Corey Andrew had his resume up on careerbuilder.com when he got a response from a military recruiter.
Andrew: Awesome! Sounds great! The US Military has so many vacant positions and opportunities. I had no idea. I’m seriously considering contacting you. One thing, I’m not up on current politics but since its 2007, I would imagine also that I am now able to serve in the US military as an openly gay man, right?
Ramode: WELL IF YOU ARE GAY WE DON’T TAKE YOU. YOU ARE CONSIDERED UNQUALIFIED.
Andrew: Wow! Unqualified to serve my country just because I’m gay? It’s because they think I might all of a sudden desire one last kiss from my fellow male solider if ever facing death at the hands of the enemy in a fox hole, isn’t?… Funny, the US Government doesn’t mind taking my “gay” dollars every tax season or out of my paycheck every two weeks. I’m stunned that the US ARMY could afford to be so choosey when I see sergeants on my school campus and in the local shopping Mall…begging teenagers to enlist.
Ramode: YOU ARE DEFINITELY UNQUALIFIED, NOW TAKE YOU GAY SELF SOMEPLACE ELSE WE DO NOT TOLERATE GAY PEOPLE LIKE YOU IN ANY PART OF THE MILITARY. AND IF IT BOTHERS YOU PAYING TAXES THEN MIGRATE TO ANOTHER COUNTRY…. AND IF IT BOTHERS YOU ABOUT THE US MILITARY RECRUITING THEN YOU GO TELL THE BOARD OF EDUCATION …. AND IF YOU DON’T LIKE THE RECRUITERS RECRUITING IN FRONT YOU HIGH SCHOOL THEN COMPLAIN TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OR BETTER YET TRY COMPLAINING TO MAYOR BLOOMBERG AND SEE WHAT HE HAS TO SAY… YOU SHOULD SAY THANK YOU MILITARY PEOPLE FOR WHAT YOU DO SO THAT YOU CAN LIVE A FREE LIFE IN THIS COUNTRY. FREEDOM IS NOT FREE.
(via J-Walk)
Comments
23 Comments so far. Leave a comment below.LOL, a free country, what does that mean? Free from corruption? Nope. Free to be gay? Nope. Freedom of speach? Nope. Freedom of religion? Nope. Free to be fucked up and miserable? Maybe?
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Fuckee men = good.
Kil…
Sorry, hang on, I got that all wrong. Sorry. Sorry.
Fuckee men = bad.
Killee men = good.
Hurray, I got it right the second time around.
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I’m sorry, but this is just too funny, and sad. I made sure to pass this one along to my friend Neil Guiliano, the president of GLADD (The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation). Should be interesting to hear his comments.
I AM PROUD OF MY, MILITARY BOYFRIEND. I love you baby!
-B
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Perhaps I’m naive, but I find it odd that an army recruiter would be so crass and uneducated…Maybe that’s why the army is having such a hard time finding volunteers: lack of intelligible people as recruiters.
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Erudite and educated people seldom wind up joining the military, as near as I can tell (to overly generalize). I know that my college education would be well spent sitting in a storefront at a strip mall pimping selective service.
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I assumed initially that the recruiter was male.
It’s even more strange (in my eyes) that this rot came from a woman.
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@mdrew: I thought the exact same thing. I read the correspondence all the way through before I realized that this was from a woman. I don’t know why but I just assumed such nonsense would be spewed by some jarhead douchebag.
Perhaps Corey should have reminded Ms. Ramode that there was once a time when the military thought that she could not serve her country because she is a woman.
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As harsh as this response was, it represented an accurate statement of military policy. If the potential recruit is gay and was not aware of the military’s policy, he has bigger problems beyond the acceptance of his lifestyle. The best research suggests that gay men would not cause one one-hundredth the problems that women in the military has caused. Even the GAO couldn’t find too many positive things to say about women in the military – readiness, pregnancy, injury, and medivac rates are insane.
