Semper Fi: One Marine's Journey

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If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.
This is the same network that gave us 'Queer as Folk'.

There's a reason for "don't ask, don't tell", and it's for the best of our military.
 
randhail said:
and what is that reason?

Because, randhail.

American soldiers cannot control their sexual urges. Unlike say their British allies where there is no DADT. The Brits are humping in foxholes like, all the time.
 
Smallville said:
The same reason you don't allow men and women to bunk and shower together.

That reason has been brought up here before and is probably one of the worst reasons you could think of. It essentially demeans all of our troops by saying that they can't act as responsbile adults, control any impulses, or realize the reason why they are soldiers. It's pretty sad.
 
anitram said:


Because, randhail.

American soldiers cannot control their sexual urges. Unlike say their British allies where there is no DADT. The Brits are humping in foxholes like, all the time.

We all know the English are a bunch of dandies
 
BonoVoxSupastar said:
A full day of no response and then it takes this turn?!

Wow...

I googled and found this


Tour of duty: as an openly gay marine, Jeff Key fought in Iraq only to be kicked out due to his sexuality. He says coming out is the best decision he ever made

Advocate, The, Jan 18, 2005 by Paul Clinton

Badrah, Iraq, May 20, 2003 I stand atop my vehicle with my weapon at the ready, balancing friendly with guarded. We want the people to know we are here to help, but looking passive is an invitation to trouble. A man in his early 20s passes on the opposite side of the street. He is fit and good-looking in that brooding Middle Eastern sort of way.

I follow him with my eyes. So I'm watching my Iraqi soccer player walk down the street and he looks back--in that way. There's no way we can do anything, but I'm desperate for a verbal acknowledgment of what we both know. He figures out how.

"You have wife?" he asks.

"No, no wife," I say. "You?"


"No wife," he answers.

Then those beautiful brown eyes lit up. I just smile. We're making out big-time with our words. "You're beautiful," he says quietly.

We stand there, enjoying the torture of our situation. "You have ...?" And he pantomimes the action for lip balm. I dig in my pocket and produce my dirty, half-used tube. I've got to tell you, I don't think anyone's ever put on lip balm in a sexier way. "What you call ...? And he kisses the air, making a kissing noise. "Yes, kiss. We call it kiss," I reply. "Kiss," he repeats and hands back the ChapStick. "No, you keep it," I say, putting my hand up to refuse it. "Kiss," he repeats and pushes it into my palm.
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Well, I'll be damned, he's giving me a kiss. I smooth the stuff over my own lips as he watches, and in an instant my anger at both our cultures' ignorance is diminished and shame is overcome by bliss and absolute pride--in us, in our love, to show love no matter what. We are everywhere.

That's just a portion of the journal kept by openly gay lance corporal Jeff Key, a U.S. marine who served a tour of duty in Iraq in 2003. His written recollection has become the basis for a powerful one-man show, The Eyes of Babylon. In the show--running at the Tamarind Theatre in Los Angeles--Key veers from humor to tears to outrage in the blink of an eye.

At 6 foot 5, with his high and tight haircut and 220 muscular pounds, the 39-year-old is every inch a marine. His usual cockeyed grin betrays the fact that he's being honorably discharged for coming out to his commanding officer.

Key says he felt he had no choice. Two months into his Iraq tour he was injured lifting heavy equipment and was flown back to the United States. He became more and more angry at how the war was being mismanaged and how "don't ask, don't tell" was continuing to harm the estimated 64,000 gay men and lesbians currently serving in the U.S. armed forces.

Some have even questioned Key about playing the "gay card" in order to get out of the military. He responds that he had crawled back into the closet after nearly 20 years of living openly only to find himself fighting a war he believes to be illegal. He says he decided to use the ban on gays in the military to avoid being asked to take innocent lives for corporate gain.

"Banning gays in the military is archaic and stupid," Key says. "Marines are designed to take orders. If they are ordered to keep their mouths shut and not harass the person who speaks truthfully about who they are, they will follow that order. That's what marines do. If they are told to walk into a hail of gunfire, that's what marines do, follow orders."

As the fighting in Iraq continues, Australia as well as all 25 member nations of the European Union allow gays and lesbians to serve with honor in their military units. There are countless examples of units from European countries with openly gay soldiers and U.S. forces serving together, says Aaron Belkin, director of the Center for the Study of Sexual Minorities in the Military at the University of California, Santa Barbara. "There was even one case where the commanding officer of an integrated unit was openly gay," Belkin says.

Key remains disdainful of the current administration, and he makes no bones about it, either onstage or off. "I became a maline to protect the Constitution and to protect innocent people--and thousands and thousands of people are being slaughtered for an economic and political agenda," he says with sadness in his eyes.

A native of America Junction, Ala., Key realized that he was different from other little boys at a very young age but didn't put a label on his feelings until he was a teenager. It took a little longer for him to share the fact that he's gay with his mother and, especially, his father, who is a deacon of the Church of Christ. "The news was rough at first, but both have come to terms with my sexuality," he says.

After he came out at age 23, he continued to drink his way through his 20s. "I embarked on 13 years of undergraduate education and hard drinking at the University of Alabama, where I eventually sobered up and got a degree in theater, but not necessarily in that order," he says. He headed west to Los Angeles. At age 34 he signed on to become a U.S. marine.
 
Australia as well as all 25 member nations of the European Union allow gays and lesbians to serve with honor in their military units. There are countless examples of units from European countries with openly gay soldiers and U.S. forces serving together, says Aaron Belkin, director of the Center for the Study of Sexual Minorities in the Military at the University of California, Santa Barbara. "There was even one case where the commanding officer of an integrated unit was openly gay," Belkin says.
 
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Please explain how it is not safe for this guy to be in the service
but, it is great for him to have an all-access pass to the Whitehouse?


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How safe is it
for him to get his hands on the "Commander and Cheif"

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gannon_manwhore.jpg
 
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