DADT Redo

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Bill Glasheen
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Post by Bill Glasheen »

Jason Rees wrote:
IJ wrote:
Instead I'm nailed as a psycho only concerned about my feelings not the imminent collapse of our armed forces, and assumed not to know that you don't change organizational culture overnight.
I never called you crazy. No one is saying the military will collapse, much less imminently. So where is all this emotion-laden language coming from?
I second that.

I consider you a good human being and a friend. I also reserve the right to disagree with you. My longest friend (since 1968, and also an MD by the way) and I argue all the time.

I can't pretend to know about the life you live, Ian. To say otherwise would be foolish, even though I'm tempted to share experiences I went through as a long-haired teenager in the early 1970s. But you'd better believe that I've got your back - for a lifetime.

When you're passionate about something, I know it's got to be frustrating to talk with people who don't share your enthusiasm about *how* change should occur. But it doesn't mean we don't understand.

I can't speak for Jason, Ian. But I've got to tell you that it would be a good idea to try your thoughts out on your friends. And it's probably a good idea to listen to what they say and understand what they think. I truly believe it's in your best interest, and in the interest of causes important to you.

- Bill
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Post by Bill Glasheen »

For the record...

I'm not going to let emotional rants sidetrack an academically relevant point. Particularly since Vietnam, there's a plethora of material written on the psychological aftermath of warfare. A good place to start on this is Lt. Col. David Grossman. But there are many authors going back and forward in time from his work.

For those who don't known, Grossman was both a military man and an academic.

"Normal" people cannot easily kill without operant conditioning. And with all the safety mechanisms hardwired in our psyche to prevent easy intra-species killing, short-circuiting those barriers leads eventually to long-term psychological risk. After 45 days on the front lines, the average person begins to suffer from PTSD.

It's also a fact that more people died of self-destructive behavior after Vietnam than of the war itself.

Any additional risk factors for depression and/or suicide can't be helpful.

And I do not buy that there's extensive experience with myriad subgroups vs. suicide and PTSD in the military. There are no data because no country has engaged in modern warfare (where the data have been taken) like the US. Peacetime? Lots of experience. Warfare? Not so much.

Bottom line - we don't know, and the peer-reviewed data do not exist.

There are also other complicating issues.

Image

Image

Image

We have bad behavior by ALL our troops lurking. All it takes is a single bad image to recruit tens of thousands of terrorists who'd like to bomb us back into the dark ages.

This is a serious subject that deserves serious dialogue. There's no room for emotion when facts need to be discussed.

- Bill
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Post by IJ »

"I never called you crazy. No one is saying the military will collapse, much less imminently. So where is all this emotion-laden language coming from?"

As Bill figured out, hyperbole suggests my frustration with being told that supporting equal treatment means putting my feelings ahead of logic or the needs of the military. In equal doses, it comes from a life long experience that the same people who don't want LGBs to serve take on marriage rights, adoption rights, tax equality, and the concept that LGBs can be worthy or honorable people.

"This is a serious subject that deserves serious dialogue. There's no room for emotion when facts need to be discussed."

Frustration / annoyance does not mean that people are not thinking clearly. Was my proposal for phasing out the policy emotion laden, or sensible? So far, no comment on it at all, just concerns about my investment in the debate. I'm not crying my way through posts here, I'm merely annoyed that such a fuss is being made--LGBs are not that interesting. They're pretty much like everybody else. And highly correlated with finding them palatable is actually knowing one. This has been done elsewhere with no big fallout.

Emotionlessly, does anyone have any rational reasons why eliminating investigations and snooping, and eliminating the DT portion of DADT in all areas of the military where people are not in intimate settings with each other, and once that's been done, piloting the end of the policy on a small scale?

""Normal" people cannot easily kill without operant conditioning. And with all the safety mechanisms hardwired in our psyche to prevent easy intra-species killing, short-circuiting those barriers leads eventually to long-term psychological risk. After 45 days on the front lines, the average person begins to suffer from PTSD."

A number of issues to look into here.

