I just knew the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell was going to impact troop readiness! But noooo, nobody would listen to dear old me. See, rather than have our men and women in Afghanistan dedicate their time and resources to hunting for the hidden immunity idol, they are going to be subjected to “sensitivity training” while stationed abroad, so they can learn the proper hand shakes and eye contact code of conduct when dealing with homosexual soldiers. The training will take place on bases, rather than when the troops return home to the U.S. — because, like, that could be in forever. Army Command Sgt. Maj. Marvin Hill, who’s heading things up in Afghanistan, tells reporters, “Our goal is to not allow a unit to return to home station and have the unit responsible for that. While we own those soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines, we’re going to execute that training on the ground. We hope that it will have little impact on their combat and security operations here.” Fat chance, AMIRIGHT?!
Mr. Enemabag Jones
I’m starting to get the impression that they are really trying to make this more difficult than it should be. Did they have this much “training” when the army was integrated?
Kevin
@Mr. Enemabag Jones: The average soldier will have little more “training” than a 1 or 2 hour Powerpoint presentation. Senior leaders, chaplains, and military lawyers will have more, but that’s not what this article is talking about. Deployed troops often have to do things like this regarding workplace safety, sexual harassment, alcohol abuse, suicide prevention, and other “non-combat” topics. This is no big deal.
Jeff Wilfahrt
Look guys, I am Jeff Wilfahrt, father of Andrew Wilfahrt, KIA 2-27-2011, Kandahar, Afghanistan, and I have something to say to all of you.
Our gay son Andrew was dearly loved by nearly all, if not all of those military personnel who served with him. It is not as divisive and homophobic in the military as you may think. The testosterone rich Marines may be the exception. I think this is where many of the wife beaters are enlisted. They have issues, and it not just with gays.
Andrew died for his country. To honor my son I contacted the local gay men’s chorus to sing us from and to our vehicles graveside. They declined, their option of course, but the MN gay community missed a chance to show up and add beauty to Andrew’s sacrifice. So before you castigate others, “Make sure your own doorstep is clean”, as my mother would say.
Everyone I met through Andrew, within and without the gay community, were people of kind and tender souls. Please, let us honor him and tone down the vitriol among this beautiful panoply of humans we are.
Respectfully and sincerely,
Jeff Wilfahrt
Shannon1981
@Jeff Wilfahrt: Firstly, thank you and condolences to you and your family. Your son is a hero.
But something you need to realize about Queerty: it is a snark blog. Yes, they report news, but it will almost always be with a sarcastic twist. The comment sections follow suit. That is just the tone of this website. We do have serious conversations here, but there will, more often than not, be vitriolic posting of some kind in almost every thread. So if you took offense to what you are reading here, that’s just the tone of the blog.
Also, most of us here realize that not every member of the straight community wants our heads on platters, but some certainly do, and since those same citizens who give us such a hard time are from the pool of people enlisted in the US Military, we have no reason to believe homophobia isn’t happening there just like it happens to most of us daily. I could give you a laundry list of BS I deal with in my daily life because bigots run riot in this supposedly free country, and I am sure your son, may he RIP, could have done the same.
I am sorry, but just because you met people who didn’t care, doesn’t mean that homophobia isn’t rampant in the military and elsewhere, and yes, we are angry and tired of it, and we post about it and call it out here in some pretty vicious ways. I don’t see anything wrong with that.