Customer Reviews

Conduct Unbecoming

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I bought this book because my Great Aunt is a retired Colonel in the US Army, and she is a Lesbian. She was interviewed for this book and is quoted in the book. Therefore, I wanted to have a copy of this book because I feel it holds a part of my family history.

I got my copy while at work, and immediately flipped through to find the sections that spoke about my Aunt. I started reading out loud to my co-workers, and pretty soon, a small group had gathered and was raptly listening to me read aloud. I was amazed that they were interested in the stories in the book as well as touched at their outrage at the discrimination I was reading to them.

This book is very interesting and talks about a part of history many people do not realize. I'd always been so proud of my Aunt for being one of the FEW women Colonels in her day, yet I never realized the scrutiny she lived under in the Army and the constant fear of being "outed" as a Lesbian.

Gay people have contributed greatly to our United States Military, and this book recognizes that fact as well as opens our eyes to the discrimination that gay women and men fighting for our country had to face, an added burden that didn't fall on the shoulders of the heterosexual soldiers.

I would strongly recommend this book.

I knew one of the Navy men detailed in this book and the author nailed this one on the head. I was a Navy wife for many years, until my husband retired. In the great witchhunt years, when no stone was left unturned and no method nasty enough, I saw sailors who did their jobs well and with honor, but who were systemically chased and hunted down until they were forced out of service because they chose to care for someone of the same sex. I also saw innocent heterosexuals threatened and blackmailed in order to help NIS make a charge against their potential targets. There was nothing mean enough or underhanded enough that the NIS wouldn't do to make a charge stick, even resorting to lies and innuendo to force someone to entrap a suspected gay or lesbian. It shouldn't matter who you love or desire...as long as a person does his or her job with professionalism and honor. Try telling that to investigators who work without honor. The military policy is deeply flawed and I believe it has to change. Amazing, isn't it...the military swears to defend its' people, yet will go to great lengths to destroy a selected few, because of ignorance of its' own making.

Randy Shilts?s third nonfiction novel chronicling the struggles and triumphs of the gay movement, culture, and lifestyle is perhaps the most in-depth of all his works. Exhaustively researched, and impeccably detailed, Conduct Unbecoming reads like a textbook (albeit a very interesting one) on how one of the most established institutions in the United States harassed and interrogated U.S. citizens, destroyed careers of literally thousands of men and women in uniform, and maliciously and ruthlessly discriminated against persons based upon their sexual orientation.
The Chicago Tribune essentially called this book a ?series of short stories.? Horror stories. What Randy Shilts unearthed in this stunning, massive tome is the betrayal, disloyalty, dishonesty, and hypocrisy, faced by gay and lesbian men and women who fight and die for this country. And indeed, the history of these injustices dates back many hundreds of years. The opening pages are filled with the stories of some of the very first issues of homosexuality brought up in this country by soldiers in the Continental Army during the American Revolution.
However, as so eloquently told by Mr. Shilts, these transgressions by the military and government are not a thing of the distant past. They continued to happen: throughout the years of the Korean War, the distraught era of the 60s and the Vietnam conflict, the social upheaving of the 70s, the regressive epoch of the 80s under Reagan, and even the first few years of the 90s when Clinton?s widely ineffective and over-rated ?Don?t Ask, Don?t Tell? policy was put into effect. However, whereas the book ends, the injustice, bigotry, and ignorance among our troops and all our people continues to grow and spread.
This is not merely a history of gay and lesbian soldiers in the U.S. military, as the subtitle states. This is a history of the entire gay movement. However, because the main focus of the story is that of gays and lesbians in the Armed Forces, the reader is not afforded every intricate detail of other social changes occurring at the same time. To ask that of Shilts would have been to ask for an entire set of encyclopedias.
With only three books, Randy Shilts is most likely my favorite nonfiction author. How unfortunate that we lost this great man and his words to a disease he spent so much of his career reporting on. We have only the legacy of his works to remind us of what a great man he was, and of all that he did for humanity.

