Military Not Uniform in Gay Bias Training

In the next few months, every member of the armed forces, from private to general, is supposed to undergo instruction to stop harassment of gays in uniform. But the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines have prepared widely differing, sometimes contradictory and often perfunctory lessons.

Everyone in the Navy, for example, will see a slide show that begins with sailors working heroically together as wind-whipped waves crash around their ship. The theme is “developing and building trust,” with just two slides--out of 25--citing harassment of gays as the kind of behavior that hurts teamwork.

The Air Force, meanwhile, has added its anti-harassment message to a two-hour lesson on military law, where the Pentagon’s stance on homosexuality is explained along with prohibitions on desertion, dereliction of duty and other uniquely military crimes.

This mishmash reflects a continuing unease within the military over how to carry out the 6-year-old policy known as “don’t ask, don’t tell,” an approach that is considered paradoxical and in some quarters repugnant, according to senior Pentagon officials.

“This is not sensitivity training for homosexuality,” said one high-ranking Army officer. “The law says that even a propensity to engage in homosexual acts creates unacceptable risks to military capability, and that is what we have to convey.”

Defense Secretary William S. Cohen ordered each military service to develop training programs and legal procedures to stop harassment of homosexuals in the wake of the murder last July 5 of a gay soldier, Pfc. Barry L. Winchell, by his barracks mates at Ft. Campbell, Ky.

But the response to Cohen’s initiative--his third effort in two years to remedy mishandling of homosexual cases--suggests that the difficulties of implementing “don’t ask, don’t tell” will persist.

The policy, enacted as law in 1993, maintains the military’s long-standing prohibition on homosexual conduct but allows gay men and lesbians to remain in uniform as long as they do not profess their sexual orientation or engage in homosexual acts. At Cohen’s request, the top brass in each service has dispatched an all-points bulletin denouncing all forms of harassment, threats and even derogatory jokes aimed at gays. This third element of the policy has come to be known as “don’t harass.”

Senior officers insist that the policy itself is sound.

“It is a law that, I think, strikes the proper balance between the requirement for good order and discipline in the military and individual rights . . . but there have been some problems with its implementation, which we are now trying to correct,” said the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Army Gen. Henry H. Shelton.

Since the beginning of the year, each service has developed its own training programs and submitted them to Cohen’s office for review. “I think the idea here is to make the training more uniform,” said Kenneth H. Bacon, Cohen’s spokesman, when the Defense secretary announced his approval of the programs Feb. 1.

The delivery of the training, however, is anything but uniform.

The Navy leaves it up to individual commanders “to get anyone familiar with the subject” to conduct the training sessions, according to an officer who directs the Navy’s “trust” program.

Army commanders in some locations, such as Ft. Sill, Okla., have been told to deliver the instruction personally. Elsewhere, personnel officers, legal affairs officers and even chaplains have done the teaching, and in some cases unit commanders have chosen not to attend the sessions, according to Army officers.

Some activists are concerned. “Beyond the content of the training, we have to see whether commanders show a personal commitment to the message that harassment will not be tolerated, because if they don’t, the troops will very quickly realize that this training is a check-the-box exercise,” said Michele M. Benecke, co-director of the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, an advocacy group for gays in the military.

The substance of the training also varies enormously.

In the Marine Corps, recruits will be assured that complaining about harassment will not lead to an investigation of their sexual orientation.

The Army has designed a separate briefing on “don’t ask, don’t tell.” The script calls for the trainer to explain that commanders must maintain a “climate which ensures all soldiers are treated with dignity and respect.” But only a single slide, out of 15, deals with such harassment as anonymous threats, derogatory language and graffiti.

For two years, the Navy has not included any materials on gay issues in its general training program. In response to Cohen’s directives, it developed the lesson on building trust. After explaining that faith in fellow sailors is an essential requirement of Navy life, the lesson focuses on sexual assault and then turns to a lengthy examination of sexual harassment, particularly of women by men. Nearly an hour into the presentation, after slides and a video on other matters, the Pentagon’s guidance against harassment of gays finally is presented on two quick slides.

None of the materials, in any of the service branches, mentions the slaying at Ft. Campbell and its role in prompting the training. If troops ask why gay issues are getting more attention, Army trainers are advised to respond that “the basic elements of the Department of Defense homosexual conduct policy remain unchanged. The recent emphasis is due to recently published additional guidelines.”

Despite the Defense Department’s new insistence on “don’t harass,” none of the service branches has issued instructions on how to treat individuals who do harass. Whether specific acts of harassment merit punishment is a judgment left to individual commanders, Pentagon officials said.

Moreover, the Defense Department does not keep records on the number of harassment cases, nor does it track how such cases are handled, the officials said.

Some indication of the Army’s thinking about harassment is evident in a handout for trainers.

To promote discussion, the trainer is instructed to pose the case of a sergeant major who comes across a unit marching to “a cadence that is slanderous to blonds, homosexuals, Eskimos and legs [non-airborne soldiers].” That scenario mirrors a real-life incident, now under investigation at Ft. Campbell.

Army trainers are supposed to explain that in such circumstances, the sergeant should either stop the marchers for “counseling on the spot” or, more discreetly, take the soldier in charge aside and have that soldier “make the correction.” The sergeant is also advised to report the incident--either formally or informally--through the unit’s chain of command. But there is nothing in the training materials to suggest whether disciplinary action is appropriate.

On one point, however, Army headquarters does offer clear guidance: “We do not want our equal opportunity advisors to become associated with the homosexuality issue,” said a senior officer who helped develop the training program.

Equal opportunity advisors are assigned to every command team throughout the Army and are meant to convey the service’s strong commitment to positive race relations. But the Army is adamant that these advisors should not play any role in advocating tolerance or equal treatment of homosexuals, as they do for minorities.

“We are trying to keep the two very separate,” the senior officer said.

The training programs failed to satisfy activists opposed to the presence of gays in the military.

They are “full of contradictory and frustrating messages, which are going to increase the already substantial alienation that many service members feel toward the military hierarchy,” said Robert L. Maginnis, a retired Army officer who is senior director for national security affairs at the Family Research Council, which opposes the presence of gays in the military.