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Don't Ask, Don't Translate
Topic Started: Jun 8 2007, 10:44 AM (462 Views)
piercehawkeye45
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Franklin Pierce
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http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/08/opinion/08benjamin.html

IMAGINE for a moment an American soldier deep in the Iraqi desert. His unit is about to head out when he receives a cable detailing an insurgent ambush right in his convoy’s path. With this information, he and his soldiers are now prepared for the danger that lies ahead.

Reports like these are regularly sent from military translators’ desks, providing critical, often life-saving intelligence to troops fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. But the military has a desperate shortage of linguists trained to translate such invaluable information and convey it to the war zone.

The lack of qualified translators has been a pressing issue for some time — the Army had filled only half its authorized positions for Arabic translators in 2001. Cables went untranslated on Sept. 10 that might have prevented the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11. Today, the American Embassy in Baghdad has nearly 1,000 personnel, but only a handful of fluent Arabic speakers.

I was an Arabic translator. After joining the Navy in 2003, I attended the Defense Language Institute, graduated in the top 10 percent of my class and then spent two years giving our troops the critical translation services they desperately needed. I was ready to serve in Iraq.

But I never got to. In March, I was ousted from the Navy under the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, which mandates dismissal if a service member is found to be gay.

My story begins almost a year ago when my roommate, who is also gay, was deployed to Falluja. We communicated the only way we could: using the military’s instant-messaging system on monitored government computers. These electronic conversations are lifelines, keeping soldiers sane while mortars land meters away.

Then, last October the annual inspection of my base, Fort Gordon, Ga., included a perusal of the government computer chat system; inspectors identified 70 service members whose use violated policy. The range of violations was broad: people were flagged for everything from profanity to outright discussions of explicit sexual activity. Among those charged were my former roommate and me. Our messages had included references to our social lives — comments that were otherwise unremarkable, except that they indicated we were both gay.

I could have written a statement denying that I was homosexual, but lying did not seem like the right thing to do. My roommate made the same decision, though he was allowed to remain in Iraq until the scheduled end of his tour.

The result was the termination of our careers, and the loss to the military of two more Arabic translators. The 68 other — heterosexual — service members remained on active duty, despite many having committed violations far more egregious than ours; the Pentagon apparently doesn’t consider hate speech, derogatory comments about women or sexual misconduct grounds for dismissal.

My supervisors did not want to lose me. Most of my peers knew I was gay, and that didn’t bother them. I was always accepted as a member of the team. And my experience was not anomalous: polls of veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan show an overwhelming majority are comfortable with gays. Many were aware of at least one gay person in their unit and had no problem with it.

“Don’t ask, don’t tell” does nothing but deprive the military of talent it needs and invade the privacy of gay service members just trying to do their jobs and live their lives. Political and military leaders who support the current law may believe that homosexual soldiers threaten unit cohesion and military readiness, but the real damage is caused by denying enlistment to patriotic Americans and wrenching qualified individuals out of effective military units. This does not serve the military or the nation well.

Consider: more than 58 Arabic linguists have been kicked out since “don’t ask, don’t tell” was instituted. How much valuable intelligence could those men and women be providing today to troops in harm’s way?

In addition to those translators, 11,000 other service members have been ousted since the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy was passed by Congress in 1993. Many held critical jobs in intelligence, medicine and counterterrorism. An untold number of closeted gay military members don’t re-enlist because of the pressure the law puts on them. This is the real cost of the ban — and, with our military so overcommitted and undermanned, it’s too high to pay.

In response to difficult recruiting prospects, the Army has already taken a number of steps, lengthening soldiers’ deployments to 15 months from 12, enlisting felons and extending the age limit to 42. Why then won’t Congress pass a bill like the Military Readiness Enhancement Act, which would repeal “don’t ask, don’t tell”? The bipartisan bill, by some analysts’ estimates, could add more than 41,000 soldiers — all gay, of course.

As the friends I once served with head off to 15-month deployments, I regret I’m not there to lessen their burden and to serve my country. I’m trained to fight, I speak Arabic and I’m willing to serve. No recruiter needs to make a persuasive argument to sign me up. I’m ready, and I’m waiting.

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This is pathetic. They are hurting US-Iraqi personal relations and probably risking lives to enforce a homophobic policy. Good thing every democrat wants an openly gay military.
Dropped the atomic bomb let them know that it's real
Speak soft with a big stick do what I say or be killed
I'm America!

I have found the enemy and he is us.
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Khan
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HAVE YOU HEARD OF THIS SWEET WEBSITE CALLED FOUR CHAN DOT ORG?
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I think Fred Phalps creamed himself when reading this.

