TRUTH, TJ MORRIS ACIR USA

STRANGER THAN FICTION - SECRETS & TRANSPARENCY - PART 10 - TAKE UP SERIES
By: Theresa J. Thurmond MorrisTruth is stranger than fiction.



A WOMAN's TAKE ON THE MILITARY & HUMAN RIGHTS

I have secrets and some I will share
and some I will not.
I listen to the 44th President of the United States, President Barack
Obama. I heard him say in Cairo, Egypt via television and my DSL
Internet On Line via my computer to tell the truth to the world who
was watching and listening and all those who were not that will learn
about his speech through history and in schools.

I am an observer and a participant in life on earth. I have had my
life in school, in the military, and in the business world. I have
been on many stages, on television many times, radio, and even in a
movie. I have been no one and I have been someone in others eyes. I
experienced life and am very proud to be an American.

One thing that I am not proud of are the lies we tell each other, our
children, our families, our community, our society, our culture, and
now the entire world based on our government and the elected officials
who are in elected and appointed official positions that represent “WE
THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA” who are in office.

Those who are in office have a responsibility to up hold the justice,
democracy, and this republic for all citizens of these United States.
Not just some because it feels right or because of popular constituent
votes or polls taken.

Doing what is right and telling the truth was what this country was
founded upon. Not Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. Who came up with that saying
and demoralizing way of being in the Military? They must have been a
Communist. President Obama we need your assistance sir.

Many arguments can be supported on both sides of the gender issues
that we are facing in our future. But, we need you to be the strong
Commander in Chief that we know you can be and honor this very
important part of what you have spoken in your days prior to your
election sir. I do not know this 1st Lt. Dan Choi who graduated as an
Officer and chose to serve the greater good and to be a part of
something greater than himself.

The military is very important to me on at home with Homeland Security
because so many people are already trained to be responders as needed
in an emergency. We can work together and use words we all know. In
America, because we can all relate to how we want to protect America,
our freedom, our democracy, for our family, country, flag, and all
beings on this planet. I like military in this world because we can
all work together to help others in cataclysms, when extremists try to
cause harm to themselves and others.

I know what it feels like to take the oath to defend this country
against both foreign and domestic enemies. I do know the respect for
my self and my country when I was finally allowed to wear my U. S.
Navy uniform. And, I do know what it feels like to be discriminated
against for wearing that uniform and to be looked down upon by others.

I am a woman who was born in the great southern state of Louisiana the
day after Christmas, 1951. I was the child that was supposed to be a
boy to please my father, and his father, and all the great proud men
who have been in our military and I was born a woman with the last
name of Thurmond. I was resented because I was a girl and I lived with
that until I could be brave enough to accept that there was nothing in
this world I could do to change my gender and to hold my head up high.
I also had three brothers with the name of Thurmond and Nathaniel who
wore the U.S. Marine Corps Uniform and taught at Paris Island, North
Carolina was treated harshly by African Americans because his last
name was Thurmond. He is now deceased but I know some of his deepest
issues with the fact that he grew up and went to school with black
boys and some of them were his best friends but since he is not hear
to tell his story I will leave it wit the fact that he was proud of
that uniform and his country just as I am today.

Our brother, David Thurmond is now deceased due to the Aids Virus. My
brother David was a twin to my sister Wendy Thurmond Finley. David
wanted to serve in the military and we had conversations about it.
Since his oldest sister and brother had served as well as his father,
it was natural for him to want too. But, because he grew up with a
male body being the twin to a female, he was different. I knew when he
was born that he was different and I was only ten years old. He had it
tough in school and being around people.

