Bent Corner

Blogging from Williamsport, Maryland so you don't have to.

Tag: U.S. Air Force

So much for president Obama keeping promises

Once upon a time, there was a Democratic presidential nominee from the radical Islamic jungles of Hawaii who made certain promises on the campaign trail. These promises included reversing the policy on gays in the military, the so-called “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy put in place by the Clinton administration.

At the time, I thought “don’t ask, don’t tell” was actually a good thing. Up until then, the military would routinely investigate people it suspected of being gay. They didn’t need any evidence of any wrong doing. They didn’t need any evidence whatsoever. In the Air Force, this was done by the Office of Special Investigations (OSI). If you remember the old TV show The Six Million Dollar Man, it might sound familiar. Major Steven Austin, the bionic man, was a member of OSI. The show featured Major Austin doing interesting, exciting things as an OSI agent.

It never showed him investigating 20-year Airmen for possible gayness.

Lieutenant Dan Choi is currently being drummed out of the Army for being gay. He’s a West Point graduate, an Iraq veteran, and he has a degree in Arabic.

He served his country as an Arabic linguist.

One must have to be extremely homophobic to get rid of an Army Arabic linguist simply because he’s gay. Do we all of a sudden have more Arabic linguists than we need? I thought they were in short supply. I thought we didn’t have enough. Evidently that’s not the case if we are kicking them out just because they’re gay.

President Obama could have blocked this, but he chose not to.