Gotta mail to them. Make them happy or something.

EDIT: also ,for every blunder Bush makes, the whole planet heats itself a micrograd celsius or whatever C means
Wine in hand, in the other, Quran,
Both halal I do and haram,
In this incomplete world of a sham,
Neither Pagan I am, nor Musselman!


Omar Khayyam

Come, come, whoever you are,
Wanderer, idolater, worshipper of fire,
Come even though you have broken your vows a thousand times,
Come, and come yet again.
Ours is not a caravan of despair


Mevlana Jalaladdin Rumi
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Kip1
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Apocalyptic Usher
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F.uck that-man we NEED those linguists badly,i dont know how many times they couldnt give us information that might've saved lives when we needed it,due to lack of translators it always arrived to late or untranslated.I dont give a dam if their gay or what have ya-theres no prooff showing they stuff the whole military routine up
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Flamingo
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Penis goes in here
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That's horrible. America is supposed to be the "land of the free" where everyone is equal and can do basically whatever they want. I guess not. Gays have every right to be in the military if they choose to do so.
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Khan
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HAVE YOU HEARD OF THIS SWEET WEBSITE CALLED FOUR CHAN DOT ORG?
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Does the U.S military employ Arabic and English speaking non US speaking individuals?
Wine in hand, in the other, Quran,
Both halal I do and haram,
In this incomplete world of a sham,
Neither Pagan I am, nor Musselman!


Omar Khayyam

Come, come, whoever you are,
Wanderer, idolater, worshipper of fire,
Come even though you have broken your vows a thousand times,
Come, and come yet again.
Ours is not a caravan of despair


Mevlana Jalaladdin Rumi
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Kip1
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Apocalyptic Usher
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Kicking badly needed linguists that are needed to keep soldiers alive is bad enough,getting rid of 'em 'cause their gay is even worse.
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Mister Sinister
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Delusional Granduerist
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Yet the better part of the Republicans think the don't ask don't tell policy is working. It's pretty much THE only thing I disagree wtih Ron Paul on. But I do have to agree with his assesment that this is no time to try and present the armed services with a 'social experiment'. Yeah, I'd like to see a day where Homosexuals can serve openly and without prejudice, but this just ain't that day, and I think we'd be better off acknowledging that there is far too much wrong with the military to focus on changing this right now. Too much on a larger scale needs to be changed first.
Then, after the bigger mess is cleaned up, you can figure out a way to house insanely homophobic soldiers and openly gay soldiers in the same barracks, because it's going to be either one or the other. The last time I checked not too many soldiers (esp. Marines) were what you or I would call 'level headed'.

The fact is Marines are dickheads going in because they think they're badasses. Then after their training, they KNOW it. It's very difficult to get someone you've trained to be a cold-blooded killer, to give a shit about human rights. Think about it.

Having said that this has got to be the most retardedest thing. It happened a while back and I remember hearing about it. I think I suffered from mental blockage afterwards as it was just too stupid to process.
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Khan
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HAVE YOU HEARD OF THIS SWEET WEBSITE CALLED FOUR CHAN DOT ORG?
[ *  *  *  *  *  *  *  * ]
Well, even ancient Greeks seem to be more level headed than the "huah" marines.
Wine in hand, in the other, Quran,
Both halal I do and haram,
In this incomplete world of a sham,
Neither Pagan I am, nor Musselman!


Omar Khayyam

Come, come, whoever you are,
Wanderer, idolater, worshipper of fire,
Come even though you have broken your vows a thousand times,
Come, and come yet again.
Ours is not a caravan of despair


Mevlana Jalaladdin Rumi
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Killer Bee
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Admin
I have to agree with Sinister. I also think that gays should be allowed to serve in the military, openly. But, with the debacle we've dove into(called Iraq), we need to sort out other problems we have before conducting a social integration experiment. I do agree with Kip also, in that whether they are gay or not, getting vital information to the troops should be first on the list. But, what can you expect from a government who's "religious" materialistic needs outweigh the needs of the military who's currently serving in an unnecessary war.
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Phelps
Crazy Doctor's Apprentice
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Now now, we all know that knowing there's a gay man in your barracks in FAR more demoralizing than, say... Losing more people than died in the WTC attack and the US death toll, all at the same time.

If I recall, there was a number around 7000 that would currently be kicked out of the military for being the gay?

Oh yes, the right thing to do would be to enlist the children of the governing officials for every gay kicked out for... Being gay? Sure makes just as much sense. After all, you don't want to demoralize our troops!
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