America’s veterans are killing themselves out of desperation as they wait in line for medical treatment for serious ailments. But the traitor who now calls himself “Chelsea Manning” went on a hunger strike and quickly forced the Pentagon to agree to his demands for “transgender” surgery. Bradley/Chelsea Manning, who is serving 35 years for espionage, is not alone. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter has approved an 18-page instruction manual that outlines how military men can become women, and vice versa. It appears that first-rate medical care for our service personnel will be reserved for those who want to be members of the opposite sex. This goes to show that President Obama’s “fundamental transformation” of America continues, with a dangerous focus on turning our front-line military forces into pansies and fairies.
Article by John Lowery
Secretary Carter says the transgender service member who wants to “transition” to a different sex must be given the option of extended leave, depending on how long the sex-change transition takes. This means that the military service member is unavailable to perform his/her assigned duties, which limits the unit’s assigned manpower and hence mission readiness.
Consider, for example, that in the course of routine military duties, he/she could be working on nuclear weapons, assigned to the console of an underground silo with co-responsibility for launching a nuclear-tipped Intercontinental Ballistic Missile, piloting a B-2 stealth bomber or an F-35 jet fighter, or perhaps maintaining the life-support equipment so vital to airmen. But these responsibilities will now take a back seat to getting what the ACLU calls “gender affirming surgery.”
In addition to taking time off to get surgery and recuperate, there is yet another significant problem. Dr. Paul R. McHugh, former psychiatrist in chief at Johns Hopkins Hospital, points out that a person who undergoes this kind of surgery is left with an underlying “mental disorder” that could lead to grim psychological outcomes.
The suicide rate among veterans is currently estimated at 22 per day, or roughly 8,000 per year. But Dr. McHugh reports that a Swedish study found that, for the 10-year period after having the surgery, the transgendered began to “experience increasing mental difficulties,” and “their suicide mortality rose almost 20-fold above the comparable non-transgender population.”
We are likely to see similar problems as a result of the Obama administration’s earlier decision to promote homosexuals in the military. Peter LaBarbera, president of Americans for Truth about Homosexuality, cites evidence in the AIM special report, “Refuting Media Myths of the Homosexual-Transgender Agenda,” that increased problems of mental health and distress are associated with this particular lifestyle.
At the same time, this lifestyle presents a potential threat to others, because the administration seems to be in the process of lifting the ban on gay blood donations. Blood donated by homosexuals to the blood supply could infect everyone, both civilian and military members. On the battlefield, wounded soldiers could be exposed to the AIDS virus or several other diseases. The blood is risky because of the fact that male homosexuals in particular are notorious disease carriers. For example, as LaBarbera notes, in 2011 an astonishing 94 to 95 percent of new HIV cases among males ages 13 to 24 were linked to MSM (Men who have Sex with Men). Syphilis, too, has become endemic to MSM.
The policy has been watered down to the point that it currently bans donations from men who have had sex with other men, but only within the past year; naively presuming the donors are truthful. This supposedly will diminish the possibility that their blood is infected. Still, liberal Democrats want to go further and completely lift the ban on male homosexuals giving blood.
As a former fighter squadron commander with a nuclear mission, this situation is so preposterous that it borders on the subversive.
This kind of social experimentation with the military services has been tried before. President Lyndon B. Johnson’s Defense Secretary Robert McNamara initiated something called “Project 100,000,” allowing enlistment of young men who were intellectually or physically challenged. This ill-considered program cost the services heavily in equipment and mission readiness.
My first encounter with the project results came in 1970. Upon arriving at McDill Air Force Base in Florida for training in the F-4C Phantom, I found a burned-to-the ground squadron operations building with its associated maintenance hangar heavily damaged. A project airman brought into the service under lower recruitment standards had been arrested for the fire.
In our F-4Cs Wild Weasel squadron on Okinawa, we were assigned two project airmen, admitted under the lower standards, both of whom required constant monitoring. One was totally untrainable with the other in trouble with the police almost nightly.
In one incident, while visiting our strip alert detachment, I found an airman third class Security Policeman, who was supposed to be guarding our mission-ready F-4Cs, with the muzzle of his loaded M-16 pressed against the chest of an alert pilot, and with his finger on the trigger. Because alert aircrews had to be able to scramble and get airborne in 15 minutes, they had priority in the food lines at meal time. Consequently, the major had stepped in front of the young guard at lunch—and the young project airman was ready to kill him.
There were other incidents too that never made the national media, such as the Navy destroyer that was disabled well out in the Atlantic Ocean, after a newly assigned project seaman had poured bags of salt in the ship engine oil supply. It was then ignominiously towed to port in Norfolk for repair. Another hushed-up incident involved an Army National Guard helicopter pilot who reported for his annual physical and was permanently blinded, because someone had put acid in the eye drops.
“Project 100,000” showed graphically why the U.S. military is not the proper place for social experiments.
Realistically, the old axiom still applies: “The mission of the military is the application of violent force in the fulfillment of national objectives.” It is not to provide sex-change surgeries and rehabilitation services for mentally disturbed or suicidal individuals.
Secretary Carter’s new transgendered policy is so irrational as to constitute treason. It’s up to Congress, which is supposed to provide the rules and regulations for the Armed Forces, to stop this ridiculous policy.
* Lt. Col. John Lowery USAF (Ret.) spent 23 years on active duty and retired on January 31, 1975. He flew combat in F-86 Sabrejets in Korea and F-105Ds in (North) Vietnam and retired with 7,500 military flight hours, with 5,000 hours in jet fighters and 460 hours of combat. He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross in both Korea and Vietnam, along with nine Air Medals. He holds an under-graduate degree in Economics from Auburn University (Alabama) and a Masters of Aviation Science from Embry Riddle Aeronautical University (Daytona Beach, FL). He has authored nine books, including Professional Pilot Third Edition, (ASA, Inc.) Life In The Wild Blue Yonder – jet fighter pilot stories from the cold war (Amazon Books) and A Pilot’s Accident Review (ASA, Inc.).
