Usually, my Department of Defense clients book their appointments well in advance. They also like to come in early, too; meetings at 06:00, as they like to call the unquestionably barbaric hour of six a.m., are not uncommon. In order to attend such a consultation, I am, of course, required to arise at what they like to call “oh-dark-thirty,” and, what’s more, open up the office myself, since Gretchen comes in at eight. I understand, naturally, that’s the nature of military life. If you want to, as they are fond of saying, get more things done by lunch than most people do in a week, you have to get up early. Besides, if they slept too late, the enemy might sneak up on them, right?
So I was rather surprised when yesterday, about two in the afternoon, I received an e-mail (marked Urgent!) from Colonel Frances “Buster” Highman, over at the Pentagon, requesting a meeting before close of business. I was, unfortunately, booked solid, right up through a ninety minute consultation with some German industrial economists starting at six thirty. (Europeans don’t consider that a particularly late time for a business meeting, by the way.) So the only thing I could offer Colonel Highman was a meeting at 20:00, which he and his colleagues like to call “two thousand hours,” and normal people call eight o’clock in the evening.
He accepted, which I consider nothing short of remarkable. Aren’t military types usually ready for bed around nine? I mean, really, they have to be, don’t they, if they’re going to get up at oh-dark-thirty every morning? Otherwise, after a few years, they’d keel over from sleep deprivation. And we all know that doesn’t happen, because old soldiers never die – they just fade away.
“What brings you here,” I consequently began, “on such short notice and at such a late hour?”
“The DoD Survey on Gays in the Military,” he sighed. “Makes me wish I was back in Iraq instead of behind a desk in the A Ring. Like I’ve told you before, Collins, this public relations billet I got after that jihadi IED put me out of commission sucks [expletive].”
“Now that you mention it,” I recalled, “it does seem to me that I saw something about that survey earlier today. Apparently, a number of gay rights groups started complaining about it, just hours after it was issued to the troops.”
“Yeah,” Colonel Highman muttered ruefully. “The law of averages was at work there, you can bet on it. Distribute a survey on anything to four hundred thousand military personnel, and it’s inevitable that some of the people who get it are going to be queers, even if the survey is about something else entirely, like race relations or stop-loss.”
“It doesn’t sound,” I observed, “as if you are, shall we say, completely objective with respect to this particular survey’s subject.”
“I don’t have to be!” Colonel Highman snapped. “It’s my constitutional right to hate fags if I want to, and believe me, there are plenty of officers in the United States armed forces who feel exactly the same way!”
“Certainly,” I concurred. “The Constitution guarantees everyone the right to be as bigoted as they like. So, I take it, the top brass have become aware that a… certain portion of the military and the public are extremely upset about this survey, and you are the poor devil who has to deal with all the backlash?”
“Yeah,” he nodded sadly. “I’m the point man on that patrol.”
“Okay,” I responded, using as resolute a voice as possible, “let’s move forward from this position, then. It just so happens that I have a copy of the survey here…”
“How the [expletive] did you get that?” Colonel Highman demanded.
“I can’t really say, Colonel…” I started to explain.
“You got it from some gay rights organization!” Colonel Highman accused. “They’re your clients, too, aren’t they? Just like we are!”
“I really can’t…” I attempted to continue.
“Never mind,” he angrily huffed. “You’re a consultant. I shouldn’t blame you for making a living by working both sides of the street.”
“But you do anyway,” I pointed out, “don’t you?”
“All right,” he admitted. “I do, just a little bit.”
“Well,” I consoled, “don’t let it bother you. No offense taken. Besides, it’s a military maxim that you ought to know your enemy, isn’t it? So it behooves you to seek the advice of an expert who also does business with your adversary, doesn’t it? For instance, looking at this survey, based on my knowledge of gays and gayness, I think I can see what got the gay community so upset. Consider, for starters, this question:
‘If a wartime situation made it necessary for you to share a room, berth or field tent with someone you believe to be a gay or lesbian service member, which are you likely to do?
A. Discuss how we expect each other to behave.
B. Talk to a chaplain or mentor.
C. Talk to a leader to see if I have other options.
D. Other.’”
“Okay,” Colonel Highman shrugged. “What’s wrong with that?”
“Why,” I inquired in a significant tone, “is the response ‘E. Do nothing I wouldn’t do otherwise’ missing from this survey question?”
“Beats me,” he shrugged indifferently. “It’s not like none of the questions lack that option. How about the one about the showers?”
“Are you referring,” I asked, “to this one? The question that reads:
‘If “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” is repealed, and you are assigned to bathroom facilities having open bay showers with a gay or lesbian service member, would you…
A. Take no action.
B. Use the shower at a different time.’”
“Uh-huh,” Colonel Highman confirmed, “that’s the one I meant.”
“How come,” I wondered, “Response A says ‘Take no action’ instead of ‘Use the shower as I would with any other service member’ or something similar?”
“Got me,” he replied diffidently.
“Then there’s this one,” I read:
“‘In the units where you had a leader you believe to be gay or lesbian, about how many other unit members, on average, also believed the leader to be gay or lesbian?
A. Just me.
B. Up to five others.
C. At least half of the unit.
D. Everybody.
E. None. I have never served under self-proclaimed homosexuals.’
Isn’t this whole question,” I mused, “just a bit homophobic?”
“The very same Constitution,” Colonel Highman staunchly asserted, “that permits Americans to hate faggots also guarantees the God-given right to be afraid of them.”
“Now, why in the world,” I gently cross-examined, “would anybody be afraid of gays?”
“Well… uh… I don’t know…” Colonel Highman stammered. “I guess they’re afraid the gays will… um… do something gay, you know – like dress up as women and confuse men in nightclubs.”
