Nathaniel Frank's 
Unfriendly Fire: How the Gay Ban Undermines the Military and Weakens America avoids one of the biggest pitfalls of non-fiction. It's informative and entertaining, and at no point does the pursuit of one undermine the other. However, it does run up against one potential pitfall that some readers might not get past: part of what makes it so fascinating is what can make it so frustrating.
As you might guess by the title, Frank is no fan of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." To him, it codifies bigotry to protect bigots from being uncomfortable around the thing they're bigoted about. The ban tries to sidestep the issue of being legislated prejudice by claiming that it doesn't ban homosexuals but rather homosexual conduct. In short, it bans exactly what makes someone a homosexual — which essentially means banning homosexuals. If we lived in society that never displayed sexual preference, that distinction might mean something. However, as it is, it bans people who've committed no crime for being themselves.
The story of how DADT came into existence can be summarized, but doing so takes away from the breadth of Frank's scholarship. Simply put: on the campaign trail in '92, Bill Clinton promised gay activists that he would repeal the military gay ban. Once in office, he recommended to the heads of the service branches that they begin research into implementing integration. Yet while, for example, the Air Force assumed this decision to be a fait accompli by their commander in chief, the Army instead put together a working group to substantiate the belief that gays would undermine the military.
Their scholarship inspires anger and disgust. Armed with a conclusion, the working group went in search of evidence, which is at times risible and ridiculous. On the risible front, the working group cited studies that relied on the same data, giving the illusion of a multiplicity of sources when it fact they all repeated the same questionable evidence. It was the evidentiary version of asking one guy what he wants for lunch, then asking him again 49 more times as he reappears in the room wearing different wigs, then claiming you took a representative straw poll of 50 different people. On the ridiculous front, one researcher published editorials from the gay magazine The Advocate in order to illustrate the kind of decadent bacchanalian frenzy that gay people supposedly inevitably descend into whenever they're around each other. Only he didn't bother to look closely at the editorials, little realizing that he was printing satires of what gay advocates imagined conservative homophobes must picture gay socializing to look like. The man literally and sincerely printed a satire on his assumed view of gays and had it read into the Congressional Record as his view of gays.
Most of the story isn't as funny as that last bit. Conservatives on the Senate Armed Services committee refused to hear testimony from witnesses they knew to be supportive of integration, while calling on experts with acknowledged dislike of gays simply for being gay. In this way, the senate further reinforced a conclusion still in search of a rationale.
The rationale that was decided upon was that gays undermine unit cohesion — i.e. the ability of everyone to get together to get the job done. This rationale is still used today. At the time, the experts ignored a massive Rand Corporation study undertaken by dozens of historians, sociologists, psychologists and military experts that dismissed that rationale as hogwash. Today, as Frank points out, experts still ignore the Rand study, as well as studies of the Canadian, Australian, British, Dutch and Israeli militaries that have all integrated with little fuss or evidence of the destruction of unit cohesion. This, despite studies of British and Canadian soldiers showing that their anti-homosexual sentiments were about on par with American soldiers', and a study of the Israeli Defense Force showing a greater antipathy toward homosexuals. In fact, in Britain, the results have been positive beyond a peaceful integration, with recruiters allowed back on college campuses that had banned them for not adhering to principles of equal rights. This increased access to colleges increased the pool of talented candidates and thus potentially improves the British military.
More importantly, the unit cohesion argument doesn't pass muster in our own military. Frank has compiled hundreds of hours of interviews with former and current soldiers, who acknowledge that sexual preference is secondary to getting the job done (this is called task cohesion, which studies show is better for creating an effective unit than social cohesion, which is bonding based not on objectives but on personal matters that can cloud meeting objectives). It only becomes a distraction in at atmosphere where officers indicate that they will tolerate taunting, hazing and abuse of assumed homosexuals. And indeed, the unit cohesion argument clearly doesn't matter to our highest ranking officers, who have reduced homosexual discharges every year since 9/11 — a time at which, presumably, the danger to America is greater and where it would be more and not less important to remove the self-sabotage of homosexuals in our midst. The bottom line was that we need bodies on the ground, and they can be gay bodies up until we no longer need them: upon returning to the U.S. after serving their tours, they get discharged, thus preserving unit cohesion now that they've spent years with their units.
The flawed arguments and substantial counterarguments go back and forth vividly, quickly and in such abundance that I can't help but ignore most here. (What about the thousands of gays discharged by DADT, in numbers roughly equal to the number of convicted felons in service who we're giving advanced training in killing?) Frank is outraged, but he is persuasive. Best of all, he's thorough. At every avenue where you might think he's conflating the unique with the everyday, he's there with half a dozen more examples across multiple services. He has scholarly studies and hundreds of personal interviews, statements on the record from discharged soldiers and statements off the record from those still in service.
Those looking for a substantive argument in favor of integration will find a wealth of material to support their beliefs. Those looking for a good debate will find that same information — and also that, in the case of the argument against gay integration, in most respects, the emperor has no clothes. Indeed, even those decidedly against integration may take satisfaction in engaging a worthy sparring partner in book form, one that can teach new tactics and new avenues of argument, even if it does not persuade.
_________________________________
Just as a kind of afterword, we've had a remarkably interesting discussion about this book over the last month or so in the Current Events forum. If you're still curious about the contents of this book, poster RTA has, with the luxury of more space than I have here, compiled a remarkable number of long-form excerpts from the book, and has gone through with systematic thoroughness, citing many of Frank's arguments that I was unable to get to.
