''Unfriendly Fire: How the Gay Ban Undermines the Military and Weakens America'' is an American 2009 political book by Nathaniel Frank that argues that the "
Don't Ask, Don't Tell
"Don't ask, don't tell" (DADT) was the official United States policy on military service of non-heterosexual people, instituted during the Clinton administration. The policy was issued under Department of Defense Directive 1304.26 on Decemb ...
" policy banning openly
gay
''Gay'' is a term that primarily refers to a homosexual person or the trait of being homosexual. The term originally meant 'carefree', 'cheerful', or 'bright and showy'.
While scant usage referring to male homosexuality dates to the late 1 ...
servicemen and women from the
United States armed forces
The United States Armed Forces are the military forces of the United States. The armed forces consists of six service branches: the Army, Marine Corps, Navy, Air Force, Space Force, and Coast Guard. The president of the United States is ...
weakened military and national security. According to Frank, 12,000 people — 800 of whom had previously been deemed "mission critical" by the
U.S. government — were discharged from the military between 1993 and 2008, based on policies that Frank describes as "rooted in denial, and deception, and repression."
Content
In the book, Frank argues military leaders imposed bans on homosexuals based on fears that their open service would tarnish the military's masculine ideals.
''Unfriendly Fire'' argues the
Don't Ask, Don't Tell
"Don't ask, don't tell" (DADT) was the official United States policy on military service of non-heterosexual people, instituted during the Clinton administration. The policy was issued under Department of Defense Directive 1304.26 on Decemb ...
(DADT) policy, enacted in 1993 by
President
President most commonly refers to:
*President (corporate title)
* President (education), a leader of a college or university
* President (government title)
President may also refer to:
Automobiles
* Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ...
Bill Clinton
William Jefferson Clinton ( né Blythe III; born August 19, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. He previously served as governor of Arkansas from 1979 to 1981 and agai ...
in an attempt to advance homosexual rights in the military, actually significantly increased the amount of discharges and harassment among gays in the military, while standards have been lowered for accepting felons, ex-convicts and high school drop-outs.
While DADT asked gay servicemen not to discuss their sexual orientation in order to maintain
unit cohesion
Unit cohesion is a military concept, defined by one former United States Chief of staff in the early 1980s as "the bonding together of soldiers in such a way as to sustain their will and commitment to each other, the unit, and mission accomplishmen ...
, Frank presents empirical evidence arguing that requiring those servicemen to lie or conceal their orientations actually had a negative impact on unit cohesion.
According to the book, the
RAND Corporation commissioned a 500-page report showing open service would not affect military readiness, but generals ignored it in favor of a video circulated by a
Christian producer that graphically described gay sexual practices.
According to Frank, military officials previously involved in creating restrictions on gay servicemen openly admitted during interviews with Frank that those policies were created based not on empirical data, but rather on their own prejudices and fears, as well as pressure from
anti-gay activists and organizations.
Frank, a senior research fellow at the
Palm Center
The Palm Center is a think tank founded in 1998 at the University of California, Santa Barbara, that produces scholarship designed to improve the quality of public dialogue about critical and controversial public policy issues. It commissions and d ...
of the
University of California, Santa Barbara
The University of California, Santa Barbara (UC Santa Barbara or UCSB) is a public land-grant research university in Santa Barbara, California with 23,196 undergraduates and 2,983 graduate students enrolled in 2021–2022. It is part of the U ...
, spoke with members of the Military Working Group, the 1993 panel of six admirals and generals that helped draft the DADT policy. General Robert Alexander, who headed the panel, said the findings were completely subjective and not based on any actual data, and that the group did not fully understand what "sexual orientation" even meant.
John Hutson, a retired
United States Navy
The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage ...
rear admiral who participated in the talks, told Frank the assessment of gay service was "based on nothing. It wasn't empirical, it wasn't studied, it was completely visceral, intuitive." Another Military Working Group advisor, Lieutenant Colonel Robert Maginnis, said he questioned gay service in the military for "political reasons" because he knew this approach would be more effective than a moral campaign against equal treatment for gays.
Awards
The book received the
Stonewall Book Award
The Stonewall Book Award is a set of three literary awards that annually recognize "exceptional merit relating to the gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgender experience" in English-language books published in the U.S. They are sponsored by the Rainbow ...
in 2010 from the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgendered Round Table of the
American Library Association
The American Library Association (ALA) is a nonprofit organization based in the United States that promotes libraries and library education internationally. It is the oldest and largest library association in the world, with 49,727 members ...
.
Other
On February 28, 2013, at a pretrial hearing in her
court-martial, United States Army
Private First Class Chelsea Manning
Chelsea Elizabeth Manning (born Bradley Edward Manning; December 17, 1987) is an American activist and whistleblower. She is a former United States Army soldier who was convicted by court-martial in July 2013 of violations of the Espionage A ...
testified that in early 2010 she had nicknamed her anonymous contact at
WikiLeaks
WikiLeaks () is an international non-profit organisation that published news leaks and classified media provided by anonymous sources. Julian Assange, an Australian Internet activist, is generally described as its founder and director and ...
Nathaniel Frank, "after the author of a book I read in 2009."
See also
*
Bibliography of works on the United States military and LGBT+ topics
References
External links
''Unfriendly Fire'' by Nathaniel Frank (official site)Amazon.com listing of ''Unfriendly Fire''Palm Center
{{Queer people and military service in the United States
2009 in LGBT history
2009 non-fiction books
Books about the United States military
Books about politics of the United States
LGBT non-fiction books
Don't ask, don't tell
LGBT and military-related mass media
LGBT literature in the United States
Stonewall Book Award-winning works
Books by Nathaniel Frank
Thomas Dunne Books books