Ban on Gays in Military Cost $193 Million in Five Years

Baron Freidrich von Steuben was a former Prussian officer who served for the Continental Army during the revolutionary war. He organized the facilities at Valley Forge. He had the tents arranged in rows and the kitchen facilities and latrenes placed at opposite ends. He spoke French and Russian? but little English. He communicated to the troops through Hamilton and others who spoke French. They picked out 100 of the best soldiers and von Steuben trained them to be real disciplined soldiers. Those soldiers then trained the rest of the troops. Von Steuben wrote the Blue Book that became the field manual for the US military. Much of it is still in use today. Every year there are parades in places like Philadelphia that honor him. We have statues that honor him. He was one of George Washington's top Generals. He never married and left no known children. It is widely and almost certainly believed that he was forced from the Prussian military because he was a homosexual. The real human cost of dismissing gays from the military is not just the money, but the lives that may have been lost when capable translators were dismissed. When translations are inaccurate or too slow coming, then lives and opportunities to take out the enemy are lost. The loss of trained capable soldiers because they are gay is not only wrong, it can cost lives. Talk about military preparedness, Von Steuben was the father of it for our military. If he had not been allowed to serve we might still be an English colony.

hatred, intolerance, depriving people of their rights always cost a lot .

"Alan Turing was a British genius, mathematician. and father of the modern prgrammable computer. During WWII his work resulted in the invention of code breaking machines that could decrypt Germany's "Enigma" cipher. With Enigma broken, Allied convoys could know the positions of German U-boats in the North Atlantic, avoid them, and deliver their supplies safely. Countless lives were saved. He was prosecuted for being a homosexual in 1952. Forced to undergo hormonal injections and chemical castration to "cure" his condition, he grew breasts as a side effect. His conviction resulted in the loss of security clearance and barred him from further intelligence work. He committed suicide in 1954." This is from a source that worked to get Congress to repeal "Don't ask don't tell."

how rediculous a statement that the military does not know when they will decide how to handle the new gays allowed to serve in the military..is it so that they want to continure to spend more money or is that they are so stupid..how do u handle hetero sevice men and women???? well the same applies to all straight or gay..is that so hard to figure out or do they want to sit around spending money and take years to come up with the same conclusion as i have spelled out for them..the more i see how things are handled the more i loose respect in the whole workings today of our goverment..

the picture above says "fired under DADT",, these people werent fired, they were indicted for lying on their application in the same way a civilian employer wont stand for lying on an employment application.

The article is incorrect. The ban on gays hasnt cost anything extra due to DADT. The ban on gays has been a part of the UCMJ for the better part of a century and is still the rule of law. Repealing DADT was just a formality, just like it was when Clinton's administration signed it into existence. They are still trying to reconcile the actual law banning gays with the present desire to see gays in the military freely serving. the UCMJ still stands.

The Federal Courts have ruled that Don't Ask, Don't Tell and denying access to military service to gays is Illegal. Thus everyone who was booted out can file a Discrimination Law Suit seeking monetary damages. So if they booted our 3,664 soldiers___that is 3,664 people who can file a law suit for discrimination and likely all win. Now what could that cost????

I would have thought it would have saved tax payers 193 million dollars... those are salaries that wouldn't have been payed. So it saved tax payers not cost them.. someone is counting like the government.. when they talk about tax revenues...

Another "Spin Docotor" at work. Not pro or con on the "issue", other than the inflated numbers used in this article. The military is constantly training people for all types of jobs (known as MOSs), so it can't include all these costs. To add that is like the tricky way cities now charge "detainees" for the arresting officers time, yet this is still an expense when the numbers get crunched. The only "fair" number that should be in the defecit column of this is any seperation pay that is given. Yer tax dollars at work !!!!!!

$193 Million huh? Not surprised at all. This is the high cost of ignorance. I wish someone would calculate how much not fixing the issue of access to healthcare has cost American taxpayers and the individuals as well? The most of money we are wasting is on defense contractors and healthcare...paying trillion$ and trillon$ more than we should be paying in the last 60 years.