Testifying today before members of the House Armed Services Committee, Former Assistant Secretary of Defense Lawrence Korb urged lawmakers to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” and “open up the military to all Americans who possess the desire, talent and character to serve.”
“The ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ policy is counterproductive to military readiness. Over the past 10 years more than 10,000 personnel have been discharged as a result of this policy, including 800 with skills deemed ‘mission critical,’ such as pilots, combat engineers, andlinguists. These are the very job functions for which the military has experienced personnel shortfalls. General John M. Shalikashvili, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in 1993 when the ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ policy was enacted, no longer supports the policy because he now believes that allowing gay men and women to serve openly in the military would no longer create intolerable tension among personnel and undermine cohesion. A recent Zogby poll supports this view. It found that three-quarters of Afghanistan and Iraq veterans were comfortable interacting with gay people,” Korb testified .
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