1) Dehumanizing the enemy is not going to get you PTSD, as defined. ?It's unpleasant, and you may have long lasting damage from it, but, people who tortured AQ agents (and innocents) or even Nazi prison guards do not experience a trauma. From wiki:

A: Exposure to a traumatic event
This must have involved both (a) loss of "physical integrity", or risk of serious injury or death, to self or others, and (b) an intense negative emotional response. (The DSM-IV-TR criterion differs substantially from the previous DSM-III-R stressor criterion, which specified the traumatic event should be of a type that would cause "significant symptoms of distress in almost anyone," and that the event was "outside the range of usual human experience."[56])*

2) If preventing suicides were the aim, we would be looking into a lot more avenues than keeping LGBs serving silently. We could easily be:

a. screening recruits.
b. checking on mental health frequently
c. creating more services for active duty and vets
d. planning policy better. You know what cost us a lot of PTSD? Near absent planning for the post Iraq invasion occupation. The country descended into anarchy and sectarian violence and cost us tremendous amounts of blood, treasure, and recruiting leverage. This LGB risk stuff is chump change.

3) Unequal treatment and the stress of serving silently and under threat of expulsion is a suicide risk somehow less concerning? Unless the thinking is "what logic serves the policy" and not "what logic reduces suicides."

4) Female sex is a well known risk factor for depression. Expel the women?

5) in large part, this whole idea, that some group has a risk factor (when studied in a subset of at risk people, the way HIV rates are done) so therefore we should avoid recuiting them, or studying them, has precedent. Blacks have an IQ gap, lower test scores, higher rates of HIV, arrests for drugs, and incarceration. But blacks are not a demographic. They are, all of them, individuals, and the most sensible way to keep undesired elements from the military is not to screen out demographics whose distinction has poor predictive value but to evaluate individuals for them.

This WHOLE concept working forward supports keeping LGBs out of the military (but doesn't really justify keeping them present and silent). However, it works just as well backwards to jsutify exclusions of blacks and women.

*in the regular world we don't diagnose PTSD in many occasions because there was no sufficient trauma. I'll need to ask military psych if they distinguish whether the trauma "to others" can mean inflicted by the person suffering PTSD or whether it needs to be like an IED that kills other people in your truck. Will return with info, for now, this idea on hold.
--Ian
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Post by Valkenar »

Jason Rees wrote:Nobody cares to make it an issue or push it except gays and their pressure groups. It's just not an issue for most people.
Well, I'm not gay, so I guess I must be in a pressure group of some kind then. Whoever it is, hopefully they won't come to collect all those unpaid dues. Personally I'd say that anyone who thinks civil rights really matter should care about undoing DADT. And yes, it's begging the question, but I would suggest that if you think that some logistical inconveniences outweigh the right of gays to serve, then you don't really care about civil rights.
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Post by Jason Rees »

Valkenar wrote: Well, I'm not gay, so I guess I must be in a pressure group of some kind then. Whoever it is, hopefully they won't come to collect all those unpaid dues. Personally I'd say that anyone who thinks civil rights really matter should care about undoing DADT. And yes, it's begging the question, but I would suggest that if you think that some logistical inconveniences outweigh the right of gays to serve, then you don't really care about civil rights.
Oh, look, it's the civil rights bandwagon being trotted out again. Last time I checked no one was stuffing gays into internment camps, enslaving them, branding them, forcing them to die with owners, or taking their children and selling them to others. The last time I checked, gays can say what they like, have sex with whoever and whatever they like (or even don't like), own whatever guns they like, demand a search warrant when the law comes knocking, sue who they like, go to school where they like, and live where they like.

The last time I checked, gays were able to serve in the military, and people politely refrained from sharing with their coworkers who, what and how they had sex with (unless asked). There was a statistic posted somewhere earlier in this thread... I'm convinced gays are able to serve in the military. We can't filter them out by skin color, race or creed.

But I am up in Alaska, so maybe all that changed since I moved up here.

Or maybe the civil rights bandwagon is bursting at the seams these days with freeloaders.
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Bill Glasheen
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Post by Bill Glasheen »

Welcome to the discussion, Justin. I knew you wouldn't let us down. ;)
IJ wrote:

Emotionlessly, does anyone have any rational reasons why eliminating investigations and snooping, and eliminating the DT portion of DADT in all areas of the military where people are not in intimate settings with each other, and once that's been done, piloting the end of the policy on a small scale?
Just for your information... the policy is spreading, Ian. Jason and I have been trying to tell you that, and it's falling on deaf ears.

There's this phenomenon in life where you're beyond discrimination and have the ability to laugh at yourself and laugh WITH your friends at all. I love Wanda Sykes and Chris Rock because they're masters at it. Humor is one of the few intellectual abilities that separates us from animals and apes. It's part of what helps us get along.

