As a then-active duty member of the military when the gay ban was lifted in 1993, I thought that lifting the ban may have served a purpose by extending basic human rights to gays and lesbians. But I also knew it eventually would hurt the recruiting of young, blue-collar males on whom the Navy so relied to man its ships, boats, and squadrons.
If polls or focus groups had been conducted before lifting the ban, the Pentagon would have cringed – because I believe that most of our young enlistees come from conservative blue-collar families where gay rights were never high on the agenda. Most of our enlistees were working-class boys from small towns and inner-city America – many from single-parent homes. They joined the Navy for many reasons: economic well-being, adventure, or to learn a trade. But usually the other (albeit rarely admitted) reason was to enjoy the rite of passage: to become a man. As far as helping the recruitment of enlisted people from a predominantly male, blue-collar, and conservative demographic pool, lifting the gay ban was not a brilliant move – if the intention was to sustain an all-volunteer force without a draft.
Exacerbating the recruiting problems resulting from the lifting of the gay ban was the politically-correct decision to lift the ban on women serving in most combat vessels and aircraft. The arguments against lifting this ban have not focused on recruiting; they focused on bathrooms, pregnancies, jealousies that might ensue, etc. I never heard a serving senior officer openly suggest that ending the exclusion of women from combat might hurt recruiting. Yet, since allowing women to serve in combat roles, recruiting slowly has slid in the tank. The Navy has countered this fall-off in recruiting with ideas on how to recruit more females. This society is a long way from becoming gender-blind; if the Navy thinks it is solving its problems by running co-ed advertisements male recruits need is another matriarch. Plus, as my 19-year-old nephew told me when I asked him to consider the Navy for the challenge it offered, “How hard can the Navy be if all you have is sissies and girls in it?” A harsh perspective – but for teenagers perceptions equal reality. The perception in working-class America (in this case New Jersey) is that the Navy is now a haven for gays and women. Their attitude is: What self-respecting teenaged guy would join the Navy? If you believe I am wrong, look at the very macho series of Marine Corps TV commercials. Is the Marine Corps suffering from the horrible recruiting problems that plague the Navy? No.
Many claim that the recruiting shortfalls are the result of a booming economy, more kids going to college, a lack of adequate pay, and on and on. All of this is true, in part. Unless we face up to what lifting the ban on gays and the exclusion of women from combat have done to the image of the Navy, our recruiting problems will continue. Can we recruit enough gays and women to offset the loss of working-class males who, feeling cheated of that tough Navy boot camp, turn to the still macho Marine Corps or pass up the military entirely? With all of the other problems believed to be causing our recruiting woes, we owe it to ourselves to discuss whether these changes brought upon the heretofore almost exclusively male military have so changed the dynamics of the recruiting process that we are in bigger trouble than we thought.
One of my reasons for entering the military, was that it was different from “normal society.” It was a bastion of masculinity where young men were encouraged to be a little wild if it contributed to combat readiness. It was not a feminized culture like elementary school and high school were. Our political leaders need to acknowledge that blue-collar teenaged males have kept the Navy afloat in the past. Unless there is a great paradigm shift in attitudes toward serving alongside gays and women, we have slit our own throats by alienating those young men. Our admirals must decide if it is worth it to toughen the image of the Navy by ending recruiting appeals that deter young men or do nothing – and wait for a return of the draft.