Randy Shilts, the renowned gay and lesbian historian, whose works include Conduct Unbecoming: Gays & Lesbians in the U.S. Military wrote this about gays and lesbians serving during Desert Storm:

"On the first night of the Scud missile attacks on American troops in the Persian Gulf, an Army specialist fourth class with the 27th Field Artillery found himself cramped in a foxhole with three other men. Like many young enlisted men, the specialist (who asked that his name not be used) had previously confided to the other men, his friends, that he was gay.

During that night in the foxhole, they huddled together in their suffocating suits meant to protect them from chemical and biological warfare agents. They could not see one another, but to reassure themselves that they were still there, still alive, each man kept one hand on the other. Nobody seemed to mind that one reassuring hand belonged to a homosexual, the soldier recalls- - there were more important things to think about."

--- Excerpt from Randy Shilt's What's Fair in Love and War? which first appeared in the February 1, 1993, issue of Newsweek.

A spokesperson for SLDN (Servicemembers Legal Defense Network), Steve Ralls, had this to say about the order, "The stop-loss order is an explicit acknowledgment by the Pentagon that gays and lesbians can serve their country, no question about that ... It also sends the unfortunate message that while there are [gays and lesbians] who put themselves in harm's way, who risked their lives for the country, they can expect to be fired from their job" once the conflict is over."

Once again our nation closes its eyes to the obvious.

• If it is detrimental to the effectiveness of the U.S. troops to have gays and lesbians serving openly....
• If gays and lesbians serving openly harm "unit cohesiveness..."
• If most of the troops do not want to "room" or "share a foxhole" with a gay or lesbian soldier...

If all those things are true and so impossible to remedy, then isn't a time of war the time when it is most important to ensure that gays and lesbians do not serve?

Obviously not, or the "stop-loss" order would not have been made. Instead a directive to ferret out these instruments of destructive would have issued.

It is time to stop the charade.

It is well known that gays and lesbians have served ably for years. Hundreds of years.

Gays and lesbians are currently serving openly in the armies of other countries. Openly. Proudly. Ably.

General Powell has quoted himself by recalling that in early discussions with Pres. Clinton about the military's policy he said, "...we know gays and lesbians serve ably and honorably-but not openly. If they are allowed to do so, that’s going to raise tough issues of privacy."

If the issues aren't so tough that gays and lesbians are capable of serving during war time, then the focus should be on the fact that gays and lesbians have served "ably and honorably" and there is no reason for them not to continue to do so openly, even during times of peace.