Tuesday, July 26, 2011
Let everyone serve in the military
With the end of Don't Ask Don't Tell, it turns out that there is one group of adolescents and young adults barred from serving in the US military: d/Deaf and disabled. I had no idea that the US barred them and that most countries allowed. I would ask why there is not more awareness, except I know the answer: disabled issues are often invisible. When will disabled rights acquire the same cachet as minority or gay rights?
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Initially I completely agreed with you and the author of the article. However, after reading the comments at the bottom of the article, I wondered if there is any role in the military that doesn't sometimes require fast-paced action, orders being shouted, etc.
Even were that not to be the case, and there are such roles that exist, the character in this story, Keith, wants to work in military intelligence. What if he comes across something insanely important? Or what if his superior desperately needs information for an ongoing operation? Ok, so he gets stuck behind a desk doing analyses of ancient files. Then everyone's going to scream that he's being discriminated against because he can't get promoted. I think, with an argument developed at 5:15 AM, that allowing them in, might be politically correct, but I think it will do more damage than good to the efficacy of the military.
You don't need to look far to see what I meant by that. Before Don't Ask, Don't Tell was rescinded, a massive study was done to see how it would affect those serving the country- from a morale point of view, which potentially could lead to a loss of efficiency. I can't imagine the havoc that would be wreaked were those with disabilities be allowed to serve.
I'm going to have to think about this some more lol, but those are my initial thoughts. It's on my "to blog about list" which increases often and decreases rarely. Hopefully I'll get a chance to write about it.
I'd also like to point out that I see less and less of "disabled issues are often invisible" to be true. I see, and have seen, massive strides being made in many different areas to help acclimate and welcome disabled people into the general populace. In what area, aside from this, do you see that they are treated so differently?
By the way, as you know, I don't frequently comment, but I always read your posts and find them very interesting and full of fascinating information. In short, I really enjoy this blog :)
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