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DADT Survey | When You Thought it Couldn’t Get Any Worse…

In early July when the Pentagon released the Comprehensive Review Working Group’s (CRWG) survey for military personnel, it was met with shock and disgust by many in and out of the LGBT community. [For those not familiar with the CRWG, that is the group within the Pentagon examining any impact of and preparing for the potential repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell. The CRWG survey was sent in early July to 200,000 active duty and 200,000 reserve military personnel across DoD and the USCG.] Some of the content in that first survey was found to be insulting, derogatory and the survey as a whole was viewed as a massive waste of taxpayers’ money. The overall CRWG process has turned into a nuclear bomb (pun intended). After the initial explosion of a nuclear bomb, you have the first blast-wave, a lot of heat, a large dose of radioactivity and then, if things weren’t bad enough, you end up getting hit with a second blast-wave from the receding over-pressure. Stand by for the second blast-wave, known as the family member survey.

The active duty survey was the initial explosion; with the shockwaves felt across the LGBT community, particularly with the gays and lesbians in uniform. In very short order, there was quite a bit of heat felt by the Pentagon over the poorly worded, albeit possibly well-intentioned survey. As of this past week, 90% of the military recipients hadn’t responded to the survey. Much like anything radioactive, people prefer to avoid it rather than risk being contaminated by it. As if the lackluster number of responses to the survey isn’t bad enough, there is the chance that the survey has been sent to some government civilians as well. While I cannot prove definitively that civilians received the survey, I know two government civilians by name who said they were invited to take the survey even though they have no current reserve or active duty military affiliation. One of the two has been retired for several years; the other has no military affiliation whatsoever. Whenever you deal with 400,000 of anything, mistakes can happen and DoD is not immune to human or computer errors. However, in a process that is addressing the future livelihood, employment, and well-being of tens of thousands of people in the service of this country, we the taxpayers do expect better than what we have seen so far.

In case you thought the worst was behind us, let’s remember that second blast wave is about to be unleashed and with the potential to cause further damage to anything left standing. In the CRWG process, the Pentagon is not only asking servicemembers for their opinions on repeal of DADT but also the family members. While the final family member survey has not been released, the most recent draft version is no less insulting or inflammatory than the military member survey released earlier this month. In fact, as someone who did not receive the military survey, I take quite a bit of umbrage with family members’ responses carrying more weight than my limited free-text input in the online inbox. While spouses and families are a key component to the success of those in uniform, this family member survey has crossed some serious lines of propriety.

While any survey has its limitations, there are some key shortfalls in this family member survey regarding possible repeal of DADT. First and foremost, the only people able to respond to this survey are those who were or are legally married to a servicemember. Though I know several LGB military personnel with children, their partners by default have no voice in this process. If those partners want a voice, they must use the online inbox (limited to input of up to 1000 characters) or possibly the confidential communications mechanism available at the end of the online inbox. (For reference, a tweet is no more than 140 characters. The online inbox allows comments of approximately 7 tweets in length.)

Beyond the issue of the select pool of respondents, some of the potential questions in the survey and their implications are absolutely revolting. The pinnacle of which deals with what the straight spouse would do if a gay or lesbian servicemember and their partner lived in the same neighborhood in military housing. While I hope the straight spouse would treat them like anyone else in the neighborhood, the other potential responses to that question could clearly allow the homophobes to express their true hate. One of the hallmark arguments about the viability of DADT has been preserving the ‘forced intimacy’ of military life. The questions proposed in this family member survey have little to nothing to do with forced intimacy and have everything to do with quantifying and possibly fueling intolerance towards the LGBT community.

For those I have talked to who completed the military member survey, most of the respondents said they just don’t care about repeal; they don’t see it as an issue. I hope the family members (spouses) that receive the next survey hold the same lackadaisical attitudes; in hindsight, we will wonder why repeal took so long. I am still shocked that spouses even get a vote, particularly when many military members did not get a vote in the first ‘blast-wave’ of this review process. Education and communication with the entire ‘military family’ is required in this process, particularly when repeal happens; however, why the straight spouses get to have their voices heard in a matter that has very little to do with them is beyond me. Straight military spouses have the full rights, benefits and protections our country has to offer; it is the partners and sometimes the children of our gay and lesbian servicemembers who have been serving in silence all these years. If anyone’s voice should be heard, it is theirs.