On March 3, 2009, Rep. Ellen Tauscher (D-CA) introduced legislation (H.R. 1283) to repeal the 1993 law regarding homosexuals in the military (Section 654, Title 10, U.S.C.), often labeled “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”
Anticipating an attempt to repeal this law, several retired flag and general officers from all branches of the military created an organization called The Flag and General Officers for the Military Project , and set about asking their retired colleagues to join them in signing a letter to the President and Members of Congress. In part, that letter reads:
Our past experience as military leaders leads us to be greatly concerned about the impact of repeal [of the law] on morale, discipline, unit cohesion, and overall military readiness. We believe that imposing this burden on our men and women in uniform would undermine recruiting and retention, impact leadership at all levels, have adverse effects on the willingness of parents who lend their sons and daughters to military service, and eventually break the All-Volunteer Force.
In order to ensure the authenticity of each signature, the group addressed individual letters and received responses via regular postal mail. The response has been nothing short of astonishing.
By March 20, 2009, more than 1,050 retired flag and general officers responded with handwritten signatures. The list of signatures includes a former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, several Service Chiefs, a number of combatant command, theater, and other major U.S. and allied force commanders, as well as a Medal of Honor recipient (Maj. Gen. James E. Livingston, USMC, Ret).
This is astonishing mainly because you could hardly imagine getting this number of flag and general officers from different services to speak with one voice on anything. But they agree on this.
The founding members of Flag and General Officers for the Military have an editorial “Gays and The Military: A Bad Fit” in today’s Washington Post . The members who wrote the article are: Retired Army Gen. James J. Lindsay, the first commander of U.S. Special Operations Command; Retired Adm. Jerome Johnson, vice chief of naval operations; Retired Lt. Gen. E.G. “Buck” Shuler Jr., commander of the Strategic Air Command’s 8th Air Force; and Retired Gen. Joseph J. Went, an assistant commandant of the Marine Corps.
Well done Gentlemen!
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