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“Perhaps I’m naive, but I find it odd that an army recruiter would be so crass and uneducated…Maybe that’s why the army is having such a hard time finding volunteers: lack of intelligible people as recruiters.”
Well, this is the same organization that thought Lynndie England was qualified…..
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It’s not like the army (any army) consists of a horde of mild-mannered tolerant intellectuals. In countries where people are drafted, the army (or the lower ranks at least) is likely to be representative of the people.
Where people join up voluntarily however… nope. It’s really very simple. People who want to make a career or lifestyle out of yelling, abusing, being hearded around with no free will or if they are lucky even killing people, are assholes. No decent human being would ever join an army.
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The military policy, of which I am not in agreement, bans gays from enlistment. That’s the policy. It was a decision made for the most part by civilian leadership of military.
While I wouldn’t mind seeing gays in the military, I wouldn’t want to see dumb-ass gays like the one seen here. If you are an educated adult, you should have been aware of the military’s policy. If you are an educated gay adult, this policy should have already been a call to action. Baiting a recruiter into this kind of exchange is childish. I am curious how many such exchanges were initiated before this individual got the response he wanted.
Fuck you, Storm. If you ever make a trip to Lexington, Kentucky, I’d like to knock some sense into your ignorant head. You’ve had insulted about two million citizens that have volunteered to serve their country despite the poor decisions that are sometimes made by our democratically elected leadership. Look back, liberal democrats have blood on their hands in this conflict, too.
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Storm said: “No decent human being would ever join an army.”
Storm, you are a bit of an idiot aren’t you? Plenty of good, decent folks join the military and it has nothing to do with being yelled at. It’s about personal discipline, serving your community and learning how to function in a team.
Out of the twenty or so people I know who have served, I can’t name one person who hasn’t prospered after they retired.
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Yea, um Storm, you should choose your words more wisely, at least in a public forum. While I don’t take offence to your comment (see my post), I think it was thoughtless.
Derek, this guy from the email stated he knew the policy already. Trust me, we are well aware. As far as a call to action, there are numerous. The SMLDN (Service Members Legal Defense Network) http://www.sldn.org/ for instance, is one that I have dealt with in concern for my boyfriends career and life.
While my boyfriend is in fact OUT at work and hasn’t had any issues to speak of, it is still dangerous. From what he has told me on the most basic level, it is accepted, understood, and tolerated (after you get in) providing you don’t put anyone else’s career at jeopardy and don’t have to deal with sociopaths. It’s obvious that that law is outdated and ridiculous. In fact, many former politicians such as Former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff John Shalikashvili have said that it needs to be changed to include gays. With the dumbfuck in the Whitehouse waging wars all over the world (not that I think they are unjust), sooner or later, we’re going to be running short. And I’ll tell you what, I’d be more fearful of a pissed off lesbian than Chad, the white guy from California hunting me.
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One big problem with the military’s policy is that is synchs with other anti-gay views. As a consequence, some people think that the military’s policy is based on some moral justification. Recruiters should receive more training in this area instead of just citing the policy with some degree of angst. It is interesting that gays are viewed as a threat to morale and order while women have significantly hurt the armed services when they have been required to deploy overseas. Of course, the truth doesn’t matter. I don’t think the gay cause is helped by efforts such as these.
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I should mention that the military has been surprisingly tolerant of gays for decades. My father is a retired Navy Commander and it only was really an issue when it came to security clearances. Fitness reports would steer gays away from such positions. The medical and supply corp of the Navy have had numerous gays for decades. I think the military’s big fear is a militantly gay faction that truly disrupts the mission of the military. I’m not sure these concerns are warranted or not. I would think that the code of conduct would be able to address disruptive gays and straights, alike. A little secret of the military is that the medical corp would fall apart if they kicked out all the gays. Both the private sector and the military has seen the productivity of gays that are not distracted by raising families (for the most part).
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Derek says… “The best research suggests that gay men would not cause one one-hundredth the problems that women in the military has caused.”
