Under Fire, They’re Good Soldiers and Bad : Gays: Clinton’s wisdom is not the issue; his absolute authority as commander in chief is.

Although spring was approaching, the German earth was still cold on that day in March, 1945, as Pfc. Robert Fleischer and other members of his antitank platoon crawled slowly across the empty field, cautiously poking the ground with their bayonets in search of hidden land mines. “If it blew up,” said one GI, “you knew it was a mine.”

The battalion was preparing for a German counterattack against the Rainbow Division, which had just breached the Siegfried line. “Under intense fire from tanks, machine guns and mortars,” asserted Fleischer’s Bronze Star citation, he helped build roadblocks and implant explosives, contributing “materially to halting a counterattack launched the same night.”

The citation did not state what other members of his unit knew: Robert Fleischer was a homosexual.

Nor was Fleischer a lone exception. Throughout World War II, hundreds of thousands of homosexuals served in the military. “They served in combat zones in all branches of the military,” a historical study concluded. “Like their buddies, some were bad at being combat soldiers and others received medals for their fighting skill and courage.”

Although official military policy excluded homosexuals, the ban was laxly enforced or ignored altogether. Jim Warren, who served in World War II, finally admitted his homosexuality to his superiors, expecting to be discharged, but “it didn’t happen. The next thing I knew my ass was on Eniwetok and I was fighting Japanese.”

Nearly every combat unit included several gay soldiers. Their “straight” comrades soon relaxed any prejudice and developed a live-and-let-live attitude. And as men survived battle after battle, strong camaraderies developed.

“There was a war going on,” explained an officer who had fought at Iwo Jima, “Who in hell is going to worry about this ----?” Not Secretary of War Henry Stimson, who in early 1945 ordered a review of all self-confessed homosexuals who had been given discharges. If investigation revealed that they had committed no in-service acts, they were to be re-inducted into the Army.

The performance of homosexuals during World War II--their sexual orientation was often known to their fellows soldiers and commanding officers--conclusively proves the falsity or hypocrisy of arguments now being made to exclude gays from the military. They not only performed well, but discipline and morale were not diminished, and our military was not impaired.

“Lay off my district,” one admiral told a special unit assigned to screen out homosexuals, “because you’re taking some of my best people away and we’ve got to win this ------- war.”

I am well aware of the antipathy felt, and often vociferously expressed, by many men toward homosexuals. But such feelings do not justify banning homosexuals from military service, any more than they would justify the exclusion of blacks or Italians or Jews or any other of the diverse groups that make up our society.

It is shameful that Colin Powell should oppose lifting the ban on homosexuals with language almost identical to that used to justify the World War II exclusion of blacks from all but the most menial positions. A general board, appointed by Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox, reported to President Roosevelt in 1942 that “Men on board ship live in particularly close association . . . How many white men would choose that their closest associates in sleeping quarters . . . be men of another race? The general board believes that the answer is ‘few’ if ‘any’ and further believes that if the issue were forced, there would be a lowering of contentment, teamwork and discipline in the service.” Roosevelt rejected the report, and, gradually, racial integration proceeded.

More serious, and more ominous, than the issue of lifting the official ban on homosexuals is the seeming willingness of high-ranking military officials to intrude into politics behind the back of their commander in chief. No military leader has the right or authority to try to undermine that authority through subterfuge, private association with members of Congress and industrial allies, leaks to the press or in any other way. Their duty, their only duty, is to advise and obey.

The issue now is not the political wisdom of President Clinton’s decision. The challenge is to the democratic process itself. He cannot and, I trust, will not retreat. Not because he made a campaign promise. But because he took an oath to preserve, protect and defend a Constitution that includes his absolute authority over the armed forces as commander in chief. To yield to the generals on this issue would breach this oath, undermine his control of the military Establishment and cast a shadow on the credibility of his presidency itself.