Gates Urges Troops to Take Survey

DON'T take the survey! It's not an 'order'. The freedom of choice, the right to choose......is what it is. No one in the military, or working for the military, or any contractors (including any employees) should be 'urged', coerced, directed, maneuvered, nor required to do so. It seems the DOD managers have this 'urge' to find and disenfranchise a person or persons who are voluntarily serving as a defender of this country, its' laws, and its' citizens (oh, yeah, that's ALL of us isn't it). CASE CLOSED!

Ben in LA, I do agree that there are better ways that DADT repeal could be enacted, and in my opinion, a stop-loss order from the President in the interim would be very helpful. That's just an expression of opinion, not the questioning of orders from superiors. As to troop surveys on PERSONNEL issues, both formal and informal, they aren't entirely unprecedented. We are surveyed at least once per year on an entire host of issues mainly concerning our quality of life, work environment, and leadership/cohesiveness issues. Which is a far cry from tactical combat decisions. That being said, the specificity of this survey being targeted to such a narrow issue is unprecedented in many ways, however I am hardly surprised that it's being done. I take Secretary Gates at his word when he says that DOD is trying to identify and mitigate any problems before or if they occur because the questions on the survey reflect just that. So yes I do continue to stand behind it. Thankyou for the civil dialog.

David in Astoria - this is not about how well written or inoffensive the survey may be but about how it singles out one segment of the military that isn't even supposed to be there in the first place. Has the military ever done this before? Were surveys taken to see how men felt about women serving in submarines? You'd like them to survey you members of the military on other personnel issues, but how realistic is that? Why should they do it? Obama is your Commander-in-Chief, and he tells you what to do. You don't tell him what to do. Remember - ours is not to question why, ours is but to do or die. The survey is but a smokescreen. The president and others don't need a survey to determine the issue of gays in the military. I'm surprised you stand behind it.

People need to WIPE THEIR ASS with this survey and then do what Gates says, turn it back in. Seriously, the United States has embarrassed itself on this issue. I join the world in laughing at the USA. What a dumbfuckistand kind of a place is this really.

Gates wants our troops to take the survey so he can insist that DADT stays in place!!! How stupid does he think we are??

The survey is stupid and its nothing more than a stalling tactic that will be used to justify NOT repealing DADT. If the Obama Administration and the Democrats fail to end DADT I will never vote for them again. I am sick of being lied to and manipulated. And don't get your hopes up Rethuglicans, I'd rather throw myself in front of a bus than vote republican.

Gates doesn't know what he is doing. Obama has no balls. It is very offensive to survey people on whether all should have the same rights. Also, no one should have to lie about their sexuality if it is an issue. It shouldn't be. Westat, the company who made this survey, needs to come forward with the names of the individuals who wrote the survey questions. They need to show us that they are not a group of mormons, republicans, anti-gay bigots. Gates should not have been allowed to continue in his postion. We will not achieve equal rights in this country. We are relegated to second class citizenship. We are a minority without equal protections. We are at the mercy of homophobic America.

If it's currently illegal to be gay in the military, how do these guys know that any of the 400,000 recipients of this survey are gay without firing them for being gay in the first place??? It seems absolutely contradictory to me. Are they just hoping that they get lucky that some gay and lesbian soldiers are included in their random sampling of soldiers they sent this survey too??

I'm a service member, on active duty who's served over 6 years now. Unfortunately I'm not one of the lucky 400,000 surveyed but I know people who did receive it including my CO. I've seen it and read entirely through it, nothing offended me, nothing really concerned me, it is very well written and thought out. Perhaps it is unprecedented but I'm glad that it's being done. I wish the entire military was surveyed on personnel issues. I just don't understand all of the hysteria by activists over this survey, and from my insiders view of things the last 6 years, DADT repeal is a non-issue. The pressure needs to be put and kept on President Obama and congress through December, and the DOD will do what Congress and the President order them to do. DADT has always been and remains solely a political issue from the beginning. It's the Senate, both Democrats and Republicans, not following 80% of their constituents is where the problem truly is. --A Proud Gay Sailor

If Obama wants to repeal the unconstitutional DADT (thereby stop wasting millions of our tax dollars and weakening our military), he needs to openly dismiss this survey as biased and insulting, pressure the Senate to vote the repeal, fire Bush-appointtee/anti-gay Gates and replace him with someone for equality, and sign an immediate wartime executive order to cease all evictions from the military based on sexual orientation. The repeal law states Gates must agree to this and the earliest it can start is February. Once the Republicans take control of Congress after the November election, Gates will use this survey to keep DADT or replace it with something worse.