Meanwhile... If you work for a Fortune 500 company today, you're essentially censured. You have it programmed in you on a regular basis. In my case I have yearly training that literally takes days to go through.

Sorry, Ian, but the rest of the world is getting more like this. You can't really be you on the job any more if you work for a large organization. People in the military cannot express their political opinions, unless they want to get censured or fired. Privately in the voting booth? Yes. Publicly? At your peril.

So I'll (jokingly) ask you not to flatter yourself. You're not getting much in the way of special treatment.

IJ wrote:

A number of issues to look into here.

{snip}
It is my job as a martial arts instructor to understand what causes PTSD. And I have to tell you that I don't believe you get it. Your misunderstanding is the same misunderstanding Hitler had of the matter. He thought for sure that creating trauma from without would demoralize Great Britain. It didn't. Bad miscalculation on his part.

Read Grossman's On Killing and then come back to me. FWIW his second book (On Combat) is better, but the first cuts to the chase of this matter faster.

- Bill
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Post by Valkenar »

Jason Rees wrote: I checked no one was stuffing gays into internment camps, enslaving them, branding them, forcing them to die with owners, or taking their children and selling them to others.
Nobody is saying that things are as bad as they possibly could be. But what would you say if someone argued that we shouldn't have black people in the military because it would cause too many problems?
The last time I checked, gays can say what they like
Well, they can't say that they're gay. Not and still serve, that is. Being able to say what you want without government-given punishment is the sine qua non of freedom of speech.
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Post by Jason Rees »

Valkenar wrote: Nobody is saying that things are as bad as they possibly could be. But what would you say if someone argued that we shouldn't have black people in the military because it would cause too many problems?
You are really having a hard time with this aren't you. Look, it's simple: civil rights are near and dear to me. I swore an oath to defend them. I live without a few of them, being in the military. There are real people who have suffered real violations of their rights, and every time someone comes out trotting the same liberal clap-trap, vapid talking point that I don't care about civil rights because I don't give a rat's ass about made-up 'rights' that gays want, so that they can get people to give them a moral thumbs' up for what they're doing, it just makes me angry. I care about civil rights. Just don't ask me to give a bleeping blip about a made-up right to marry, or to run your mouth about your personal business at work.
Well, they can't say that they're gay. Not and still serve, that is. Being able to say what you want without government-given punishment is the sine qua non of freedom of speech.
Cry me a river. There's alot I can't say at work either.
"God Bless you."
"You should vote for so-and-so"
"Allah Akbar."

During election season, I get to keep my mouth shut. I can't write articles about candidates or issues. I can't ever write letters to the Editor. I get to watch gay activists dress up in my uniform and chain themselves to a fence in protest, but I can't attend protests in uniform, and I am unofficially ordered not to attend protests. There's a slew of people I can't talk to, and a few places I can't live. There's websites I'm not allowed to visit, whether at work or not.

So cry me a bloody river, but don't expect me to get all choked up about the fact that gays and lesbians can't share their sexual habits at work.
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Post by IJ »

More later, but in brief during a work break:

JR, it's fairly absurd for anyone to ask you to cry a river about gay people, and we haven't; it's also absurd to reduce this entire issue to a mere desire of some soldiers to chitchat about their sexual exploits at work. It's more like:

Living in fear of reprisals, like losing your job and career you love

The constant risk of being investigated

Lack of equality in
--partner benefits including healthcare, survivorship, housing, etc
--severance pay as mentioned earlier

Fear in discussing important issues with your physician or psychiatrist

Inability to speak your mind about political issues like your buds can, if only asked

The ability to be blackmailed by someone who could disclose on you

The lack of ability to seek care if there is some kind of abuse, whether a fellow soldier or a partner, like your colleagues can

At a minimum, rather than lacking the ability to TELL people stuff, the DADT policy requires soldiers to LIE when inevitably asked about their personal lives. Even declining to answer is basically a disclosure in many cases. You don't care, at all, that the policy forces soldiers to be dishonest? That's one of our fundamental social rules and one reason I'd never join--not because I want to brag about my adventures, because I consider myself an ethical person and don't want to be forced to lie. This is not really a professional behavior that's being required.