As you might guess by the title, Frank is no fan of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." To him, it codifies bigotry to protect bigots from being uncomfortable around the thing they're bigoted about. The ban tries to sidestep the issue of being legislated prejudice by claiming that it doesn't ban homosexuals but rather homosexual conduct. In short, it bans exactly what makes someone a homosexual — which essentially means banning homosexuals. If we lived in society that never displayed sexual preference, that distinction might mean something. However, as it is, it bans people who've committed no crime for being themselves.
The story of how DADT came into existence can be summarized, but doing so takes away from the breadth of Frank's scholarship. Simply put: on the campaign trail in '92, Bill Clinton promised gay activists that he would repeal the military gay ban. Once in office, he recommended to the heads of the service branches that they begin research into implementing integration. Yet while, for example, the Air Force assumed this decision to be a fait accompli by their commander in chief, the Army instead put together a working group to substantiate the belief that gays would undermine the military.
Their scholarship inspires anger and disgust. Armed with a conclusion, the working group went in search of evidence, which is at times risible and ridiculous. On the risible front, the working group cited studies that relied on the same data, giving the illusion of a multiplicity of sources when it fact they all repeated the same questionable evidence. It was the evidentiary version of asking one guy what he wants for lunch, then asking him again 49 more times as he reappears in the room wearing different wigs, then claiming you took a representative straw poll of 50 different people. On the ridiculous front, one researcher published editorials from the gay magazine The Advocate in order to illustrate the kind of decadent bacchanalian frenzy that gay people supposedly inevitably descend into whenever they're around each other. Only he didn't bother to look closely at the editorials, little realizing that he was printing satires of what gay advocates imagined conservative homophobes must picture gay socializing to look like. The man literally and sincerely printed a satire on his assumed view of gays and had it read into the Congressional Record as his view of gays.
Most of the story isn't as funny as that last bit. Conservatives on the Senate Armed Services committee refused to hear testimony from witnesses they knew to be supportive of integration, while calling on experts with acknowledged dislike of gays simply for being gay. In this way, the senate further reinforced a conclusion still in search of a rationale.
The rationale that was decided upon was that gays undermine unit cohesion — i.e. the ability of everyone to get together to get the job done. This rationale is still used today. At the time, the experts ignored a massive Rand Corporation study undertaken by dozens of historians, sociologists, psychologists and military experts that dismissed that rationale as hogwash. Today, as Frank points out, experts still ignore the Rand study, as well as studies of the Canadian, Australian, British, Dutch and Israeli militaries that have all integrated with little fuss or evidence of the destruction of unit cohesion. This, despite studies of British and Canadian soldiers showing that their anti-homosexual sentiments were about on par with American soldiers', and a study of the Israeli Defense Force showing a greater antipathy toward homosexuals. In fact, in Britain, the results have been positive beyond a peaceful integration, with recruiters allowed back on college campuses that had banned them for not adhering to principles of equal rights. This increased access to colleges increased the pool of talented candidates and thus potentially improves the British military.
More importantly, the unit cohesion argument doesn't pass muster in our own military. Frank has compiled hundreds of hours of interviews with former and current soldiers, who acknowledge that sexual preference is secondary to getting the job done (this is called task cohesion, which studies show is better for creating an effective unit than social cohesion, which is bonding based not on objectives but on personal matters that can cloud meeting objectives). It only becomes a distraction in at atmosphere where officers indicate that they will tolerate taunting, hazing and abuse of assumed homosexuals. And indeed, the unit cohesion argument clearly doesn't matter to our highest ranking officers, who have reduced homosexual discharges every year since 9/11 — a time at which, presumably, the danger to America is greater and where it would be more and not less important to remove the self-sabotage of homosexuals in our midst. The bottom line was that we need bodies on the ground, and they can be gay bodies up until we no longer need them: upon returning to the U.S. after serving their tours, they get discharged, thus preserving unit cohesion now that they've spent years with their units.
The flawed arguments and substantial counterarguments go back and forth vividly, quickly and in such abundance that I can't help but ignore most here. (What about the thousands of gays discharged by DADT, in numbers roughly equal to the number of convicted felons in service who we're giving advanced training in killing?) Frank is outraged, but he is persuasive. Best of all, he's thorough. At every avenue where you might think he's conflating the unique with the everyday, he's there with half a dozen more examples across multiple services. He has scholarly studies and hundreds of personal interviews, statements on the record from discharged soldiers and statements off the record from those still in service.
Those looking for a substantive argument in favor of integration will find a wealth of material to support their beliefs. Those looking for a good debate will find that same information — and also that, in the case of the argument against gay integration, in most respects, the emperor has no clothes. Indeed, even those decidedly against integration may take satisfaction in engaging a worthy sparring partner in book form, one that can teach new tactics and new avenues of argument, even if it does not persuade.
_________________________________
Just as a kind of afterword, we've had a remarkably interesting discussion about this book over the last month or so in the Current Events forum. If you're still curious about the contents of this book, poster RTA has, with the luxury of more space than I have here, compiled a remarkable number of long-form excerpts from the book, and has gone through with systematic thoroughness, citing many of Frank's arguments that I was unable to get to.
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