Think of Magic Just Playing at Home

There are 1,049 HIV-infected military personnel on active duty today. They are not allowed to carry weapons or visit pistol ranges. They are not allowed to serve on board an aircraft or a ship. They are not allowed to serve on medical teams. Not one of the world’s 191 nations will let an HIV-infected soldier serve on its soil. In fact, HIV-infected military personnel are disallowed from doing anything that defines military life.

Before President Clinton downsized our military by 700,000 servicemen and women, HIV-infected persons were reluctantly absorbed by commanders who were doing their best to avoid a public relations battle. Clinton’s downsizing created a new problem. Bringing an HIV-infected soldier or sailor back to the states to serve in a “nonmilitary” job with no heavy lifting means either immediately deploying another soldier or sailor as a replacement--perhaps one who had just returned home--or ending the career of a fully deployable serviceman or woman to make room for the infected person. Either choice is demoralizing. Far from being punitive or malicious, the Dornan provision, recently signed into law by Clinton, is motivated by military reality.

The Magic Johnson analogy is specious, especially in the light of Oklahoma heavyweight Tommy Morrison, disqualified from boxing after testing positive for HIV. The NBA is not the military. Johnson is playing basketball because NBA team owners love money more than people (owners led a massive public relations campaign among players to get them to support their wishes) and because NBA peer pressure outweighs common sense. The life-and-death military does not have that luxury.

Unlike Johnson, HIV-infected military personnel are unable to carry out duties for which they were trained. These personnel are by definition ill and disabled, notwithstanding that they can still physically function. Even without the Dornan provision, if Johnson was in the service, he would be allowed to play only home games. Under this restriction, the NBA might not have been as enthusiastic about his return.

HIV is one of various illnesses that classify personnel as nondeployable. Asthma, cancer, diabetes and heart disease are others. But HIV is the only one that is irreversible and incurable. If you become infected, sooner or later, you will die an HIV-related death. The same is not true of the other illnesses, which are treated on a case-by-case basis.

The military’s sole mission is to wage and win America’s wars. In the past two years, our military has discharged more than 12,000 men and women for being overweight. Hundreds of others have been let go for being too skinny, too weak, having other health problems acquired after enlistment and for a host of other reasons such as alcohol abuse. HIV infection is not now an exception to the rule, although Clinton and his heavy donors within the AIDS lobby would like it that way.

Courts have held that the military is not responsible for disabilities unrelated to military service. Yet the Dornan provision graciously gives HIV-infected personnel honorable discharges and full health benefits for the rest of their lives, even though the three primary ways of transmission in the military, representing 99% of cases--illicit drug use, visits with a prostitute and homosexual activity--are violations of the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

Over the years, members of the military from the top on down have written me asking that I address the HIV problem. None explained it better, though than the young Marine Corps company commander who wrote: “My one HIV marine kept another marine from leaving a deploying unit. . . . This may not seem like much to some, but I’m sure it meant a lot to the guy and his family who had just spent 54% of their last three years separated due to normal deployment patterns.”