In the military, the rules are the rules. Period.
Especially when people join the military of their own volition — and there hasn’t been a draft since the Vietnam War — they agree to abide by those rules.
They may believe the rules to be stupid, petty, counterproductive or even wrong. Indeed, during some parts of history, the military’s rules have been iniquitous, such as when the forces were segregated.
However, when Bill Clinton’s administration enacted the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” rule for gay, lesbian and bisexual service members in 1994, it wasn’t done out of bigotry or hatred. In fact, it was hailed as progressive — allowing men and women to serve their country without their sexual preferences being questioned provided they didn’t volunteer the information.
It was seen as a way to balance an individual’s desire to serve America with the unknown potential disruption of injecting same-sex relationships into the machinations of the U.S. armed forces.
Now that wokeness is our administration’s semi-official creed, however, “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” is viewed as decidedly iniquitous — and if you broke those regulations and were forced out of the military before the policy was repealed in 2011, President Joe Biden’s Pentagon wants to restore your full benefits.
The Associated Press reported Wednesday that the Department of Defense “began a new effort Wednesday to contact former service members who may have been forced out of the military and deprived of years of benefits due to policies targeting their sexual orientation, starting with those who served under ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.’”
Department of Defense data show that at least 32,837 service members since 1980 were forced out due to matters of sexual preference, the report said.
Over 2,000 of them received discharge categorizations “that may have denied them access to veterans benefits, like home loans, health care, GI Bill tuition assistance and even some government jobs,” Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks said.
Do you agree with the Biden administration’s move to restore benefits to “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” rulebreakers?
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“We know correcting these records cannot fully restore the dignity taken from LGBTQ+ service members when they were expelled from the military,” Hicks said.
“It doesn’t completely heal the unseen wounds that were left, it doesn’t make people whole again, even for those many who received honorable discharges,” she said. “But this is yet another step we’re taking to make sure we do right by those who served honorably.”
“For decades, our LGBTQ+ service members were forced to hide or were prevented from serving altogether,” Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said in a Wednesday statement, according to The Washington Times.
“Even still, they selflessly put themselves in harm’s way for the good of our country and the American people,” he continued.
“Unfortunately, too many of them were discharged from the military based on their sexual orientation — and for many this left them without access to the benefits and services they earned.”
“For decades, our LGBTQ+ service members were forced to hide or were prevented from serving altogether.” https://t.co/VTZuQURWX5
— The Washington Times (@WashTimes) September 20, 2023
“Over the past decade, we’ve tried to make it easier for service members discharged based on their sexual orientation to obtain corrective relief,” Austin said. “While this process can be difficult to navigate, we are working to make it more accessible and efficient.”
What doesn’t make sense in logical world — which means, unfortunately, it makes all-too-much sense in woketopia — is why the Pentagon would begin this effort with those who received unfavorable discharges under “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”
After all, before 1994, the rules were even more discriminatory. There were no “don’t ask” protections, and the purview of the U.S. armed forces to review one’s sexual life went beyond “don’t tell.”
Meanwhile, after “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” everyone signing up for the military knew what the rules were because the policy — while only slightly more complicated than the acronym — could be reasonably summed up in four words.
They: “Don’t ask.” You: “Don’t tell.” There you go. It doesn’t get a whole lot simpler.
I appreciate all who “selflessly put themselves in harm’s way for the good of our country and the American people,” to quote Austin. But the reason rules exist in the military is to ensure those who are putting themselves in harm’s way for the people of the United States will submit themselves to rules that allow them to protect those people in the first place.
In 2011, the Obama administration’s Pentagon deemed that “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” was no longer necessary to effectively keep order and security, and the rule was done away with, allowing individuals to freely identify themselves by their sexual preference.
However, that didn’t retroactively make breaches of the rule suddenly OK. Breaking rules that change before they’ve changed is still — you guessed it — still breaking the rules.
Now, of course, we all know that the Biden administration’s armed forces have become a wokeness parade, particularly focused on LGBT issues — and especially focused on the “T” part of that equation. Consider Joshua Kelley, a self-identified “non-binary” Navy sailor who also poses as a drag queen “digital ambassador” calling himself “Harpy Daniels”:
Here’s the thing: I don’t agree with the Navy employing a drag queen “digital ambassador” to reach new recruits. But you know what? If the rules prevent me from speaking out against the campaign and I were to continually do so, I could and should be separated from the Navy with a discharge other than honorable.
I could raise a stink about my First Amendment rights or my Christian faith. I could say that this was all a political ploy designed to normalize transgenderism through official government propaganda. I could bray and holler all day long on social media — and I might have a very good point. In fact, I think all of those are very good points and will be recognized as such, perhaps decades from now, but I believe sooner, when the rainbow-hued chickens come home to roost.
But you know what? I broke the rules and regulations that I swore an oath to the United States of America to uphold. Full stop.
It doesn’t matter whether what I believe is true or not. What matters is that we need a military that’s on the same page — not millions of enlistees doing their own thing because it feels right to them.
That’s not readiness. That’s chaos.
In the same way, the men and women who told when the simple rule was “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” were breaking the rules.
It doesn’t improve morale or fight past injustices by pretending that, since the current administration finds the rule unfashionable, it never existed.
It doesn’t improve readiness or make a “safer space” for LGBT service members now.
What it says that, if you think that sometime in the future, a righteous politician will find a current rule to be immoral or impractical, you don’t have to follow it.
And we wonder why Beijing and Moscow are testing this administration militarily.