I was overseas when this book came out, and the on-base bookstores could not keep enough on the shelves! Every "family" member would snap it up as soon as more were put out. An outstanding read...On a whole, the book IS factual. It just makes a better read is all.
I was returning from overseas and had a layover at Westover AFB, MA, site of one of the most intense witch hunts in military history. After everyone got settled in for the night, I walked around the dorms and tried to imagine what it must of been like for those being grilled by OSI. I got a real sense of history then. I was lucky. I got my 20 years in without a hitch, not even being offially questioned, thought I knew of several who were thrown out. Things are getting better in a way that most of the young troops now don't really care one way or another. And eventually some of those troops will be Generals and have influence over policy. The United States is one of only 2 nations in the western world who activly seeks to discharge those who are gay and lesbian (no, "don't ask, don't tell" doesn't work!). Some day that will change, and I hope I'm around to see it.

Length:: 3:04 Mins

I recently finished reading this massive tomb of research into the lives and times of the U.S Military gay and lesbian men and women. I thought when I picked it up that it would be a simple book of men and women telling stories of their careers, I was mistaken. I was enthralled into a book so deep and so detailed in the entire gay movement, from the very first gay man and lesbian woman before this country was formed, to when the book was finished. Over 200 years of text, documents, history, court cases, and a mass of other information, I have no idea how Randy kept all of it together. Writing all the interviews and news reports and keeping tracking of every piece of information about every person and case he discusses amounts to a lifetime master pieces of scholarly text. This book is should be the corner stone of texts and research into the gay movement, life, and military, since it has every piece of information possible, in just over 700 pages. I can only imagine how grateful these people are for his exhausting work and dedication and putting it together, before the vast amounts of info we can find on the internet.

Randy Shilts has written what can only be described as the most important book regarding the issue of gays and lesbians in the United States military. In a concise and fluid style, Shilts presents an issue that has been an ongoing problem for every branch of the military since the policy barring openly gay men and women from serving was first enacted.

He presents individual stories of servicemen and women who have been harrassed, verbally abused, assaulted and ultimately drummed out of the military for being gay. More often than not, those forced out have had stellar service records as well as numerous commendations from their superiors. The issue has also stretched to include heterosexual personnel who have been mis-identified as gay or lesbian.

Shilts is able to present an even look at an outdated policy that has not only cost the Pentagon millions to enforce, but has ultimately cost the military some of its best and brightest soldiers, sailors and airmen.

This book is a shining example of showing gays in the military. Gays will always be in the military. They should be allowed to serve open and proudly. This book shows the beginning of that struggle that continues to this day.

Every now and then one runs across a book where the author has used the English language not simply to tell a story, but to masterfully paint upon a canvas to create a one of a kind masterpiece of art. Randy Shilts was certainly one of those artisans. Conduct Unbecoming is nothing less than brilliantly written. While the book is an absolute joy to read, if for nothing more than to appreciate Shilts' remarkable craftsmanship, from a policy standpoint, he has missed the mark.

Throughout Shilts' book he depicts the investigative agencies of the armed forces as being reminiscent of the Gestapo and gays and lesbians as being something akin to Jews hiding in attics ever fearful of the sound of footsteps pounding on the wooden floors below. But is that really an accurate parallel? Perhaps, in some ways, it is. The agencies responsible for investigating homosexual conduct are indeed criminal investigative organizations. And in pursuing those investigations, criminal investigative strategies and techniques are employed and the principals are in fact treated and viewed as criminal suspects. So perhaps, there is a problem there. But even that, which was a primary tenet of Shilts' argument, evades the central issue: Is homosexual conduct, or for that matter homosexuality, as a matter of military policy, incompatible with military service?