::cough:: BULLSHIT ::cough::
cite your “research”.
Derek also says… “It is interesting that gays are viewed as a threat to morale and order while women have significantly hurt the armed services when they have been required to deploy overseas.”
What? cite that, too.
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I should note that the above comment is not anti-gay. I just don’t believe Derek has any “research” to cite for his obviously slanted sexist views.
In addition, I feel strongly that the military shouldn’t be so arrogant as to be “selective” about training cheaply paid killers.
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I heard about this this morning, and my reaction was “holey, moley!” As a former military member, all I can say is that this recruiter is ridiculously immature and unprofessional. I heard someone say that the Republicans have “broken” the military. I can see that in the actions of this recruiter. This behavior would not have been tolerated several years ago, nor would a military member have acted in such a way. Not all military members are this stupid, ignorant, or lacking in professionalism. This is a new breed, apparently being taught that it is okay to express such feelings about minorities, or those of alternative sexuality. If I was her boss, I’d have some disciplinary action slapped on her ass so fast her teeth would rattle…she wouldn’t be in line for promotion, that is for sure. Unbelievable…
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It’s been my experience that men who say women have caused “trouble” in the military are usually men who were slapped with some form of military discipline for sexual harrassment. I worked with a guy like this. He was pissed for getting in trouble for his piggishness for quite a while. He was a disgusting human being…
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I should have stated that there is a wealth of evidence that overseas deployment of women has been a train wreck of massive proportions and that common sense would suggest that gays would not present the same problems. DESPITE STUPID POLICIES ESTABLISHED BY CIVILIAN LEADERSHIP THAT HAVE EFFECTIVELY BANNED GAYS FROM MILITARY SERVICE, GAYS IN THE MILITARY HAVE BEEN PROVEN TO BE A HUGE SUCCESS!!! Ask anybody in the medical corps of any of the services, they’ll tell you.
I don’t have an agenda. I hope the military, especially the Navy can adjust to deal with women in the military. It certainly would have been much easier to deal with gays in the military than straight women.
I support women in the military. Unfortunately, it has been a train wreck, especially the Navy. At any given time, up to 18% of Navy women are pregnant and a study of two ships showed a pregnancy rate as high as one in three. That’s 8,423 women. During Desert Storm, 1,145 women on ships needed to be reassigned because of pregnancies, at an average of 95 per month. Women are also more likely to be be MediVaced due to injury or family hardship. This has had tremendous consequences. I support gays in the military, but we need to be pragmatic about how we deal with women. In the wake of Tailhook, no Naval officer has wanted to risk his career by pointing out the obvious that that women deployed on ships should not get pregnant and that single moms should think about reliable childcare before they enlist. Let Google be your friend-there is a donkey load of research on issues related to the readiness of women in the military.
Email me at damron-at-damrontech.com and I’ll provide some citations. You’ll find a donkey load if you let Google be your friend. Be sure to include the search term “readiness”.
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Think about this. Military recruiters are placed in a horrible position. They must enforce a policy that makes little sense. These recruiters are told the policy and must scramble to justify and explain it in the field, military leadership certainly can’t. As a consequence, individual biases are revealed for lack of any rationale that makes any sense. I support gays in the military but fucking with a recruiter is about as effective in addressing this area of discrimination as a San Francisco gay pride parade. If I were the recruiter, I would have kept my cool, empathized with him, suggested effective means to address the issue, and thanked him for wanting to serve his country. Well, that’s on a good day. On a bad day, I would have probably told this person off for wasting my time and attacking the wrong end of the problem.
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I think the reason SHE was such a bitch is because she knows he’ll never want her.
True, it IS their policy but it will always be a nonsensical one.
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Jinx, she was certainly a bitch. But you might expect the same response at McDonalds if you insisted on home delivery, like Dominos Pizza. This dog-and-pony show does little to advance gay rights. Likewise, the general public has very little understanding that policies like this originate from the military’s CIVILIAN leadership, appointed by and serving at the discretion of the president.
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