what really kicks me in the ass about emily2's post on crucially-needed military linguists being fired for being gay was this statement:
"I got about $2,200-per-month in take-home pay. That includes all of the entitlements, such as a housing allowance. If you are the best linguist in the Army, you make an extra $200-per-month, as I did. I made about $36,000 annually."
that's right. $36K if you are a multilingually-fluent and crucially-needed intelligence personnel during a war.
in the private sector, you'd make six figures without blinking. but the army has it all ass-backwards in every way, not just about the homosexuality. you know how hard it is to study fårsi? it's nigh-near impossible to even find a decent textbook in english - trust me, i studied it. my fårsi teacher even told me, "you should work for the army, they're desperate".
i guess she didn't realise the army here discriminates against ITBLG folks - after all, iran has authorised sex changes since the beginning of the ayatollah khomeini's reign in 1979 and he also insisted that women had every right to serve in combat like men do. iran is the only country that authorises women to serve with complete equality with men in the armed forces, including in his personal élite bodyguard units. he claimed it was a qur'ânic mandate that sexism was inappropriate. (yes, they have to cover their hair, but with special coverings so as not to compromise their effectiveness in their duties.)
unfortunately, things aren't so enlightened here. women aren't authorised to serve in combat, though they come under fire all the time. it's typical hypocrisy - you aren't authorised to serve in combat zones because women are inferior and unable to fight but they are armed and expected to engage in combat if attacked. what kind of fucked-up logic is that?
my da - special forces, green beret, ranger, paratrooper, holding the rank of second captain - always held that these were strict attempts to keep out undesirables: women aren't permitted to shave their heads in basic training, they have stupid uniforms, they are kept separate. these make them outsiders in a world where identity is forged out of the unit, out of erasing difference.
like all cults, the military starts by dehumanising you, removing all individuality. this helps forge a military identity, an iron-clad group identity. attack of the clones. it's a tried and true method for creating a group able to suffer serious stress, and the old guard naturally feels that homos and women are members of the outgroup. that's how they were trained - with insults about how they were faggots and women and cunts and every other negative, demasculinising term (according to military history, anyway).
the outgroup must remain out. this is why the first women at the citadel knew they had to continue to shave their heads despite the brutal punishment this behaviour incurred. they had to be part of the faceless masses: so long as they were individualised, they were not part of the 'real' military.
it's fucked up, innit? women are forced to remain femmed-up so they can't assimilate, so they continue to be treated differently after their training. enforced behavioural and attitudinal estrangement, when all the military has to do to fix this problem is adjust their own attitude and permit everyone to participate as nondividuals equally. there'd be no problem with gays if the training didn't create one. there'd be no problem with women either. that's the point of training - to erase and reprogram the soldiers, and the military leadership is who needs to stop fucking around and fucking up our armed forces.
not that i want to serve, but equality is what this fucking country is supposed to be about, and establishing it in the military is just as crucial as establishing it everywhere else.
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