It was no fault of his, he had a normal body with all working parts,
all ten fingers, and toes, and male anatomy at its finest. But, he was
different because his female spirit did not match his male body. We
lived in a normal neighborhood and he was never around people who were
gay. He did not adopt a coming out until he was a singer and won a
spot on the Oprah Winfrey Show. My brother had to be brave enough to
accept that he would not be able to change his gender no matter what
God had created. He was a Latter Day Saint and believed in Jesus and
God as a Christian. The Church thought God made mistakes by putting
the wrong spirit in the wrong body and that my brother would not go to
Heaven but Hell and could be excommunicated and would no longer be
part of our family and would no longer be sealed to us after we were
sealed in the Temple in Washington , D.C. My brother died being
truthful to his family, and my mother worked for years in Houston with
the Aids Foundation and many dying men. My mother has been the mother
to many young men while they lived in her home and many came to her
home to die. My family has observed more pain and death than there is
room to write in this one article.

It is time that this world get right with the truth that there are
many spiritual good beings that believe in family, God, and country
and somewhere along the way, this country got it into rules, laws,
policies, procedures and into the government personnel to right and
accept such a thing in our laws that some of our children that grow up
whether they become men or women should not be outward in appearance
or action with who they really are. They are told to don’t tell if
someone ask if they are gay, lesbian, transgender. The “Don’t Ask,
Don’t Tell” issue in the military is ridiculous. Somewhere along the
way someone decided that we may know by looking at a person, or
listening to them talk, that they may be gay, lesbian or transgender
that we should simply allow them to enlist and serve their country.

If, those who are in paid professions as recruiters who wear the
military uniforms and allowed these people into the military to serve
our country, then they apparently decided that they were fit to pass
the physical. This is proof enough that if they passed the physical
that they have what it takes to serve our country. We know that they
have to have proof of citizenship and that should be all they need. It
should not be in their contract or even mentioned to these beings that
they should not ask and don’t tell if anyone ask about whether they
are gay, lesbian, transgender. This is the same thing as saying if
someone ask if you are a woman, black, Chinese, Mexican instead of
African American, Asian, or Latino. It is all wrong. Gender issues and
sexual preferences are not necessarily the same issue.

I am a woman who served as a Private Investigator, Legal Investigator,
Military personnel, GS government civilian employee, and I drove a
commercial 18 wheeler Big Rig, and 53’ trailer coast to coast in
America. These are the jobs that were usually considered a man’s job.
I learned to cope with men’s flirting and remarks and trying to make
me feel guilty for doing these jobs. I may have been a woman but I was
asked if I was a man, and yet had the totally feminine body. I was
considered attractive so learned to handle myself when sexual remarks
were made. This is a part of our culture in America. The learning to
cope with other beings and their prejudices.

This 1st Lt. Dan Choi looks Asian to me but I heard he was a
translator and was needed by our military. Just because he has chosen
to tell when asked if he is gay should not be a reason to put him out
of the military. I see no different than putting me in the military as
a woman with me serving with many gay men in the medical field. I made
it 8 years with knowing many military gay and lesbian both who served
as professionals and did their jobs. This is based on experience. They
were not treated any different in the medical field in the Navy. The
Army should not treat they personnel any different because their
troops are declaring the truth. I saw this 1st Lt. Dan Choi of the
U.S. Army Reserve on television and he represents many people who feel
the same way as I do but do not have a chance to speak out on
television.

I thought maybe he had been accused of espionage or something dealing
with being thrown out of the army for not doing his job. So America is
about throwing qualified personnel out of the army based on the Don’t
Ask, Don’t Tell issue? WE should take issue if someone tells a lie or
commits perjury. If he lost his legs due to combat I would still say
give him some prosthetics and give him a desk job but let the man keep
his job. It is not a fault that someone can rectify with all the
people I have seen in the military. Most of them did not want to be
the way they are. It was not a choice. It was not with my brothers who
died and it is not with me. I wanted to be a boy but was born a girl.
My husband former 1st Sergeant Thomas R. Morris, U.S. Army served
1980-1993. Things were different then. He felt then that the gay men
would get beat up, ridiculed, or killed by his own troops. He was Army
and I was Navy. I worked with Army in field training exercises, I
worked with the Marines and I never saw any of the men in uniform
mistreat our feminine acting hospital corpsman, medics, or officers.
This is something that is old and ridiculous.

