Showers and Foxholes

I originally wasn't going to do a blog on this site, but I reconsidered after coming to the conclusion that there would probably be things that I would be in a unique position to comment on or bring to light. As opposed to the stylistic masterpieces that may come from some of our other bloggers, I intend to maintain a more practical blog, dragging out items of interest within in the DADT repeal movement, the national security arena, and the wider military community, and occassionally turning over the mic to guests in order to mix things up a little.

The name of this blog, by the way, is a reference to two of the most common hang-ups of those who oppose allowing known gay men and women to serve in the military without fear of being fired if someone happens to find out that they are gay. I always chuckle to myself anytime someone brings up showers and foxholes, as those two words usually indicate that he (or she, but usually he) is likely not familiar with the modern military. The days of group showers - even if the paranoid fears of predatory gays circling were remotely realistic - are largely gone, as new facility construction designs have incorporated private or semi-private shower arrangements for a variety of unrelated reasons. Where I attended basic training at Ft. Benning, GA, the only all-male basic training site left in the Army, the shower stalls on the oldest barracks were already semi-private, which we saw for all of about 8 seconds per day anyway. Even in Iraq, when one is able to shower, the showers in the shower trailers are partitioned there too.

As for DADT's other pillar, the foxholes, where gay men must surely be a trollin' while bullets are a flyin'... come on! Who's digging foxholes Iraq? The point is that the underpinnings of the fear surrounding repeal of the DADT law are a lack of education and exposure - exposure to the modern military and to the modern servicemember, and this is where Servicemembers United aims to play a unique role within the upcoming national policy debate over the continued utility of DADT in the 21st century.