Senate Votes to End "Don't Ask, Don't Tell"

I expressed some cynicism on the subject earlier this afternoon, but it seems the Senate have voted in favor of ending the military's policy of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell", the which has been used to drum more than 13,000 sailors, soldiers, airmen and marines from the services. This follows a similar vote on the same legislation in the House of Representatives. Now if our representatives will push for the same sort of voting on ENDA, everything will be peachy. Or not.

Fleet Week

We now return to our regularly scheduled blog, already in progress.

Today marked the beginning of Norfolk's Fleet Week. Norfolk is a big Navy town, and I've always felt like it's Fleet Week all the time, but this is the first time I've noted the actual event. I suppose they've had it before; I just never noticed.

As part of the festivities, there's a guided missile destroyer tied up at the Nauticus Pier, the USS Nitze (DDG-94), and they're offering free tours. I have a lot of friends who are interested in naval subjects, but live far away from major bodies of water, so I took it upon myself to catch the ferry over and take pictures for their benefit. I'm a military hardware geek myself, so it wasn't any hardship. For anyone here who's interested, I'll have the best shots up in a gallery tomorrow, and I'll put up a link.

The event concludes next weekend with the Air Show at NAS Oceana. By some miracle of scheduling, I managed to get next weekend off, so I'll be able to go. The Blue Angels will be there, as well as Canada's Snowbirds and a number of other performers and static displays. I will most likely attend in my male guise, because it's safer that way.

Knights, Out?

Back in March, I wrote a little about a story I'd seen about Knights Out, an LGBT support group for serving military officers. A First Lieutenant Dan Cho appeared on the show to announce his membership in the group, in anticipation of the repeal of the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy regarding sexual orientation.

Well, Obama hasn't repealed DADT, and there's no sign that he's planning to do so, and the Army are in the process of dismissing Lt. Cho and a Second Lieutenant Sandy Tsao. The Air Force are axing Lieutenant Colonel Victor Fehrenbach, a decorated 18-year veteran F-15 jock. All of these are talented, well-trained officers. I can't find the story at the moment (maybe someone will help me), but I saw a piece in the NY Times last week that indicated that the military have so lowered their recruiting standards that all of the major criminal gangs in the US now have significant toeholds in the armed forces: Crips, Bloods, Aryan Nation, MS-13, etc. The Armed Forces are willing to recruit trash, while they toss out their best and brightest? WTF?!?

Knights Out

I just saw this on the Rachel Maddow Show, a GLBT support group for graduates of the US Military Academy.

http://knightsout.org/

I forgot to mention earlier that they had a representative on the show. He was talking about how the group is looking to bridge the gap with the armed forces if/when the government strikes down the "Don't ask, don't tell" policy, which is currently under review. Then the audio sort of fizzled out, and they switched off the feed. Rachel made a joke about someone pulling the plug because they were talking about GLBT issues, but MSNBC's been having audio difficulties all day. They lost some of the audio during his town hall meeting in Los Angeles, so I don't think it's a conspiracy.