By Josh Garrison:
Good millennials are hard to come by. I had the opportunity to mentor one over the last couple of years and when he told me he was ready to talk to a recruiter I was moved. Unfortunately, the conversation was short lived. Going to the recruiter is like going to a used car lot or a proctologist. This red-blooded, hard-working, American son didn’t make it five minutes through the interview. The recruiter found out my friend occasionally has migraines and has just in the last month started taking medication for it. Case closed. “Son, we don’t need you in our military.”
Fair enough. I’ve never had a migraine but I’ve had enough women tell me a regular headache makes it insufferable to attempt any “bedroom activities” so I am willing to venture it would be near impossible to fight a war with a migraine.
Recruiters have the daunting job of accessing a few other things that may keep Uncle Sam a distant relative including: being born with one testicle or being a hermaphrodite, having insufficient natural healthy teeth braces, absence of one or more toes, being over 6’8” tall, being under 5’ tall (men only). Women are now magically qualified to drag my 6’4” 220 lb frame off the battlefield at only 4’10” and 91 pounds… sorry I digress. If you happen to be allergic to bees, whether you have ever talked to a counselor for more than six months, snore, have ever wet the bed since you were 12 years old and somewhere around 6 more pages of medical disqualifiers. The one condition that isn’t on the list anymore is Gender Dysphoria.
Under the Obama administration, gays, women, and yes those whose gender identity and sex assigned at birth do not match are all allowed to serve in any and all combat roles in the military.
The American son stepped back and understood that he could possibly become a detriment to his unit due to his headaches. However, the Armed Forces under Secretary Carter and President Obama have determined that not only do we ignore the condition of Gender Dysphoria, we have to remedy it by transitioning this service member to his or her’ preferred gender. The part they left out is that during the RLE (real life experiences) as set forth by Transgender Service in the U.S. Military Handbook, the service member cannot even be on base during the transition phase. One can only assume it would be unbecoming of a soldier to be seen during this phase. Basically, for as long as it takes for the service member to transition, that soldier, seaman or airman will be combat ineffective and one less gun in the fight for their unit.
The U.S. Military in all of it’s branches have been leaders in breaking down barriers in race, religion and equal opportunity, but it is not a social engineering project. Across all branches there is just one task. Complete the mission. When service members are allowed to cause detriment to that simple but often complex task it is of no benefit to defending our freedom. Despite the numerous aforementioned barriers to entry and the longstanding restrictions on who can perform in combat roles, those who choose to change their genders are somehow allowed to slip, untouched through the crack of political correctness. Like the son and so many others have frustratingly learned, serving our country is a privilege and not a right, a sentiment that should apply to all.
Josh Garrison is an OpsLens Contributor with over 50 combined deployments to Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Josh is a Purple Heart recipient who served operationally in varied roles with a U.S. Army Long Range Surveillance Unit and other government agencies involved in intelligence and counterterrorism missions.
