them home or even worse we expel them for the entire year. I just don’t see how that isn’t setting kids up for failure down the road and neglecting them of a quality education. One statistic the author presented that really caught me off guard was when they said that when someone is suspended or expelled even once in their entire time in school their chances of ending up behind bars is increased at a rate of five times than that of someone who doesn’t get suspended or expelled. This made me really reflect on how many friends I had in high school that were suspended and ultimately flunked out. It made me wonder if the system truly wasn’t there for them to help them get an
In the essay “Why gays shouldn’t serve” by David Horowitz he states that “Don’t ask, Don’t Tell policy is a way of containing the destructive force of sex on a combat capability called Unit Cohesion. (354)” This controversial topic has surfaced more and more recently because Barack Obama wanted to let all people serve in the military, regardless of their sexual orientation. “More than 1,000 retired flag and general officers have joined us in signing an open letter to President Obama and Congress, repeal of this law would prompt many dedicated people to leave the military (James J. Lindsay).” There are multiple points you could focus on when trying to explain your point on why gays or lesbians should not serve in the military. The first point we will be focusing on is: how would military life change if straight men or women knew that there were gays or lesbians sleeping next to them? The second point is: would straight men and women communicate with the gays or lesbians the same way as they would toward other straight men or women? The third and final point is: how would other countries view our military if they knew we had gays or lesbians in the military?
... middle of paper ... ... Needless to say he has had the situation criteria taken care of countless times, from his days as the Cadet Colonel at City College, to the invasion of Iraq, there have been situations in which he has shined and handled with grace.
a positive one. I enjoyed his book and I respected him as a person as well as a speaker. Homer
Frank, Nathaniel. Unfriendly Fire: How the Gay Ban Undermines the Military and Weakens America. New York: Thomas Dunne, 2009. Print.
In conclusion, I felt that this column was written as a piece of trickery. It was devised to fool average people into agreement. I also felt that anyone with mild intelligence and critical reasoning skills could easily punch an incalculable number of holes in his arguments. So, did he achieve his goal? I believe that this piece of writing could easily win over half of the U.S population, but that doesn’t speak well for his writing necessarily. If I haven’t made it obvious enough, I disliked this column, and hope he can be more sly next time.
After this took effect, homosexuals were kicked out of service if found to be gay or lesbian. According to a 1992 report by the Government Accounting Office, nearly 17,000 men and women had been discharged under this new directive during the 1980s ( ). As time passed for soldiers their sexual orientation were secret but around 1992 Bill Clinton stated that he wanted to end the ban on homosexuals in the military. In his rally for president, Bill Clinton felt that there should not be sexual discrimination in the militar...
...though people believe that, those on the home front have it just as a bad as the soldiers, because they have to deal with the responsibilities of their husbands, there is nothing that can compare to what these men have gone through. The war itself consumed them of their ideology of a happy life, and while some might have entered the war with the hope that they would soon return home, most men came to grips with the fact that they might never make it out alive. The biggest tragedy that follows the war is not the number of deaths and the damages done, it is the broken mindset derives from being at war. These men are all prime examples of the hardships of being out at war and the consequences, ideologies, and lifestyles that develop from it.
Whitlock, Craig, and Greg Jaffe. "Pentagon supports ending 'don't ask, don't tell' law for gays in military." Washington Post 3 February 2010, Print.
In September 2011, the United States lifted the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy (DADT), which restricted gay, lesbian, and bisexuals from openly serving in the military. This was the first time in American history in which people of every sexual orientation could serve openly (“11 Facts About,” n.d.). This was a momentous occasion for some and not so much for others. For those military members that had served in secret and those members that were firmly against gays and lesbians, this repeal had different meaning. Both groups contained members that have served in the military for years and were products of the Former President Bill Clinton’s 1993 “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy. For many soldiers of this era, communication issues arose due to a pre-existing mentality, learned rules and regulations in services reinforced for two decades and the general cultural within combat related fields.
...protest movements throughout America and the world.” Among the gay community Stonewall has become the word for freedom, for fighting, for equality. It became a turning point in Gay history, so much so that most books on the subject refer to “pre-Stonewall” and “post-Stonewall” as the lines of demarcation. Of course the journey is still long and fight has not been won. At the turn of the century there were still 20 states that made homosexual sex illegal , any only a few states would recognize the love and companionship of gays through marriage or civil unions. The military policy of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell is still active and prejudices continue to exist. But, as exemplified by any other civil rights movement, it is through the constant grind of activists and lay-people constantly protesting and educating, that change occurs, even if only one person at a time.
Corber. Robert J, Homosexuality in the Cold War: Resistance and the Crisis of Masculinity (Durham N.C Duke University Press 1997