Military Spent $193 Million to Kick out Gay Troops

Monday, January 24, 2011
Kicking homosexuals out of the armed services cost the government more than $190 million over a five-year period, due to the expense of removing gays and lesbians and training their replacements.
 
The Government Accountability Office in a new report determined that the military spent $193.3 million between 2004 and 2009 to enforce its “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. This expense represented the removal of 3,664 troops—$52,800 for each removal of a gay servicemember. Of these, 1,442 were involved in what is known as “critical occupations,” such as infantryman, military police and transport driver. Of these, 148 held skills in intelligence-related critical occupations, including spy, cryptologic technician and airborne cryptologic language analyst.
 
Most of the money ($185.6 million) was allocated to recruit and train replacement troops. Another $7.7 million was consumed by administrative costs.
 
About 14% of armed forces personnel are women; however lesbians make up 34% of the homosexuals discharged for their sexual orientation.
 
With the approval of legislation repealing “don’t ask, don’t tell,” the Department of Defense is working on a plan to train all military personnel about changes to its personnel policy before officially ending the ban.
-Noel Brinkerhoff, David Wallechinsky
 

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