"Les Is More" Revisited: A DADT Story

Today marking the official end of the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy, I thought I would dust off two essays I previously published on the issue.  The title to this post is a link to one of the essays.  I've copied the other one below.  --EFP
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"Les Is More:  A Don't Ask, Don't Tell Story"

 [The following appeared in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer on 17 Dec. 2007.]

"Lighten up on 'don't ask, don't tell"
EDWARD F. PALM
GUEST COLUMNIST

Call me "Les."

My real name is "Ed," but I was always Les to the commanding general of the 1st Marine Division when I was a major serving on his staff in the late '80s.
     The recent news reports about 28 retired admirals and generals calling for an end to the "don't ask, don't tell" policy have led me to reflect on how I came to be Les. Personally, I think it is long past time for the Department of Defense to lighten up on this issue, as I learned to do in the 1st Marine Division.
     The entire time I was on active duty as a Marine officer, there was only other officer named Palm, and he was always at least three ranks ahead of me. His name is Les Palm.
     Now, the Marine Corps, compared with the other services, is a small place. Senior officers tend to know one another -- by reputation, if not personally. Les Palm enjoyed a superb reputation throughout the Corps. Ed Palm -- "not so much." This was mainly because of my own career choice. As an enlisted man, I had served in Vietnam as a rifleman and patrol leader with the Combined Action Program. But later in life, as an officer, I became an "adjutant," a professional administrator.
     The general clearly had me confused with Les Palm. Whenever I would brief him, he would close the briefing with "Thank you, Les." Or, when I would encounter him in the hall or in the club, he would say "Hi, Les."
     For the most part, I was content to be "Les." But one day I did ask the division adjutant, an ironic young captain, if he thought I should set the general straight.
     "Hell no, sir!" my young friend replied. "Les Palm is a heterosexual -- an artillery officer. You're just an adjutant," he reminded me.  "The confusion can only do you good!"
     I retired -- still a major -- in 1993 and went on to an academic career. Les Palm would go on to become a lieutenant general. We never actually met. But my young friend was right; the confusion did do me a lot of good. It prompted me to think seriously about whether having gays serving openly would really be a detriment to good order and discipline.
     Later, in interviewing for academic jobs, when people would ask me where I stood on the gay ban, I knew just what to say. I told them that I had seen far more boy-girl problems than problems caused by gay Marines.
     I told them that, gay or straight, we have an obligation to keep our sex lives private and separate from our professional lives. And I told them that, should the Department of Defense change the policy and allow gays to serve openly, not only would we adjust but we would lead the way, just as the Armed Forces had done with racial integration in the '50s.
     I still believe that. I also still wonder if anyone anywhere has ever confused Les Palm with Ed Palm the adjutant turned academic.

Palm on "Don't Ask, Don't Tell"

I couldn't resist weighing in on the current debate over "Don't Ask, Don't Tell":  "My Turn," Kitsap Sun, 5 Dec. 2010, p. A11

"Don't Ask, Don't Tell" Revisited--Again

[Naval Academy midshipman, Marine training, Quantico, 1992]

I've never been one to buy into the myth of the liberal bias of the mainstream media.  Ever since Vietnam, I've believed that, for the most part, all the grumbling traces back to conservative resentment at having their own myths and cherished articles of faith challenged.  But, lately, I've begun to wonder about some of the sob stories that have been making the national news.
     A case in point is yesterday's news story about senior ROTC scholarship cadet Sara Issacson, who is now faced with repaying the government the cost of her scholarship--$79,000--for voluntarily revealing that she is gay.  It is not her sexual orientation that concerns me. I have gone on record as supporting the right of gays to serve openly in the Armed Forces ( My P.I. Piece).  But there is another moral issue here.  She entered into a legal contract.  She accepted one of a limited number of highly prized scholarships. She agreed that, in return for a free ride through the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, she would serve as an Army officer for four years.  She is now reneging on that deal.
     In all fairness, according to the syndicated article that appeared in yesterday's Seattle Times, Issacson only recently came to terms with the realization that she is gay.  Some, of course, would see the timing of this epiphany as awfully convenient and suspiciously self-serving.  Assuming that she is telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth about what she knew and when she knew it, the better and more moral choice in this case would have been to keep her counsel and honor her contract.
     I say that because I believe that the current policy is on the way out and that gays will soon be allowed to serve openly.  If, as Issacson claims, her heart's desire really was to become an Army doctor while living "an honest life," there would soon have been no conflict between the two.  Surely, she realizes that.
     Frankly, I have to doubt her sincerity.  I suspect that she is just trying to use her sexual orientation as a Get-Out-Serving-Free Card.  Worse, the media seems sympathetic to that wish. Whatever Issacson's motives, the least she can do is to repay the cost of her scholarship.  --EFP

"Don't Ask, Don't Tell" Revisited

[Christiana Commune, Copenhagen, 2004]

I was heartened today to hear that the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has come out in favor of allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly in the Armed Services.  The Secretary of Defense, however, seems to want to apply the brakes.  He said they first needed to conduct a study and to poll the troops to determine how they felt about it.  I suspect that the majority of today's troops, being young, will have no problem serving alongside gays and lesbians.  But I also wonder if the Department of Defense polled the troops before integrating the Armed Services in 1950--or did they just do it because they knew it was the right thing to do and an idea whose time had come?
      In any event, I can't resist dusting off what I had to say about the issue sometime back:   http://www.seattlepi.com/opinion/343620_firstperson17.html

The Demise of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell"?

(On the "Iwo Jima," in the Caribbean, spring, 1968, Ed Palm photo)

Just a quick note:  I have accepted a position as a full-time online English prof with Strayer University, and it starts tomorrow.  In the words of the poet, "But at my back I always hear time's winged chariot hurrying near."
      I was heartened to hear Obama reaffirm his pledge to end the current "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy and to allow gays to serve openly in the military.  Over the years, I have had occasion to tell academic hiring committees--some members of which expected me to conform to their stereotypical notions of the military--that I have seen far more boy-girl problems threaten "good order and discipline" than I have seen problems caused by gays.  Whether gay or straight, we all have an obligation to keep our sex lives private and out of the workplace.  If soldiers, sailors, and Marines keep that in mind, there will be no problem integrating gays into the ranks.
     In 2007, I was privileged to make this point, in my own inimitable way, the pages of the late Seattle Post-Intelligencer:  The title to this entry,above, is a link to my P.I. piece.  --EFP