DADT Repeal Somehow Fails To Tear Marines Apart
Top Marine officer Gen. James F. Amos has admitted that, despite his fears, the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell has not caused the destruction of the Marines.
Last year, Amos said there was “risk involved” in allowing gay Marines to serve openly. He explained,
There is nothing more intimate than young men and young women — and when you talk of infantry, we’re talking our young men — laying out, sleeping alongside of one another and sharing death, fear and loss of brothers. I don’t know what the effect of that will be on cohesion. I mean, that’s what we’re looking at. It’s unit cohesion, it’s combat effectiveness.
In an AP interview, he now says that so far, the effect on cohesion has been virtually nil. At a series of a dozen town hall meetings with Marines last week, Amos was asked just once about DADT, and that question was pretty minor. Of the repeal, he says, “I’m very pleased with how it has gone.”
