The next day, after an NSC meeting on Afghanistan, the president asked to see Mullen and me in the Oval Office. He asked where we were on DADT, and I said we were in the same place as before. I said I had been told that once it had been determined that a person had engaged in what the law defined as “homosexual conduct,” the law was crystal clear in mandating separation. I told the president that, according to Jeh Johnson, “you are proposing to suspend the most directive part of the law.” When it was clear there was no give in my position, the president vented: “I won’t ask you to sign up to something you’re not comfortable with. I’m the leader of the free world, but I can’t seem to make anything happen.”
During the meeting, the president’s voice had been raspy. On the way out of the Oval Office, I unwisely asked him if he was catching cold. He made a dismissive gesture that said, Don’t even try to be friendly with me because I am really angry. He was as angry with me as I had ever seen him. He felt deeply that the DADT law was wrong, and he was enormously frustrated by his inability to do anything about it. I was a major obstacle, but he was clearly not prepared to order me to do something I thought was wrong.
That same day, October 20, the Ninth Circuit granted the government’s appeal for a stay of the lower court’s decision, and the DADT law was reinstated. The next day I signed a directive that separations of service members could be approved only by the service secretaries, after coordination with the general counsel and the undersecretary for personnel and readiness. For all practical purposes, it was a suspension of separations, but it upheld the principle that as long as the law was in effect, we would continue to enforce it.
Admiral Mullen and I publicly reported the results of the Pentagon review process on November 30. I summarized it by saying that “for large segments of the military, the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, though potentially disruptive in the short term, would not be the wrenching, traumatic change that many have feared and predicted…. The key to success, as with most things military, is training, education, and above all, strong and principled leadership up and down the chain of command.”
I concluded by strongly urging the Senate to pass repeal legislation and to send it to the president for signature before the end of the year. Now that we had consulted the troops, my position on DADT repeal was in line with the White House as far as moving forward with legislation. I ended with a warning meant for Senator McCain and other opponents of repeaclass="underline" “Those that choose not to act legislatively are rolling the dice that this policy will not be abruptly overturned by the courts.” The bottom line of Admiral Mullen’s corresponding statement was “This is a policy change we can make.”
Mike and I testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee on December 2 on the results of the review. The testiest exchange was when I was asked whether it was a good idea to push for repeal when the survey showed substantial resistance among combat forces. I replied rather brusquely: “I can’t think of a single precedent in American history of doing a referendum of the American armed forces on a policy issue. Are you going to ask them if they want fifteen-month tours? Are you going to ask them if they want to be a part of the surge in Iraq? That’s not the way our civilian-led military has ever worked in our entire history.”
The votes of several undecided senators were influenced by the results of the Pentagon review, and contrary to most expectations even that fall, on December 18 the Senate voted to repeal DADT, and the president signed it into law on December 22. In a not-so-subtle spike of the football, the stage planners at the White House made sure the Marine Corps flag was prominently displayed behind the president as he signed. The massive bureaucratic wheels of the Pentagon began to move with uncommon speed in conforming Defense policies and regulations to the new law and in preparing training materials for the forces. By late February, training was under way for commanders and leaders and then was extended to all two million men and women in uniform. The service chiefs, after all their concern and skepticism, led this massive effort effectively and positively. The new commandant of the Marine Corps, James Amos, who had been, like his predecessor, the most negative toward repeal among the service chiefs, was hell-bent on the Marines being trained best and first.
The training went smoothly, but the certification process was not complete before I left office. The president signed the third and final certification required to bring repeal into effect—Secretary Leon Panetta and Chairman Mike Mullen had already certified—on July 22, 2011, three weeks and two days after I retired. Under the terms of the repeal law, DADT was abolished in the American armed forces on September 22, 2011. The transition went as smoothly as anyone could have hoped. We had turned a page in history, and there was barely a ripple.
Some might argue the transition went so smoothly that our fears and concerns had been greatly overdrawn and that implementation could have taken place much faster. I will always believe implementation proceeded with so few incidents and issues because of the planning and preparation that preceded it.
THE WAR WITHIN (CONTINUED)
Getting the troops in the fight what they needed continued to be a challenge in 2010. In Afghanistan, the all-terrain MRAPs began flowing in early in the year, providing much better—and much needed—protection for the troops when they were in vehicles. We were making considerable progress in getting more aircraft and drones into the theater for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance. But as the strategy changed to emphasize protecting the Afghan people, more troops were moving into hostile terrain on foot. Casualties from IEDs were increasing and the wounds becoming more grievous. When a soldier stepped on an IED, all too often the result was legs and arms blown off, with further blast damage to the groin, pelvis, and abdomen. Dirt and debris was blown into these wounds, further complicating medical treatment. Because of improvements in medevac times and battlefield medicine, most of those so horribly wounded lived and would face years of surgeries and rehabilitation, years of struggle and pain.
I earlier described meeting in the spring of 2009 the wars’ first quadruple amputee, Private Brendan Marrocco, wounded in Iraq by an IED. Nearly a year later at Walter Reed, I met the second quadruple amputee, a Marine injured by an IED in Afghanistan. Marrocco, by then with prosthetic arms and legs, was the Marine’s hero and role model, giving him hope that he, too, could become functional again. I had signed the orders sending them both into combat, and while it broke my heart to see them like this, their courage and determination to move on with their lives left me in awe.