A Handful of Flags, Part 1

It's eight thirty in the morning on Thursday, November 29, and I'm gazing down an empty field wondering how the hell we're going to accomplish what we say we can accomplish.

Normally I would be embarrassed to admit how unprepared that sounds, but I think any great risk is always accompanied by a similar feeling. Regardless, the field's reserved, the flags are ready, the ground is as soft as it's ever going to be, and all I can do is step forward, and begin.

It's interesting the direction your mind goes when locked in a repetitive activity. The small talk comes and goes, but gradually you get lost in the pattern and your thoughts. This half-dream comes very quickly for me, something I’ve learned to do when sitting in MEPS for seven hours, hoping that day would be the day I got to ship off for basic.

While most have the pleasure of experiencing the brain-drain that is the Military Enlistment Processing Station perhaps only three times before shipping, I was lucky enough to accumulate fourteen visits. Somehow a relative had gotten himself into a bit of trouble a few years back, earning an FBI flag for the name ‘J. Chlapowski.’ This sort of thing does not bode well for someone with a similar name seeking a job requiring a security clearance, and the bureaucracy that is the military made any quick solution impossible. So, after my initial MEPS visits to ensure I was fit to join, I would return to MEPS periodically, bags packed for basic, only to be sent back home again because somehow comparing social security numbers was a months long process.

As you can imagine, going through the experience of leaving home for the first time repeatedly became incredibly emotionally draining. On my seventh and eighth visits to MEPS, my recruiter, sympathetic to my frustrations, began offering to renegotiate my contract, which I refused. Visits ten and eleven brought offers to cancel my contract, and I again I refused. I had made the commitment to join, I wanted to serve my country, and, damn it, I would leave under the terms I had dictated, whatever avenues of approach that entailed.

A call to the governor’s office and three visits later, I finally shipped to basic at Ft. Jackson, South Carolina. Day Zero, the first real day of Basic, was Thanksgiving Day, 2000.

I look up – and around – and notice roughly 300 flags around me. Volunteers have begun to show up, and the sun is nowhere near as high as it could be. Things are looking good, and I can return to my thoughts.

Laws and Latte

So there's no confusion, I think you should know that I hate coffee.

To be fair, I will admit that coffee does possess a wonderful aroma, which, no doubt, is largely responsible for its status as an American staple. However, there is very little about that pumpkin spice warm latte smell that even hints at the actual flavor, and a palate adept at determining which cups of coffee will actually taste good inevitably bears a past of numerous misfires and errors.

Now, I'm going to be bold here and say that 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' (DADT) is not unlike coffee in this regard, and quite similarly provides a falsely appealing and comforting impression that appeals to many who are content just smelling the coffee coming from the café on the way to work, some even knowing that the taste and scent of DADT do not coincide.

How far does the taste and scent of DADT deviate? Let’s break it down into separate analyses of each, and compare:

Scent:
DADT, before anything else, is promoted as a compromise between two opposing factions debating whether or not a gay service member would be detrimental to troop morale, unit cohesiveness, and combat readiness. The law takes the stance that it is not the sexuality of the service member that would be the cause of the unit’s destruction, but the potential reaction of other service members; if those service members were never to find out about the gays that have somehow infiltrated their unit, no negative reaction could arise from their ignorance.

In Summary: Gays can serve honorably and comfortably - provided they keep their mouth shut – and the military can only benefit.

Taste:
For DADT to have had even a chance at being successful, exhaustive training on the policy to all personnel would have to have been strictly enforced from the beginning. As many service members can attest to due to their lack of training on DADT, this did not happen, and it should, then, come as no surprise that commanders can and do choose to enforce DADT according to their own interpretation of the policy. Among the many consequences of the policy’s subsequent ambiguity is the sheer variety of evidence that has been considered submissible evidence for ‘telling,’ even in situations in which the commander may have wished to halt discharge proceedings. Adding further insult to injury is the general acceptance of gays by the more recent generations of recruits, meaning even if the initial justifications for the policy were valid, those justifications no longer apply to today’s armed forces.

In Summary: Gays do serve honorably; however, they do not serve comfortably due to the oppressiveness and unclear standards inherent in DADT, unnecessarily.

You've heard, I'm sure, the overused cliché of waking up and smelling the coffee. I'm asking you to go farther and wake up and taste the coffee.

I've got a number of flavors lined up for you guys in the coming weeks: some dealing with my own experiences living under DADT and fighting the law, others relaying the experiences of others. The flavors will vary greatly from each other in some regards, yet all, I think, in their own way strongly deviate from the scent, bearing an overall theme that this law - at the very least - must be reexamined.

Welcome to Ground Coffee.