The 364 million dollar question
$364 million dollars is the new estimate of how much the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy cost US taxpayers in its first decade.
Approximately 9,500 service members were discharged for homosexuality from 1994 to 2003. Not only did the discriminatory and hypocritical policy leading to these discharges have no valid sociological or psychological foundation, it actually harmed recruiting efforts and military readiness and led to increased costs for recruiting and training replacement personnel.
Personal note: My uncle Mick Poole enlisted for active duty in the Australian army at 16 (he lied about his age to the recruiters). He was killed in action four years later on February 21, 1966 (forty years ago this month) in the Long Hai Hills in Viet Nam, from a massive US landmine blast.
As a young child I grew up in the shadow of Viet Nam, and remember having nightmares of being drafted into the military and dying alone in a swamp somewhere. I couldn't be more opposed to senseless wars and the intense human suffering they cause. As someone who believes that war of the sort waged by modern Western armies is rarely if ever justified on spiritual, moral or humanitarian grounds, I could not imagine becoming a soldier myself. But those who take this path for whatever reason deserve the full respect and support of their country and not treatment as second or third class citizens.
The policy is more expensive than we thought it was, in many ways," said retired Rear Adm. John D. Hutson, a former Navy judge advocate general who was on the panel. "The real cost is the cost in human dignity, in self-respect, and in the image of the military held by the American public, the world community and itself. . . . The dignity of the armed forces is at stake."