Queer Eye for the G.I.

Long before the campaign against Saddam Hussein and his non-existent weapons of mass destruction, the campaign against the Taliban in Afghanistan, the search for Osama bin Laden and the ousting of former Serbian dictator, Slobidan Milosevitch, United States military forces commenced a fierce battle against a perceived opponent that to this day exposes our military’s greatest weakness and strikes fear in the heart of millions of military personnel and their supporters, including our commander-in-chief, George Bush. The name of that perceived enemy: homosexuals.

On January 16, 2004, Jim Wolf of the Reuters syndicated news service authored an article in which he disclosed the United States Military had considered in 1997 a multi-million dollar proposal to develop a chemical “gay bomb” at the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. The goal of the proposal was to create a chemical to stimulate homosexual behavior among enemy troops in hopes of destroying morale and military discipline. Presumably, United States forces would have used the chemical weapon in advance of a planned invasion to weaken the enemy’s resistance.

Although the “gay bomb” funding request was ultimately rejected, the fact that such a proposal made it to the funding request stage illustrates the depths of our military’s fear of homosexuality and exposes a major weakness in the ranks of our armed services – machismo counts more than intelligence.

In the months leading up to the invasions of both Afghanistan and Iraq, when military translators able to speak local dialects were at an all-time premium, the armed services discharged many such soldier-translators who had admitted to engaging in homosexual relationships. Rather than maintain a critical communications need the military dismissed the soldiers in question claiming the need to uphold troop morale was a higher priority. That practice continues up to this very day.

The military’s position on homosexuals begs the obvious question: Can an army of gays without weapons defeat the heaviest armed force in the world? Obviously, the United States military thinks so! And they’re so afraid of gays they’re not taking any chances.

The search for Osama bin Laden has been relegated primarily to a few hundred U.S. soldiers and a small Pakistani military contingent with questionable allegiances. The hunt for Saddam’s alleged weapons of mass destruction has ended. But the military pursues homosexuals in their midst with ardent vigor and determination. One wonders who is their greatest threat?

In retrospect, the decision not to develop a “gay bomb” was probably prudent. Like the atomic bomb, once a weapon is brought into existence there’s no turning back. Military strategists must have reasoned that such a weapon, had it fallen into the wrong hands, would have brought American forces to their knees. By not opening Pandora’s Box, our soldiers can live to fight another day.

When I was a kid I was afraid of the bogeyman I imagined living under my bed. It seems as if our military is afraid of a bogeyman too; the only difference is now he’s out in the open.