Sez the WaPo,

The Department of Defense has discharged a number of Defense Language Institute students for being gay.

I was real close to fully blogging on this myself, explaining how the regs work, but Rev. Donald Sensing at One Hand Clapping beat me to it, and made the points I was going to address, but in a much more thorough manner. Go read the whole thing.

I can relate to the story to a small extent, insofar as I was a student at DLI back in '86 (before the current "don't ask don't tell" policy was put in place); there was a major scandal involving a Lieutenant and a number of NCO and enlisted trainees in my Company. It was indeed a serious disruption of the good order and discipline of the unit.

Frankly, I still think there is no absolute need to allow gays into the military. If the military services themselves (not legislators, not "blue ribbon commissions" populated with people who have never worn a uniform) determined it would not be a problem, I would accept their judgement.

But then, if the services determined that the best people for military service were crack-addled lesbian one-legged albino dwarves, so be it -- because enlisting is not a right, and because our national security is more important than the potentially hurt feelings of those not allowed to serve, for whatever reason.

Posted by Russ at 09:25 PM, December 3, 2003 in Nat'l Security