Sure, I have emotions relating to DADT. But your posts that this is a whiny ploy just to be able to talk about homosexual encounters at the water cooler rather than a serious impediment in people's lives, and a big financial inequality, and a potential health issue or other fairness issue (people can turn on a scapegoat once an investigation begins) is just... I dunno, deliberately provocative or willfully ignorant.

Or would you really not care if you couldn't get healthcare for your life partner, or had to constantly lie or conceal your identity for fear of reprisals?
--Ian
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Post by Jason Rees »

If I had a life partner besides my wife, Ian, you can be certain I couldn't get money from the federal trough for them. In fact, I'd more likely be booted out of the military for adultery. So let's not pretend that admitting to being gay is the only reason someone can get kicked out, or that gays are so put upon.
The ability to be blackmailed by someone who could disclose on you
You mean like the guy I knew in the Army who got an Article 15 because his girlfriend got ticked and told his 1Sgt they did it doggy-style? The UCMJ has all kinds of fun stuff in it, Ian.

You may think I'm being provocative. Deal with it. The entire GLBT umbrella has been in our faces for decades.
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Post by IJ »

"If I had a life partner besides my wife, Ian, you can be certain I couldn't get money from the federal trough for them. In fact, I'd more likely be booted out of the military for adultery. So let's not pretend that admitting to being gay is the only reason someone can get kicked out, or that gays are so put upon."

Again, deliberately clueless? We're obviously asking for people that we've chosen to spend our lives with, like, I dunno, my partner of 8 years I own a house with, be treated as well as someone's husband or wife. Dur. And have I ever, once, suggested being gay is the only ticket out? We've already specifically discussed substance abuse, for one; total strawman. As for getting kicked out for doing it doggy style, let me reframe this whole debate. I'm not out to repeal DADT. I'm out to repeal any absurdly invasive and pointless crap in the UCMJ, too. Injustice to a straight person doesn't justify a policy targeting LGBs.

Here's a question about what constitutes being "in your face." I recently read that (much to my surprise) a gay man proposed to his teacher and partner on an elementary school's sign, then showed off the resulting ring to his students. Is that "in your face" or living your life? What if he merely showed the ring or kept a picture on his desk? I know you have no emotions about this, and are sick of people acting "put upon," but I'll need to know what kind of basic acts set you off so I can tiptoe around them. I mean, do others freak out when you mention your wife, your wedding, your kids, your ring? Why are you rubbing your sexuality in their faces? Who gave you this "special right?"

Meanwhile:

1) I don't want a moral thumbs up from you. I don't care what you think about my private life. I don't care about yours. I assume you don't care what I think about yours. Nobody cares. It's not about your approval. It's about your getting your laws out of my bedroom and being treated fairly/equally. Clear?

2) you don't give a rat's ass, bleeding blip, run my mouth about exploits at work when I just explained I don't want to, yadda yadda, it's your uniform not the gay soldiers' uniform, yadda yadda. Where is all this emotion laden language coming from? What is so hard about giving up a law that treats others less well than you?

3) As for what you can't say at work, gay people can be fired for saying it anywhere. What's wrong with equal? Plus that guy who shot up Fort Hood recommended Islam TO HIS PATIENTS, and that should get you fired anywhere. Somehow he clung on. http://www.suite101.com/content/were-fo ... ed-a167704

4) Yeah, you can't surf certain websites or attend certain protests. THAT is what your fellow gay soldiers are also embracing and asking for, the same restrictions and treatment as you. Your argument makes no sense. Just because miiltary life comes with restrictions doesn't mean we should arbitrarily muzzle some but not other people, investigate them, and kick them out. The restrictions should serve a purpose. It is obviously my position that the DADT restrictions don't serve a valid one. THAT is the crux of the debate.
--Ian
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Post by IJ »

Few more thoughts:

Bill wrote:
"Just for your information... the policy is spreading, Ian. Jason and I have been trying to tell you that, and it's falling on deaf ears."

There's a reason for this. If you reply, oh yes, the DADT policy should be phased out if it's not necessary for military functioning, and that is why I support the reduction in expulsions that is happening, that's one thing. If you say, oh sure, oppose DADT, but you know it's on the way out already anyway, that's one thing. But mostly it's been counters to my arguments supporting the gradual end of DADT, and that makes your larger point different. Especially because me knowing that the expulsions have dropped (I posted that, so, whether deaf or not, I knew) does not mean I will support repeal of the DADT policy especially it's other aspects, just as much.