Shilts and proponents of abolishing the prohibition make powerful arguments describing the heroics and exemplary service of such people as Technical Sergeant Leonard Matlovich who served three tours in Viet Nam and was awarded the Purple Heart and Bronze Star for bravery in combat; West Point graduate Anthony Woods who served two tours in Iraq and won an Army Commendation Medal and Bronze Star while leading a platoon in combat in the Diyala Province northeast of Baghdad; Army National Guard nurse Margarethe Cammermeyer, a Bronze Star recipient who served in the bloody trenches of a medical unit in Viet Nam; and countless others. Indeed, adorned upon the tombstone of Sergeant Matlovich's grave after he died of AIDS in 1988 is the inscription, "When I was in the military, they gave me a medal for killing two men . . . and a discharge for loving one." Sorry. But irrespective of where you stand on gays serving in the military, if you can read that without your soul being moved, you have no heart. Equally, if you do not understand the importance of dispassionately evaluating the merits and demerits of the policy banning gays, you have no brain.

The sole mission of the armed forces of the United States is to protect the country against all enemies, both foreign and domestic. In short, after the civilian authorities determine who an enemy is, the military is responsible for killing them, and to keep killing them until they decide to surrender. Beyond that, the military has no other mission. Yes, there are occasions when the military is used to further humanitarian goals and to render humanitarian assistance, but the primary mission of the military is to engage in, and win, armed conflicts. Consequently, implementing and maintaining policies that promote organizational cohesion, efficiency, and effectiveness is of vital importance. Yes, on a micro level there have been individuals who have exemplified the best that the American military has to offer. That is also irrelevant. The question of gays serving in the military, and this is the issue that understandably Shilts failed to appreciate, can only be legitimately viewed and studied on the macro level. There is no other alternative. The organization as a whole must function. The organization as a whole must be capable of accomplishing its mission. Individuals are only important to the extent that they are part of the whole. The military is not a democracy.

The vast majority of the military services are complemented by heterosexuals. Would unwanted gay sexual advances, which do and are going to occur, prove to be disruptive or negatively impact unit cohesion? Inescapably, military members are required to live and work in close quarters. Would sexual tensions result? Would morale be undermined? Unarguably, gay men experience a higher rate of sexually transmitted diseases as compared to other groups, including higher rates of incurable and deadly diseases. How would that impact organizational readiness and rapid deployability? What would be the implications regarding the application of emergency medical care, particularly under combat conditions? What about security implications, which would still exist even if the ban was abolished, such as in the case, for example, where a married man or woman lived an outwardly heterosexual life but was a "closeted" homosexual?

These and other questions are of monumental importance. As Americans, we have been culturally inculcated to believe that we must strive for "fairness" and usually that is determined based upon a consensus. With respect to the questions posed, suppose that something less than fifty percent of the military, or more specifically military personnel, were adversely affected by gays serving openly in the military, either from the standpoint of readiness, unit cohesion, or morale. Nearly fifty percent is a lot of people. But suppose it was something far less than that, something like twenty percent. That is still huge and the consequences would be enormous. The military is not a college campus. It is not a debating society. The purpose of the armed forces is not to debate "sensitivity" or "tolerance." And that is important to understand when reading Shilts wonderfully written book.

The urgency of objectively evaluating the validity of the prohibition has taken on added significance when considering the evolving values and perceptions of our American society. Gay marriage, for example, something that not too long ago was thought to be politically untenable, is today a forgone conclusion. It is not difficult to see that in the not too distant future, gay marriage will be legal in every state with jurisdictional reciprocity. And it can be argued that just as society is evolving, so is the military as a reflection of that society. The mission of the military, however, is not and never will be changing. It has remained the same since Cain killed Abel and Sun Tzu studied how to do that better and more efficiently.

Similarly, it can be argued that today's military operates in a much more complex and nuanced world than ever before. Perhaps. At the conclusion of the Second World War when American forces occupied Japan and parts of Europe, they did so by establishing an unambiguous relationship with the respective populations. The United States was the conqueror and they were the conquered. Denazification was not a request. The Japanese emperor was a mere mortal and it was not up for debate. History has proven that that worked out well. Conversely, the military's mission of nation building in Iraq and Afghanistan today, as Captain Anthony Woods who was separated under the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy would no doubt attest, has yet to be written.

