Who DADT?

I must admit that my military experience is limited to serving a 2-year tour of duty as Assistant Webelos Den Leader, and once running the Marine Corps Marathon. Dangerous assignments, no doubt, but neither elevates to the level defined by Col. Nathan R. Jessup, “Ever served in a forward area? Ever put your life in another man's hands, asked him to put his life in yours?” So forgive me if I don’t fully understand or appreciate the concept of “unit cohesion” in a military sense. Unit cohesion must be pretty darn important, however, since the strength of unit cohesion is threatened by the imminent repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t tell. I know this to be true, because decorated war hero and failed Presidential hopeful, Sen. John McCain, has told me so. Why am I so skeptical?

Could it be that disruption to “unit cohesion” was used to delay the integration of blacks into the military? Could it be that “unit cohesion” was supposed to be sacrificed once women were assigned into combat roles? It could be that unit cohesion is always the last argument in a losing fight, a phrase so mysterious and vague that it is rivaled only by the equally persuasive parental, “Because I said so.” Kids accept it because they have never been parents. Am I supposed to accept McCain’s judgment because I have never served in the military and can’t possibly grasp the subtleties of unit cohesion?

I am dismayed at how fragile unit cohesion is perceived to be by Sen. McCain. Apparently, asking people to lie to their fellow soldiers about the reality of who they are does more to build unit cohesion than a simple truth among friends and teammates. It would seem that the Marines can conquer any enemy, yet the thought of Nathan Lane fixing a jeep or packing a parachute tears at the very fabric of unit cohesion. That’s insulting to the members of the military, and the results of the recent survey of service members attitudes towards repeal back me up. They can handle change.  They can handle the truth.

Here’s the bigger picture. Unit cohesion is just another one of the moving goal posts of GOP politics to be overcome. The first goal post, as set by Sen. McCain (and other Republican Senators), was that he would support repeal of DADT as soon as military leadership came to him requesting such a change. They did. Sen. McCain next decided that in addition to support of military leadership, he would need to see the results of a study of field level reactions to such a repeal. As Sen. McCain stated, and I paraphrase, “Good leaders never move forward without input from their team.” While this may not sound much like the way a maverick would make decisions, no matter. Accepting group think to bring people together is a new form of military leadership, a sort of “leadership cohesion” theory. Survey results were received, and members of the active service overwhelmingly either supported the repeal, or didn’t care either way. (Of course, if a survey of the all-white military was conducted in 1948 that supported segregation of the races in military facilities, Sen. McCain’s brand of leadership by consensus would have rejected integration).

Did I mention that in this country, the military is controlled by civilian authority, and not the other way around?

Now the survey is flawed, according to the Senator. Of course it is. Goal post once reached must be moved again. Until a survey supports McCain’s position, it must be flawed somehow. Climate science is rigged, because it is anti-Big Oil. Judges are ‘activist’ when rulings go the other way. Disagree with us? You’re a Socialist. I disagree with you? I am a brother of the Revolutionary War patriots, dumping tea into the harbor, expressing my God-given right to civil disobedience.

Moving goal posts seems to be a GOP specialty. Take health care. Nixon proposed pay-or-play. Clinton proposed the same in the 1990s, a GOP idea.  It was rejected by the GOP, who favored individual mandates.  The Democrats built on that idea, the same one Republican Mitt Romney enacted in Massachusetts.  Now the GOP says it's all unconstitutional.  Take cap and trade. Part of the McCain platform in 2008.  Now it's an assault on free markets.  There is no middle when one side keeps drifting further and further right.  Bipartisan compromise should not be sold to the public as synonymous with capitulation to the extreme. Meeting half way isn’t the same as abandoning your position in submission to mine. Negotiation does not demand a zero sum result (i.e. if I win, you lose).

It could be that I have this all wrong. The real story isn’t the Republicans moving the goal posts further on the Democrats. It’s the far right moving the goal posts on John McCain. The closer he comes to embracing their positions, the further he is asked to bend. I know many Democrats who could have voted for McCain 2000. By the time he reached McCain 2008, he was tied in too many contradictory knots by kowtowing to the far right in his party. McCain pushed for limits on corporate money in elections.  Now, not so much.  He was a key player in immigration reform, until he was blasted as an amnesty advocate.  Now all he knows are bigger fences.  McCain 2010 could probably become governor of South Carolina in a walk.

Sen. McCain is becoming Colonel Jessup before our eyes.  It is a very small leap to imagine this coming out of McCain today, when discussing DADT:

Son, we live in a world that has walls, and those walls have to be guarded by men with guns. Who's gonna do it? You? You, Lt. Weinburg? I have a greater responsibility than you could possibly fathom. You weep for _______, and you curse the marines. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know. That {DADT}, while tragic, probably saved lives. And my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives. You don't want the truth because deep down in places you don't talk about at parties, you want me on that wall, you need me on that wall. We use words like honor, code, loyalty. We use these words as the backbone of a life spent defending something. You use them as a punchline. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom that I provide, and then questions the manner in which I provide it. I would rather you just said thank you, and went on your way, Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a weapon, and stand a post. Either way, I don't give a damn what you think you are entitled to.


Self-righteous, and ultimately wrong.

Time to Ask and Tell.