Admiral Mike Mullen Says Marine Head General James Amos Will Comply With Complete Transition If And When DADT Repealed, Mullen Says Repeal Necessary Since Military Values Integrity, Out Of Annapolis Examines LGBT Alumni

According to AFP, Admiral Mike Mullen, the Chairmen of the Joints Chief of Staff, made the rounds of the Sunday talk shows, and, appearing on CNN’s State of the Union, said that despite public proclamations to the contrary, the head of the United States Marine Corps, General James Amos, is prepared to help navigate a successful transition to gays serving openly in the military. Mullen said Amos assured him that he is able to integrate new measures meant to allow gay and lesbian service members serve without fear of discharge if and when the currently policy of “don’t ask, don’t tell” is repealed. “I don’t think there’s any question he can,” said Mullen. “I spoken with him as recently as last week, and he recounted a town hall (meeting) that he had had on the East Coast recently. And he was very clear and very public to his Marines. And he basically said that if the law changes, we are going to implement it, and we are going to implement better than anybody else. So I have great confidence in him that if it gets to the change in the law, that the Marines Corps will implement it as he has described.”

Earlier, Mullen appeared on ABC’s This Week with Christiana Amanpour, who asked why he supported a complete repeal of the policy that prohibits openly gay service members, Mullen answering that the 17 year old policy “belies us as an institution. We value integrity as an institution ... asking individuals to come in and lie about who they are every day goes counter to who we are as an institution.”

The Navy Times on a new documentary titled “Out of Annapolis,” produced by retired Commander Steve Clark Hall, a 1975 graduate of the United States Naval Academy that chronicles the lives of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender alumni of the school. Hall is asked if there some warfare communities that are more gay-friendly, and answers “Definitely. I think a lot of it has to do with open-mindedness of the community and how much of the leadership in the community depends of what’s called the hegemonic leader role. The aviation community is pretty openly homophobic. Then there’s the explosive ordnance disposal and special warfare guys. They’re just totally closeted. So are the Marines. When ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ falls, you will probably not see a single Marine officer coming out of the closet. That’s not going to be happening. The opposite end of the spectrum are the surface warfare and submarine communities.”