Don't Ask, Don't Tell

Floor Speech

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Mrs. GILLIBRAND. Mr. President, I rise in support of the two very important votes we are having today on the DREAM Act and the repeal of don't ask, don't tell.

The DREAM Act is a moral imperative. These are young people who have come to this country through no fault of their own, who want nothing but to achieve the American dream--either through education or through military service--but they want to be part of this community and be able to give back to this community.

In a country that was founded on immigrants, where the richness of our heritage and culture and the breath of our economy is due to our immigrants, we want to make sure every one of these young people can become American citizens.

With regard to don't ask, don't tell, I cannot think of a policy that greater undermines the integrity of our entire Armed Services and who we are as a Nation. This is a policy that is corrosive. We are saying to men and women who want nothing but to serve this country, to give their lives for this country: No, you cannot because of who you love. I cannot think of something more egregious, more undermining of our command structure and of our goodwill, and the entire fabric of the military lives of the men and women who serve.

Mr. President, I urge my colleagues to look at this as an urgent priority for national security. When we are talking about worrying about having two wars and terrorism at every front, we need to know all of our best and brightest--how many are not serving today because of this policy; how many will return to the military when this policy is removed. All I know is, since this policy has been in place, we have lost 13,000 personnel, more than 10 percent of our foreign language speakers, and more than 800 in mission-critical areas who cannot be easily replaced.

If you care about national security, if you care about our military readiness, then you will repeal this corrosive policy.

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