Repeal The Don't Ask, Don't Tell Policy

Floor Speech

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Mr. POLIS. Thank you for highlighting some of the research that was done in your district regarding this matter. And I would like to thank Representative Patrick Murphy for taking this challenge on, making our military stronger, saving taxpayer money.

I would like to bring the attention of our viewers to a very recent report that was published. It's called ``The Efficacy of Don't Ask, Don't Tell'' by Colonel Om Prakash. You can find it on the Internet. This was a study that was done by a student at the National War College. It actually won recently the 2009 Secretary of Defense National Security Essay Competition.

One of the quotes on the cover is from General Omar Bradley, and it says, ``Experiments within the Army in the solution of social problems are fraught with danger to efficiency, discipline, and morale.''

Now, of course this was not in relation to our current discussion. It was in reference to the racial integration of the United States military by Harry Truman in 1948.

At some point the experimentation, the so-called experimentation, becomes the exclusion. At this point in the evolution of our society, it is more experimental to use the military as a social incubator to try and deny gay and lesbian soldiers from serving than simply allowing them to serve. The military isn't the place for evaluating whether or not we as a society accept or don't accept homosexuality. It should be designed as a fighting force to defend our Nation. And anything that compromises that weakens our military and is not in our interest as a country.

The report by Colonel Prakash--allow me to quote from it--it says, ``If one considers strictly the lost manpower and expense, `Don't Ask, Don't Tell' is a costly failure.''

Colonel Prakash further quotes the GAO's estimates that the cost is $190.5 million for the previous 10 years of Don't Ask, Don't Tell. Not only does it cost money, but it costs lives. Whenever we put anything other than our best foot forward in terms of the very most capable personnel for every particular mission, we jeopardize the lives of other men and women serving in our military. We owe it to the men and women serving in our military to ensure that the most capable person is in every job, regardless of the race or the sexual orientation of that individual.

Colonel Prakash's report ends, ``Based on this research, it is not time for the administration to reexamine the issue; rather, it is time for the administration to examine how to implement the repeal of the ban.''

We have a number of other speakers here tonight, Mr. Murphy, and that is a testimony to your leadership and the importance of this issue. I look forward to engaging in a discussion after we've all had a chance to say a few words.

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Mr. POLIS. You know, I'm struck by the sharing of the number of stories, a lot of similarities, many service men and women over the last decade and a half since this policy has been implemented, kicked out for no good reason. You know, what company, and I come from the business sector, could do this kind of thing? It doesn't increase your competitiveness. If you have people that you put hundreds of thousands of dollars into training, and then you don't like who they date and so you say, you're fired. You have people with excellent performance ratings, top of the category and you are saying, sorry, we're going to put somebody who might have a lower rating

in your job because, again, we don't like who you date.

That's no way to run a company. It's no way to run a country. It's no way to run the best military. And what we owe to every one of our men and women who are in uniform, who put their lives at risk every day, is to make sure that we put our best foot forward militarily and do everything in our power to protect every life of every man and woman who serves. And when we remove people who would perform better, who are needed for certain functions, who have to cost more to retrain, we jeopardize the lives of other soldiers who are serving with them.

This also has an effect on recruitment and retention within the military. I heard a few weeks ago from somebody who's currently serving. He was facing a decision of whether to reenlist for another few years. He said, You know, when do you think don't ask don't tell will end? If you think it's going to end soon I'm going to re-up for another 5-year period. If not, I'm probably going to get out now.

I didn't know what to tell him. I said, well, Representative Murphy's working on it, and I have every degree of confidence in him. I said, I hope that we will get it done in the next year or two. I think we will.

If he chose to leave the military, that's our loss. That's our military's lost. The cost of replacing that individual, the cost of training somebody to get up to speed at a time when we need more men and women to serve in uniform, is a cost to taxpayers and a cost to our national security. All of these stories resound that we are engaging in an extremely short sighted policy. How can be it be argued that all of these excellent men and women with great command, great evaluations that are kicked out for no particular reason other than who they date, how can it be argued that that makes our military stronger? It simply doesn't. And we need to correct this policy to ensure that we have the very best military to defend our national interests here and abroad.

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Mr. POLIS. In addition to General Shalikashvili, one of the original cosponsors of the bill, former Representative Barr of Georgia, has come out in favor of the repeal. The former Commander in Chief of the United States military, President Bill Clinton, who signed Don't Ask, Don't Tell, has come out in favor of a repeal. The times have changed, and what was, in our judgment at one time, a decision of military preparedness, it might have been that good minds disagreed with whether it was in our interest back in the early nineties, that idea has changed. The tone of the country has changed, and it is more than time. The time has long passed to end this policy of discrimination within our military.

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