Troops are smarter and better trained than we were in the 80’s. I saw
women being put on ships just to meet a man and get pregnant that was
more of an issue than gay men in the Navy. The men were complaining
about women in the military is that still an issue too?

In the news on the Internet the civil unrest on some major American
Issues may become global issues. Which way will President Obama go
with the issues of our times. These are the times that will try men’s
souls, and women’s too. I was not a hippy, and a bra burned in the
60’s because I was living with the Viet Nam War barefoot and pregnant
while my husband worked for NASA to stay out of the draft. I wanted to
go to war and could not because I was a woman with children. I know
from experience. I am 57 years old now.
I have had experiences out of body, near death experiences, and extra
terrestrial contact experiences and that is the truth so help me God.
I speak out now because it is the truth.

On Gay Issues, Obama Says "Don't Ask" The president, who favors civil
unions but not marriage for gay couples, promised to repeal the "don't
ask" policy as well as the Defense Of Marriage Act (DOMA), another
Clinton-era policy, which requires that the federal government not
recognize "a relationship between persons of the same sex as a
marriage."

President Promised To Repeal Policy On Gays In The Military But Has
Not Acted; Gay Groups Growing Increasingly Impatient "The Court is
signaling the other two branches of government that any change to this
policy is going to have to come from them, the executive and
legislative branches," CBS News chief legal analyst Andrew Cohen, who
adds that the decision is not an endorsement of the policy. "The
Court isn't endorsing the policy - it's simply choosing as it usually
does to stay out of military policies. Historically the Justices have
been willing to give great deference to the White House in military
affairs," Cohen writes.

On the CBS News June 2, 2009 | by Brian Montopoli

Perhaps the highest-profile recent discharge has been that of Lt. Dan
Choi, a linguist fluent in Arabic who publicly announced his
homosexuality in March. In April of last year, the president
explicitly addressed the discharge of officers like Choi in an
interview with The Advocate magazine.

"We're spending large sums of money to kick highly qualified gays or
lesbians out of our military, some of whom possess specialties like
Arab-language capabilities that we desperately need," he said. Roughly
12,500 service members have been discharged under the "don't ask"
policy since it was implemented, among them 800 "mission critical"
troops.


CBA Political Hot sheet on the Internet: As long as the promise of
equality for all remains unfulfilled, all Americans are affected," he
said. "If we can work together to advance the principles upon which
our Nation was founded, every American will benefit. During LGBT Pride
Month, I call upon the LGBT community, the Congress, and the American
people to work together to promote equal rights for all, regardless of
sexual orientation or gender identity."

But four-and-a-half months into his presidency, Mr. Obama has not
acted on his campaign promises on gay issues. Pressed on the lack of
action on "don't ask," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs indicated
that the administration is working with the military to end the policy
in a responsible way. He also said that doing so requires a
"legislative vehicle." (Legislation has been introduced in the House,
but not the Senate, to change the law.)

As I stated in my last article on American Chronicle, The United
States government needs to be revamped and this includes policies, and
procedures not just the laws and statutes. I love my country and I am
proud to be an American Woman! I am also a proud American woman
advocate for all human rights for the entire world. I am a voting
constituent here me. President Obama ran on “CHANGE” well, “President
Obama as Commander in Chief, Sir, with all due respect, now is the
time for all good men and women be they straight, gay, lesbian,
bisexual, or transgender to come to the aid of their country to assist
in creating a better world for the greater good and the entire global
community.”.

Truth is stranger than fiction.




--
TJ MORRIS ACIR/Morris Publishing
American Culture International Relations
656 Carolyn Lane, Beaver Dam, KY USA 42320
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TAKE UP By: TJ THURMOND MORRIS