posted on February 25, 2005 11:33:53 AM new
WASHINGTON The U.S. military has spent more than $200 million to recruit and train personnel to replace troops discharged for being openly gay in the last decade, a new congressional study has found.
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The review, by the Government Accountability Office, an investigative arm of Congress, was requested by more than 20 lawmakers who were concerned about the costs of the "don't ask, don't tell" policy instituted in the Clinton administration, particularly for service members with "critical occupations" and "important foreign-language skills."
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In the last 10 years, more than 10,000 service members have been discharged because they did not keep their sexual orientation to themselves as required, according to the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, a gay rights group that monitors the armed forces.
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The Pentagon said this month that it discharged 653 service members last year for being gay, down 15 percent from 2003. The number of troops discharged because they were found to be gay or because they disclosed their sexuality has fallen three years in a row, the Pentagon statistics show. Since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the rate of such discharges has dropped nearly 50 percent.
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In a statement included in the report, the Defense Department said that more service members were being discharged for drug offenses, pregnancy and weight problems than for being gay.
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The department does not track the specific costs of investigating or discharging gay service members, counseling and providing pastoral care for them or for handling legal challenges and reviews of dismissals, the report says.
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But the accounting office estimated that it cost the Pentagon nearly $100 million, $10,500 a person, to recruit replacements for enlisted service members who were discharged from 1994 to 2003 for being gay. Investigators said the cost to the U.S. Army to train the replacements was $49 million, $18,000 a service member. The report said the air force estimated its training costs at $16.6 million, or $7,400 a service member, and the air force said its costs were $29.7 million, or $6,400 a service member.
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The investigators said the U.S. Marines declined to provide estimates. They acknowledged that the review was not complete. The figures for training and recruiting are based just on enlisted personnel. The legal defense network said hundreds of officers had also been discharged under the policy.
In another related story:
Bush Wants Pentagon Gay Policy Suit Tossed
Feb 8, 2005, 00:43
The Bush administration on Monday asked a federal court to dismiss a lawsuit challenging the Pentagon's 11-year-old "don't ask, don't tell" policy.
The government said last year's landmark Supreme Court ruling that overturned state laws making gay sex a crime does not undercut the military's policy that allows gays and lesbians to serve as long as they abstain from homosexual activity and don't reveal their sexual orientation.
Courts previously have upheld the policy, approved by Congress and put in place by the Clinton administration.
"These decisions are unaffected by the Supreme Court's decision," the administration said in a filing in U.S. District Court in Boston, where the lawsuit was filed.
Twelve gays expelled from the military because of their sexual orientation filed the legal challenge in December, citing the Supreme Court ruling that state laws making homosexual sex a crime were unconstitutional. That decision overturned an earlier Supreme Court ruling that had upheld sodomy laws.
Two other lawsuits challenging the policy have been filed since the high court's reversal.
One was brought in California by the Log Cabin Republicans, a political organization for gays. The other was filed in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, which generally deals with cases involving money. That plaintiff, who was separated from the Army, is seeking to recover his pension and is challenging the ban in the process.
posted on February 25, 2005 02:44:54 PM new
"""WASHINGTON The U.S. military has spent more than $200 million to recruit and train personnel to replace troops discharged for being openly gay in the last decade, a new congressional study has found.""""
Ya, so they're down in South America promising $18,000 to enlist.
YUP, WON'T THOSE PEOPLE be dedicated "American" soldiers......all in the name of stupidity and bigotry.....
