Winning the nation's wars is the military's functional imperative. Indeed, it is the only reason for a liberal society to maintain a military organization. War is terror. War is confusion. War is characterized by chance, uncertainty and friction. The military's ethos constitutes an evolutionary response to these factors—an attempt to minimize their impact.
Accordingly, the military stresses such martial virtues as courage, both physical and moral, a sense of honor and duty, discipline, a professional code of conduct, and loyalty. It places a premium on such factors as unit cohesion and morale. The glue of the military ethos is what the Greeks called philia—friendship, comradeship or brotherly love. Philia, the bond among disparate individuals who have nothing in common but facing death and misery together, is the source of the unit cohesion that most research has shown to be critical to battlefield success.
Philia depends on fairness and the absence of favoritism. Favoritism and double standards are deadly to philia and its associated phenomena—cohesion, morale and discipline—are absolutely critical to the success of a military organization.
The presence of open homosexuals in the close confines of ships or military units opens the possibility that eros—which unlike philia is sexual, and therefore individual and exclusive—will be unleashed into the environment. Eros manifests itself as sexual competition, protectiveness and favoritism, all of which undermine the nonsexual bonding essential to unit cohesion, good order, discipline and morale.
That argument might have held up in the days before women were integrated throughout in the force. In fact, the reality on the ground has so proven this statement to be wrong that it really only adds ammo to those who want the combat arms fully gender-integrated. Yes, yes, that's a whole 'nuther can o' worms (physical fitness standards and all that) but if this argument is the best anyone can muster for not allowing gays to serve openly, then the policy is going to change quickly.
By: Brant
Here's the thing that I have always held up as being the issue: It's not about whether they can do the job, it's about whether or not you can live together. And by live together, I mean in the close confines of a tank, shelter-half (err...whole?), etc.
ReplyDeleteThis is not really an issue in non-combat-arms MOS's, where you have the luxury of being able to have separate areas/facility/what-have-you, and things work just fine with males and females in that instance.
But move the venue to a Combat Arms environment: I would be no more comfortable changing into dry clothes in a tank during a rainstorm in front of a gay male, than a female would be doing the same in front of me in the same situation. It's not like you can move somewhere else....the tank is your "home", and you are right there in tight confines together.
I've been on a tank crew, and have been very good friends with those on the crew...but would I be comfortable with my WIFE being out there living with them? No, because I understand just how tight the confines are and therefore how utterly lacking privacy would be. The same issue would exist if homosexuals are thrown into the mix.
Hell, even in the REMF units, think about the logistics of something as simple as showers. Right now, you have male and female, and that is not that big of a thing. But now you would have to have hetero male, hetero female, homo male, homo, female...and we haven't even touched on the fact that some homo males will be uncomfortable in front of other homo males, and the same for the homo females. In short, a logistical quagmire....for freaking SHOWERS. God forbid we start talking about sleeping quarters.
Yes, I know there are currently homosexuals serving (and serving well) in the military. But the simple fact is that as long as the presence of a homosexual is not PERCEIVED to exist, then you do not have the REALITY of the above issues.
I hope I don't come across as a gay-basher here, because I'm fairly live-and-let-live in that regard.