Why I Left the Navy: The Subversion of the US Military

When I resigned from the nuclear submarine service nearly seventeen years ago, I listed as one of my reasons irreconcilable ethical differences resulting from the Navy’s acceptance of homosexuality. Such impertinence on the part of a US Naval Academy (USNA) faculty member resulted in an informal visit to my office by a senior officer of the engineering division in which I taught, who wondered whether I really wanted a statement like that forwarded to the Pentagon. The unspoken sentiment was that such a bald statement might reflect poorly on the command climate. After all, my visitor reasoned, homosexual conduct was still illegal under the new “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (DADT) rules, to which I replied, “For now.”

After a short pause in which he could think of no meaningful reply, he shrugged and walked away. Just a few months earlier General Colin Powell (then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff), in a Q&A session following his address to the USNA brigade, had told a midshipman in response to his query regarding the morality of DADT, “If after those decisions are made you still find it completely unacceptable and it strikes to the heart of your moral beliefs, then I think you have to resign.”

...Read More in the July/August 2010 issue of Faith for All of Life.