An Army of 1 in 10

Today needs no preamble; instead, I present UserFriendly’s tribute to vets.

From Presidential Candidate Hillary Clinton:

I disagree with General Pace completely.  I don’t think homosexuality is immoral.’

The current military policy of ‘don’t ask, don’t tell” isn’t working.  Let’s not be eliminating people because of who they are or who they love.

So DADT isn’t working, Mrs. Clinton?  Wow, that’s news to me.  I wonder who was responsible for DADT’s becoming law in the first place…

Riley Woina recently had the experience of his life: he spent a week training with the Army Rangers at Camp James E. Rudder. What’s really cool about this story, is that Riley is only 14 years old, and he was able to do this because he made a wish.
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As I’ve already stated in an earlier post, I will not be supporting candidates this election cycle who do not give their explicit and unwavering support for the repeal of 10 U.S.C. 654 (”Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”). Now, while I was already planning on not supporting Sen. McCain due to his role in the unconstitutional McCain-Feingold Act, he’s lost any hope of having any support coming from my direction.

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Today is the day that Congressman Martin Meehan re-introduced the Military Readiness Enhancement Act, and he’s promising to hold hearings on it as early as April. Last month, several high-ranking officials spoke out against Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell and called for its repeal.

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 22, 2007

CONTACT: Rebecca Sawyer: (202) 328-3244, ext. 102 /   

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Nathan over at Homocon wrote a post concerning yesterday’s launch of Serving in Unsilence, but I couldn’t find any way of replying there, so I’ve decided to do so here. Since his post raises a valid point, I think that’s also the best way of doing so since I can clarify something in the press release this way.

Anonymous Soldier, the site’s founder, states that “Serving in Unsilence has one of the strongest privacy policies on the internet, and strongly urges its members who are currently in the military not to divulge any personal information on their blogs.”

Which then begs the question — if you don’t divulge any personal information on your blog, is it really a blog? And how do you write about your life in the military while skirting any information and/or series of events than can be used to identify you?

By “personal information,” I meant things such as one’s name, unit, or any specific identifying details (e.g. a tattoo, injury, scar, etc). I think that I’ve done a pretty good job of posting about my life in the military without making any specific mentions that could be used to identify me.

I may not have gone into great detail, but I don’t believe it to be necessary to do so to write about life in the military. It’s really not that different from posting about being deployed — maintaining one’s personal OPSEC (”PERSEC”) is no different from maintaining regular OPSEC. One just has to be cognizant of what is being posted to the internet and the possible consequences that may come with it.

Nathan maintains a great site, and I highly recommend it. Thanks for the mention, Nathan!

Nathan’s site: Homocon

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

THE INTERNET — Feb. 15 2007 – An anonymous blogger known only as “Anonymous Soldier” today launched a new website, Serving in Unsilence. Serving in Unsilence™ is a free service aimed at the LGBT Service Member community in an effort to raise awareness of the many thousands of sexual minority Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, and Marines serving honorably and in silence in defense of their country.
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At 0100 CET, Project: Unsilence will officially launch with the posting of a press release on this site.

This new site has been under development for a month, with me devoting every spare minute I have to working on it. I’m quite pleased with how it’s turned out, and I expect that it’ll become quite significant. As I’ve already stated, this will be a community website for LGBT Service Members where they can voice their opinions on an infinite number of subjects. How exactly it will accomplish this will remain undisclosed until the press release is posted.

A few lucky people have already seen the site, so I ask them not to say anything about it yet. Once the site is launched, I ask that if you maintain a blog or a website, to please link to the press release and the new website. Spread the word! If you have access to AKO, NKO, or the Air Force Portal and you’re not subject to DADT, then please post the link the new site in the forums on those services so that LGBT Service Members will know about it.

Help me make this a major site and contribute to repealing 10 USC 654.

Once upon a time, there was a Presidential candidate who promised to lift the ban on gays in the military and failed.

I was a senior in high school when President Clinton was running for office and he made that pledge. At the time, I was still coming to terms with being gay, so I was very supportive of his candidacy. I also had no intention of ever joining the Army so I didn’t really think that the ban would affect me. Turns out, I did and it does.
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