In 2002, President Bush, in addressing troops at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, echoed the sentiments of Lieutenant Colonel Jim Chartier, the commander of the U.S. Marine Corps' First Tank Battalion, and proclaimed, "The world has seen we are not conquerors; we're liberators," and signified the emergence of new a paradigm for the American armed forces. Only history will tell whether or not that trajectory will be successful. The primary mission of the military, however, remained the same. Indeed, without accomplishing the primary objective of employing overwhelming force and violence to turn human beings - the enemy, into unrecognizable shreds of bloody protoplasm, the secondary objective of molding a new, peaceful, free, and prosperous society can never be achieved. Nothing can ever be allowed to interfere with that, including any not fully explored modification of gays serving in the military, and one that was completed absent of emotion or advocacy for any particular political agenda. Doing anything less than that would endanger the continued existence of the United States and her people.

The sole intention of Conduct Unbecoming is advocacy, not analysis. None of these important questions are addressed. The book presents only one point of view and does so primarily by depicting the pursuit of gay military members as wasteful and even as hateful. While one may not agree with Shilts' argument, the book is imperative to read in order to provoke thought . . . to think about the other side. Through that, one might just change their mind or buttress their already held belief that the ban should be maintained. Either way, one could not go wrong by reading Shilts' masterfully written work.

Randy Shilts was a liar. So was Lt. Gerald L. Rosanbalm.

Why do I say that?

Because the facts prove Shilts bought a fairy tale from Rosanbalm, who's story Shilts tells in this book.

Shilts starts on page 52 telling the ridiculous story of Rosanbalm, who claims he started a love affair with a G.I. named Donald Winn, during basic training at Ft. Ord , CA.,,,,,,OOPS!....Donald Winn didn't go to basic training at Ft. Ord. He went to basic at Ft Leonard Wood, MO, in 1967, when Rosanbalm claimed he was already in Vietnam since 1966! But he wasn't. Rosanbalm himself arrived in Vietnam in late 67.

Shilts writes on p. 58 that Rosanbalm and Winn also went to OCS together, until Winn "washed out".,,,, OOPS! Wrong again. Winn never went to OCS. Winn was a high school drop out and wasn't eligible for OCS. Shilts also writes Rosanblam and Winn would sneak out of the barracks to "make love" during OCS training. Only an ignoramous wouldn't see a red flag in that story. Shilts clearly had no real knowledge of how military schools work. That would have been extremely difficult to do, #1, and #2, even if you could, you are so damn tired during those rigorous training schedules, the last thing you want to do is sneak out somewhere and have sex.

Shilts says Rosanbalm was stationed near Quang Nagh. OOPS! He did it again! There is no place in Vietnam called Quang Nagh.

Rosanbalm's whole story on ppg. 55-57 is also likely phony. Fact is, Rosanblam had left his post during the crucial Tet offensive, leaving his enlisted men to fend for the themselves. No one could account for him.His commanders felt he was in an area he had no business in. Records show there was only sporadic fighting in that entire area, (which was really Quang Ngai)not the heavy fire fight Rosanbalm claimed he was in. Although Rosanbalm did get a Purple Heart, it is unclear how it happened.

Shilts writes that Donald Winn died in combat on Jan. 1, 1971. Wrong once again. He did die on that date, but of a heart attack in his barracks. He had a weakened heart condition.

Shilts writes Donald Dean Winn is "one of the many gay men named on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial." Shilts has zero evidence Winn was a homosexual. Winn's fiance(yes, a woman) begs to differ. So does his whole family as well as his friends.

Military records show Donald Dean Winn and Lt. Gerald Rosanbalm were never stationed on the same post. Mr. Winn's reputation has been smeared while he lies in his grave, because Randy Shilts was too lazy to do some simple research to check out Rosanbalm's story.

Shilts, in the paperback edition of this book, claimed this information I have written here was all brought out by a "right-wing magazine", which is irrelevent. The facts and the military record show Shilts wrote a false story.

All of what I have written is available in a book called "Stolen Valor" by B.G. Burkett, which debunks this story. These falsehoods of Mr. Shilts call into question the validity of his book, even if some gays have been persecuted in the military. Unfortunately, both Shilts and Rosanbalm have died of AIDS and count be held accountable, but they were confronted when they were both alive and still stuck by their lies. Shameful.