FWIW, the man I respected most of any I've met in my life and to whom I was closest to came out as gay. He was a Navy veteran, who'd served at Pelelieu and elsewhere in the Pacific during WWII. I sat with him through his last year before he succumbed to AIDS. He was an accountant when I knew him and learned from him, who insisted on honest and informative numbers.
The VetVoice Foundation’s poll of Iraq and Afghanistan vets’ attitudes toward Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell says that:
[B]y six points Iraq and Afghanistan veterans under age 35 lean toward favoring allowing gay and lesbian people to serve openly (41% favor to 35% oppose) while veterans over age 35 lean toward opposing by five points (31% favor, 36% oppose). This recent bipartisan survey, conducted among service members in the United States, in many ways runs counter to the idea being asserted by many, that service members and the military cannot handle this change and are unwilling to do so.
That may or may not be so. The poll itself, however, has some problems.
1. Its service composition is off. The poll has the following service who say they served in Iraq or Afghanistan, 50% Army, 12% Marines, 18% Navy, 22% Air Force. According to Stars and Stripes in March 2008, for example, when most who’d served had been in Iraq, 73% were in the Army, 18% in the Marines, 3% in the Navy, and 6% in the Air Force.
2. The poll does not distinguish those in combat units (although many in non-combat units often were subject to hostile fire). One of the key considerations regarding Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell is how it may affect combat effectiveness.
3. The methodology of the poll is clouded. Proper polling standards require full disclosure of the methodology. This poll doesn’t. This is all it says:
* Methods: Lake Research Partners and American Viewpoint designed and administered this survey, which was conducted by phone using professional interviewers. The survey reached a total of 510 veterans of Operation Iraqi Freedom (Iraq) and/or Operation Enduring Freedom (Afghanistan). The survey was conducted February 8-23, 2010. Telephone numbers for the sample were generated randomly from a military sample and a radius sample drawn from military bases in the United States. The margin of error for the total sample is +/- 4.4 percentage points.
The respondents’ answer to whether they served and to where is self-reporting and unverified. How the sample was chosen is not detailed nor its representative validity presented. And, as seen in point 1 above, the service composition is off, and from point 2 above a critical question not asked.
4. The sponsoring organization is partisan. Although claiming the pollsters themselves “designed and administered” it, it is frequent that sponsoring organizations influence the design. VetsVoice Chairman is John Soltz, and only one vet Board Member is listed, J. Ashwin Madia.
On John Soltz (who supported disgraced Democrat congressman Eric Massa):
Mass was endorsed by the tough guy Veterans Political Action Committee (PAC) VoteVets. VoteVets is led by tough guys like Jon Soltz, a veteran of four months of duty in a division extended for fifteen months in Iraq. So far since 2006, VoteVets (click here for the This Ain’t Hell breakdown) has lied about Body Armor issues in a multi-million dollar campaign commercial used against Senator George Allen, had another veteran lie about his service in a Missouri Senate campaign commercial for Claire McCaskill. Still following? VoteVets used a veteran who lied about being a veteran in Denver. A veteran who is not a veteran. There are lies and then there are VoteVets’ Richard Strandlof who is now facing jail time for claiming to be a wounded warrior.
For the past week, Massa has further disgraced VoteVets in a gay scandal.
This is the legacy of VoteVets. You can’t blame them. When you are so desperate to prove your argument, even though you are absent factual truth or first hand testimony, you tend to get that guy on camera quick. So when you meet a fellow defeatist, pro-victimizing veteran, you grab them with both arms. Sometimes vetting these liberal “war heroes” would a good idea. But if Jon Soltz and VoteVets vetted everyone in their group claiming to have served in a combat zone, hell even Jon Soltz wouldn’t be a member of VoteVets.
On J. Ashwin Madia (who served as a Marine JAG in Iraq, defeated as a Democrat for Congress in 2008: “The district was ranked as one of the top ten most likely to switch parties in 2008. However, after a challenging campaign, the district remained in the Republican column.”):
I have experience advocating on behalf of unemployed people, immigrants, disabled children, battered women, and the LGBT community. In fact, I was one of the first marines to successfully defend a gay marine from “don’t ask, don’t tell.”
Although influenced by Obama, I prefer to wait for the Department of Defense to complete and issue its study of Don't Ask/Don't Tell, in progress.
P.S.: I just received an Excel worksheet from the Defense Department's Press Operations Center breaking down by service and various demographics all those deployed from September 2001-January 2010. I'd be happy to email a copy to the pollsters or journalists.
Tracked: Mar 18, 06:01