Grasp Unfriendly Fire: How The Gay Ban Undermines The Military And Weakens America Originated By Nathaniel Frank Depicted In Electronic Format

is a detailed, almost pedantic, examination of the development and consequences of the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell, Don't Pursue" policy enacted by

President Clinton and Congress in, Clinton entered the presidency with a firm commitment to end, via executive order, a ban on gays serving in the US Military, After months of relentless pressure by conservative political, social and military groups, he put forth a compromise that came to be known as "Don't Ask, Don't Tell"

Frank demonstrates with an astonishing breadth of research that includes Congressional testimony, polls, surveys, memos, court cases, opeds and interviews that this policy is a farce, a joke, weakens our military, compromises our national security, and violates the civil rights of our citizens.
He also shows how, in the sixteen years since the enactment of the ban, public, political and military sentiment has changed that the overturn of this ban is inevitable.
Let us hope his optimism is proved right, soon,

The similarities between the early stages of this debate and the current battle of health care reform really struck me, Those advocating reform had public opinion firmly on their side, yet they completely failed to anticipate the vehement, wellorganized and virulent opposition of the conservative political and religious right.
They allowed the opportunity for change to be snatched from their grasp by a fear mongering, truth distorting political machine, Clinton, Powell, Cheney yes, that Cheney who has a gay daughter those who could have brought on real change caved to pressure based on fear and prejudice,

The narrative style is pretty dense and fact laden it reads like a Master's thesis so is was a chore to work through, at times, The upside of this is to have a premise, which is so fraught with moral subjectivity, held up by exhaustive research and incontrovertible fact, I registered a book at BookCrossing, com!
sitelink BookCrossing. com/journal/ This was an excellent book, and provided me with a lot of information behind the pros and cons of gay men and women serving in the military.
That said, it was as dense as a redwood tree, It read like a legal brief, and while some of the historical anecdotes were interesting, it was rather difficult to get through, I certainly suggest it though for anyone with a legal mind who's interested in the history of gay rights, I'd heard good things about this book, and as far as the research and overall organization, it's a fantastic book, I was already opposed to "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" and this book gave me tons of hard data to back up my beliefs, That said, this is a biased book, About halfway through the book, it hit me that this book is great for preaching to the choir but is unlikely to convert many supporters of the ban, And that's a shame, because this book does make a strong case for the problems with the ban, The problem is that the author doesn't trust the facts and information presented to instill outrage, Rather, he follows up facts with his opinion of why something is outrageous, On the flip side, he rushed by some damning evidence without little hard analysis, This is a book that would have been wellserved by some tough love editing as fewer opinions and adjectives and more trust in his audience to understand the facts presented would have made this a phenomenal book.
A clear, thoughtful, rational argument against Don't Ask, Don't Tell, Passionate, well written, heartbreaking at times, and filled with excellent rebuttals to direct towards opponents of gays in the military, This is a fantastic look at the politics surrounding the creation of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" and the subsequent failings of the policy, Carefully researched, it tells the story of how and why the policy came about, the climate it created in the military, and justification for the necessary repeal of the statute in order to ultimately improve our nation's military strength.
As someone who was involved in thebattle over gays in the military, albeit in a minor way, and who was in the military, I was curious how the story would read,years on.
This book rings true. Mr. Frank tells the story of how the U, S. got to that point, how Congress skewed its hearings on the issue, and how Bill Clinton ultimately, under duress, signed on to Don't Ask, Don't Tell,

He doesn't neglect the corollary issues: the mindset of both sides, the experience of gays in the military prior to, and the experience of other militaries who lifted the ban.
He helpfully lists the evidence for and against the ban, so far, He may be one of the few to have actually read theRAND study on the issue, And, he shows the antigay policy's contribution to pervasive maleonfemale sexual harassment in the military,

He follows DADT in subsequent years, and it's a complicated story: I knew how "Don't Ask" became "Search and Destroy" in some commands, but hadn't heard, till now, of how many gay soldiers stayed on and continued serving well.


Mr. Frank could have, I suppose, made more of the impact this had on Bill Clinton's ability to act as Commander in Chief, This spat may have had something to do with his weak initial response to the Balkan wars fromon, Certainly, the RAND study said that the gay ban would have fallen if the military thought Bill Clinton meant it, But, this a minor quibble,

Indeed, Mr. Frank does show how, with the military wearing out its active and Reserve forces with second, third, and fourth tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, He not only shows how personnel needs got so dire that the military was recruiting poorquality, even exfelon, soldiers, but shows the mayhem that would cause, He does allude to the shortage being a factor in hiring the "contractors," Blackwater et al, All this while the military got rid of thousands of personnel under DADT, including Arabiclanguage specialists who might've been useful after/,

This was a definitive study, up to earlyand the start of a new administration, It's worth rereading now that Don't Ask has been repealed and the military has moved on, decisively, The presence of military LGBT personnel may very well be taken for granted in future: this work is a good bookmark of what was, and very recently, Well, it was informative almost to a fault, A bit too long and thus less powerful than it might have been, Make your point thoroughly but concisely, 'Unfriendly Fire' first caught my attention during Dr, Frank's appearances on the various media outlets to debate the issues, I wanted to read the book to get a clear understanding of the justifications for such a discriminatory policy and why it had been in place for so long, unchallenged.
I was surprised to learn that during the creation of this policy, no facts, case studies, or scientific research were presented as justification for banning gays from serving openly.
That's right. Lawmakers and politicians were convinced purely on the 'common sense' notion that open homosexuality would interfere with unit cohesion, Who needs facts in the face of such 'common sense'

Today, this supposed wisdom is clearly laughable, During the early debates of this policy, and through the years the real facts were presented which disproved this common sense and even argued that the ban significantly harmed cohesion, hindered recruiting efforts, and wasted millions of dollars in related administrative costs.
But the policy remained to appease high ranking military officials unwilling to put their prejudices aside in the face of overwhelming evidence that this policy was ill conceived and detrimental to the military's overall effectiveness.


I was pleasantly surprised that Dr, Frank chose to include the personal story of my dear friend, Brian Muller, in another example of how the policy has wasted invaluable talent in it's dismissal of almost,service members to date.


'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' is viewed as one of the great failures of the Clinton administration, His efforts to triangulate opposing viewpoints on the issue left gay rights activists outraged, and social conservatives satisfied in their efforts to oppress homosexuals, The Obama administration has recently stated that it intends to repeal the policy, and it has the support of Congress who tried inampto repeal it only to be overridden by Bush's veto.
But the inevitability of it's repeal does not make the arguments in this book moot, Dr. Frank exposes supporters of the ban as the bigoted, hypocritical, homophobes that they are, He does this through a compete and categorical debunking of their shallow arguments which they continue to use in their defense of this policy and various other forms of antigay legislation.
This analysis is crucial in understanding and fighting the continued attempts of the religious right and others to find ways to discriminate against what has become the most hated minority group in America: Homosexuals.
'Unfriendly Fire' is a must read for any human rights activist, and anyone unsure about the gay ban's effect on military readiness, .