"Humor is one of the few intellectual abilities that separates us from animals and apes. It's part of what helps us get along."

Ok; are you proposing we end DADT and have a collegial laugh about the mishaps that occur with full integration? I don't find DADT funny because I'm on the receiving end (and more importantly, some friends and colleagues since I'm not enlisted). Losing your job or career and not having health insurance stability for your loved ones both for no good reason is not funny or acceptable, I'm sure you'll agree.

"Meanwhile... If you work for a Fortune 500 company today, you're essentially censured. You have it programmed in you on a regular basis. In my case I have yearly training that literally takes days to go through."

Um, you've lost me. Yes, there are behavioral standards at jobs. I just don't want any discriminatory ones! Would you really think it were ok if you worked at a Fortune 500 company where all the gay people could acknowledge they have a family, wear a wedding ring, put a family picture on the desk, but if anyone found out you were straight or married (even via investigation or retaliation for a perceived work slight) you'd be kicked out without the severance the job gives to everyone else? This isn't about freedom to chitchat. It's about equality, and more importantly it's about those real American heroes who are serving their country (or could join) wanting a chance to do their part without having to hide their identities.

"It is my job as a martial arts instructor to understand what causes PTSD. And I have to tell you that I don't believe you get it. Your misunderstanding is the same misunderstanding Hitler had of the matter. He thought for sure that creating trauma from without would demoralize Great Britain. It didn't. Bad miscalculation on his part."

It is my job as a physician to understand what causes PTSD. I can diagnose it. I can treat it. And I have to tell you that psychiatrists, their organizations, and the military itself has specific rules about diagnosing mental illness. The criterion I gave is one. I didn't make it up. I didn't for a second declare the experience of someone who kills during wartime less valid if they weren't at risk themselves. I said I thought they might not be eligible for a diagnosis of PTSD and I clearly said I wasn't sure and would check into it. This is because we commonly reject claims of PTSD from people who were traumatized by 9/11 just because they were in Washington DC or because they were inconvenienced by a medical exam (two real examples) for not having posed a sufficient trauma.

Those three psychiatrists I spoke to over the last day who ALL work for the Navy (they also see marines) confirmed that it would be possible for a soldier to get a PTSD diagnosis from effects of killing others without having been at risk, but they had to really think about it because it is quite rare in their experience; generally, we're talking about going through near death experiences. They couldn't speak to military policy, but, this is some experience in the real world now, rather than a book or a class.

As for the rates / penetrance of the diagnosis, I'm not sure the "average" person gets it on the front lines. Here's a report citing more like 12-20%:

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/565407

This report echoes that:

http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/298/18/2141

I should mention that PTSD itself is a diagnosis under fire. Google "saving ptsd from itself" and click on the pdf for an interesting read. There are many issues with diagnostic criteria for the disorder. All similar disorders lack clear boundaries and these issues are not. Note that I am not saying that people who don't meet a formal definition don't suffer or don't deserve care. Far from it. I was just bringing some precision to the discussion.

So, while I understand your perspective on PTSD, I actually deal with people that have it, and talk often to military psychiatrists who treat active duty and veterans who have it, and I was trained in school on the diagnostic criteria and symptoms. I'm also familiar with the current literature (didja read the one on morphine and PTSD?) and the medications and therapy involved. So you are welcome to believe that I don't get it. But your criteria for that belief would be iffy (in my opinion).
--Ian
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Post by IJ »

http://news.yahoo.com/s/atlantic/201011 ... nttell5983

This summarizes and links to a few news items concerning a recent pentagon report on DADT. Outright and overnight repeal seems premature to me and Gate's comments seem appropriate.
--Ian
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Post by Jason Rees »

I thought this bit of info was amusing: "The recommendations also support pre-existing proposals to do away with the military sodomy law by repealing Article 125 from the Uniform Military Code of Justice."

In other news, I've been looking for a copy of the actual report for hours. News sites all claim they've reviewed it, but none of them have posted the actual report, in any form.

EDIT: I found a copy. 267 pages. It's going to take a while.
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Post by IJ »

I assume repealing that article would also have helped your "doggy style" colleague? Seems like a perfect time to get rid of useless restrictions that can only serve the purpose of retaliation, are highly personal, and a case of he said she said (or he said he said, or she aid she said).
--Ian
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