Generals, admirals thank Trump for policy change
(EDITOR’S NOTE: The following letter was submitted to President Trump on Thursday to thank him for his policy reversing the policy of allowing transgender individuals to serve in the U.S. military. Two of the signatories were local retired generals, Paul Vallely and Jim Cash.)
The Honorable Donald J. Trump
President of the United States
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington, DC 20500.
Dear Mr. President:
We are flag-rank officers who wrote to you earlier regarding our concerns with the Obama administration’s military transgender policy that began July 1, 2016.
We write today to express our gratitude to you for making the extremely courageous decision to reverse President Obama’s transgender social experiment. There may be an enormous amount of vitriol directed at you for making this policy correction, but please know that overturning this policy may have done more in the long-term to save the culture and war-fighting capacity of the U.S. military than perhaps any other military policy you will adopt as president.
The possible fiscal outlays of adopting a transgender military policy would have been very high. The Family Research Council has estimated that it could be between $1.9 and $3.7 billion over 10 years. In addition, allowing transgender individuals to enlist would attract those persons who hope to have taxpayers pay for their “transitioning,” including hormone replacement therapies and elective surgeries.
Even if it can be scientifically demonstrated that gender reassignment procedures medically benefit some individuals, there will still be concerns about the deployability of these individuals. DoD guidelines require that those serving in the military be “medically adaptable to the military environment without the necessity of geographic area limitations.” However, both hormone therapy and gender reassignment surgery result in the need for specialized medical care which will not be available in all geographic locations.
Aside from the time lost due to the non-deployability of the person transitioning, one must also consider the time taken away from commanding officers for transgender case management. The detailed assessment and management of these complex cases by commanders would have been substantial. Needless to say, that is time not being spent training or thinking about how to engage and defeat our enemies in combat. The shifting of CO time would have been a real detriment to military effectiveness.
One letter to DoD arguing against the Obama policy contained this assessment from “a known but confidential source in the naval service” who pleaded that her Pentagon commanders be informed of the damage being caused by the Obama plan:
As part of the policy, CO’s must facilitate the requests of individuals for transgender treatment (surgery, cross-hormonal therapy, etc.)... Then once the service member is considered “stable” in their preferred gender, and their “gender marker” is changed in a DoD database, they must be accommodated in the berthing and bathroom facilities of their preferred gender regardless of whether they still possess their opposite sex anatomy! (And most are expected to do so).
This commanding officer then raised privacy as a real problem: “Given the close living quarters that most military members have to share, this is particularly distressing to many of us, especially women.” One would think the concern of this CO and others like her would not be brushed aside so lightly in an environment said to be rampant with sexual harassment and assault.
In closing Mr. President, we note that your bold decision is supported by the American people who have a great reverence for the military. A Rasmussen survey released in June found that “just 23 percent of likely U.S. voters think the U.S. military’s decision to allow openly transgender people to serve is good for the military.” We believe you will be rewarded for this brave decision by the American people.
Once again, thank you for your focus on preserving the military effectiveness, morale, and social cohesion of the United States Armed Forces.
Signed:
Benjamin R. Mixon
LTG (R)
U.S. Army
William G. Boykin
LTG (R)
U.S. Army
Thomas G. McInerney
LTG (R)
U.S. Air Force
Former AVice U.S.AF
James Lyons
Admiral (R)
U.S. Navy
Wm. Dean Lee
Vice Admiral (R)
U.S. Coast Guard
Brian I. Geehan
MG (R)
U.S. Army
Gary L. Harrell
MG (R)
U.S. Army
Vernon B. Lewis, Jr.
MG (R)
U.S. Army
Mike Jones
MG (R)
U.S. Army
Joe S. Owens
MG (R)
U.S. Army
Paul E. Vallely
MG (R)
U.S. Army
Chairman, Stand Up America Foundation
Robert F. Dees
MG (R)
U.S. Army
Jim Walker
BG (R)
U.S. Marine Corps
Executive Director, Operation Heal Our Patriots
Samaritans Purse
John Miller
MG (R)
U.S. Air Force
Howard P. Hunt III
BG (R)
U.S. Air Force/KYANG
Jimmy L. Cash
BG (R)
U.S. Air Force