DADT: A Marine officer writes

A Marine officer writes to comment on Paul’s posts on don’t ask, don’t tell:

I have to say that as an active duty Marine officer, I have been pretty heartened by the willingness of our leadership to stand up and say what a bad idea repeal of DADT would be. I think you have done a good job of sniffing out the phoniness of the DADT survey the Department of Defense sent around and the results that Gates and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs are running around trumpeting.
For the time that DoD was compiling the survey, I received 6 snail-mail letters and a dozen emails to my work email and my personal email address, telling me to access the survey with a special code, then input another special code as my password before I answered a bunch of questions about DADT. Of course, according to the emails and letters, my input would be completely anonymous. Riiiiiiiiiiight. Anonymous input requires 15 digit log ins.
I think that anyone who has been in the military more than a couple of years recognized what was going on. The decision to seek repeal has already been made and this survey is just part of the show trial. The results from the junior enlisted would be dismissed as ill-informed and contrary to “evidence,” just as you suggested. The results from officers and senior enlisted foolish enough to actually provide negative answers will be used later to “remediate” those whose answers showed that they were not with the program.
Even with the clear disincentives to provide negative feedback, the Marines still weighed in overwhelmingly against the political correctness. God bless them. Once again, for yet another reason, I am proud to be a Marine.
Semper fi, and thanks for all you do.

Our reader, incidentally, didn’t ask for anonymity, but we’re giving it to him, to protect the innocent. For another informed take on the Pentagon’s DADT report, please see Mackubin Owens’s “Repealing ‘don’t ask’ will harm the U.S. military.”
UPDATE: Because of observations made by another reader (a Navy commander), I have asked the author of this message for information confirming his status as an active duty Marine officer. I will further update this post as appropriate.
THE LAST WORD: Our Marine correspondent forwarded a copy of his military id. card. We stand by his message.

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