“All right,” I allowed, “when J. Edgar Hoover dressed up as a woman, that was pretty frightening. But what I’m saying is there’s no reason to be scared of gays in general. Now, consider this next one:
‘If “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” is repealed and a gay or lesbian service member attended a military social function with a same-sex partner, which are you most likely to do?
A. Continue to attend military social functions.
B. Stop bringing my spouse, significant other or other family members with me to military social functions.
C. Stop attending military social functions.
D. I don’t know.
E. Do something else.’
“Come now, Colonel,” I chided, “what’s this ‘do something else’ business all about? Show up next time with an assault rifle and mow down the Sodomitic sinners, perhaps?”
“All it says,” Colonel Highman insisted, “is ‘do something else.’ It doesn’t say what.”
“Okay,” I parried, “let’s look at another one:
‘If “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” is repealed and you had on-base housing and a gay or lesbian service member was living with a same-sex partner on-base, what would you most likely do?
A. I would get to know them like any other neighbors.
B. I would make a special effort to get to know them.
C. I would be uncomfortable, but access to the exchange, commissary, and MWR facilities is more important to me than who my neighbors are when deciding where to live.
D. I would be uncomfortable, but the quality of on-base housing is more important to me than who my neighbors are when deciding where to live.
E. I would be uncomfortable, but the cost of moving makes it unlikely I would leave on-base housing.
F. I would probably move off-base.
G. I don’t know.
H. I would do something else.’
Okay. Forget about surveys that ask loaded questions!” I exclaimed. “Look at responses B, C, D, and H. This survey is full of loaded answers!”
“That survey,” Colonel Highman sniffed, “was prepared by a reputable federal contractor in Rockville, Maryland, at a cost of over four point five million dollars.”
“But isn’t it obvious,” I implored, “that the contractors who prepared this survey were spineless sycophants who mindlessly kowtowed to their clients at the Pentagon? Can’t you see that they intentionally constructed this survey so as to appear to scientifically demonstrate why gays shouldn’t be allowed in the military?”
“Jesus Christ, Collins,” Colonel Highman objected, “what the [expletive] do you expect? That the Pentagon is going to give some fancy-pants egg-heads with ivy-league degrees millions of dollars to design a survey that tells us stuff we don’t want to hear?”
“You pay me plenty,” I reminded him, “and I don’t pull any punches.”
“Ah [expletive], Collins,” Colonel Highman sneered, “you know that’s different! We never ask you to put anything in writing. All you do is give us advice…”
“That’s not strictly true,” I confidently asserted. “I have prepared deliverables for the Department of Defense on many occasions.”
“Okay, yeah,” Colonel Highman conceded, “maybe you have, but if whoever commissions them doesn’t like what you write, all they have to do is declare your papers Top Secret. This stuff with the queer survey, that’s different.”
“That’s what you call it,” I ejaculated, “’the “queer” survey?’”
Colonel Highman shrugged once more. “That’s what it is. It even has a question in it, that goes ‘Do you currently serve with a male or female service member you believe to be homosexual?’ If that’s not a survey for queers, then what else could it be?”
“So you’re saying,” I reasoned, “that with appropriate statistical techniques, the Pentagon’s mathematicians can employ the results of this survey to determine an estimate, with an acceptable level of confidence, for the fraction of United States military personnel who are perceived by their peers to be gay?”
“Perceived?” Colonel Highman wrinkled his nose doubtfully. “I donno, I guess maybe, in the strictest interpretation, yeah, but actually, we’re going to assume that if the other members of their unit think somebody’s a queer, then they probably are.”
“I see,” I responded, soldiering on, pointing out another question. “And what about this, the one that says:
‘If you were lost in the wilderness or on a remote island in a snowstorm with another member of the armed forces of the same sex as yourself, and the two of you had to huddle together for warmth to avoid freezing to death, and you only had one sleeping bag and you believed that other member of the armed forces was a homosexual, would you…
A. Get in the sleeping bag head-to-head, facing the homosexual.
B. Get in the sleeping bag head-to-foot, facing the homosexual’s feet.
C. Get in the sleeping bag head-to-head, facing away from the homosexual.
D. Get in the sleeping bag head-to-foot, facing away from the homosexual’s feet.
E. Stay outside and take my chances freezing to death and/or getting killed by the local wildlife instead.’”
“Sounds fair enough as far as I’m concerned,” Colonel Highman opined, throwing me a slightly leering look. “What would you do?”
“Spoons,” I told him, matter-of-factly. “And how come there wasn’t a choice or two for that? Anybody who’s shared a sleeping bag knows spoons is the most comfortable position. Then there’s this one:
‘If you went home on leave and discovered that your younger sibling (brother or sister) was in a sexual relationship with a member of the armed forces who was the same sex as them, and also belonged to your own military unit, would you:
A. Tell my unit commanding officer about the situation when I return from leave.
B. Seek psychological or other counseling so I can better understand why the situation disturbs me and do something about it.
C. Seek psychological or other counseling so I don’t turn gay myself.
D. Warn my brother or sister about the consequences of homosexuality.
E. Beat up the gay or lesbian member of the armed forces who is having sex with my brother or sister.
F. Beat up my brother or sister for being gay.
G. Try to arrange a threesome.’”
“No lack of options there,” Colonel Highman smugly asserted.
“Unless,” I observed, “the person answering the question is gay themselves.”
“It looks to me,” he snickered, “like the last answer fits those people pretty well.”
“Only if you presume that gays are perverts,” I countered.
“What?” Colonel Highman stared back at me, his eyebrows arched. “Are you saying they’re not?”