On the question of who serves, I say let 'em all in!
■"At Ivy League Schools, ROTC, Long Banned, Plots a Comeback: Push Stirs Up Old Passions On Some Campuses; A Beachhead at Harvard," by John Hechinger, Wall Street Journal, 16 December 2004, p. A1.■"Ready, Willing, Disqualified: Before sending vets into battle, let gay troops serve," op-ed by Nathaniel Frank, New York Times, 16 December 2004, p. A35.
In light of the email I received yesterday from a Columbia ROTC advocate, it certainly seemed timely to see the front-page piece in the WSJ this morning (right down to the nice mention on Columbia: "Attitudes may be shifting. At Columbia, a university task force is now considering a return of ROTC. Students in Army ROTC now travel by subway from Manhattan to the Bronx to drill at Fordham University.").
The Ivy Leaguers resistance over the issue of gays in the military seems a bit disingenuous, to say the least. You get the feeling that if that issue didn't survive, opponents would simply come up with some other excuse, and that's too bad, because what I remember of the great chapel at Harvard was the very impressive and solemn memorial hall dedicated to those who served in World Wars I and II. The Ivy League seemed to take real pride in that service back then, so you have to wonder about the profound distance this current standoffishness represents.
And no, don't tell me it's all about gays in the military.
My solution for this issue is a simple one: no gays in the Leviathan but any gay who wants to join the SysAdmin force, either as a civilian or in uniform, would automatically be welcomed no differently than anybody else. I understand the unit cohesion arguments of the old-style military, and frankly, I don't want to disturb that reality with either gays or women.
But my SysAdmin would accommodate both women and gays with ease, along with whatever warfighters would be cool with that complexity on both scores. Since the SysAdmin force would be the face of America 95% of the time, it would present the diversity and tolerance we both preach and usually practice.