Repeal Don't Ask Don't Tell

Now that the Pentagon's working group study on “Don't Ask, Don't Tell” has been delivered, there should no longer be any good reasons to oppose repeal. At the Nov. 30 news conference, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates stated that DADT is a “fundamentally flawed” policy. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mike Mullen also supports repeal.

But it's not just the leaders at the top in favor of it. According to the survey, for members of the military who believe they have actually served with a gay person before, support of DADT repeal goes up to 90 percent.

All of that should be enough to motivate Congress to act. However, quite frankly, even if someone is unmoved by the anti-discrimination argument or the overwhelming support repeal enjoys among the public at large as well as those most impacted, there is a lot of evidence that repealing DADT will strengthen our military.

For example:

The military will be stronger if they didn't have to fire translators, medics, fighter pilots and other highly trained professionals for no good reason.

Recruitment and retention problems have been exacerbated due to having tossed out 14,000 troops against their will in the last 17 years.

The military has better things to do with the dollars they have been throwing away on witch hunts each year.

Officer recruitment should improve if ROTC operations are started on the campuses from which they are currently banned due to the discriminatory nature of DADT.

The issue has been studied extensively, other countries have implemented this change without serious problems and it is long past time for the USA to make the world's most formidable fighting force even better by repealing DADT.

I honor the service of each and every member of our military and hope that Congress respects the clear preference for repeal of DADT expressed by service people in the recent Pentagon study.

Michael Burrell

Algonquin