Talk:Barry Winchell

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[edit] Justin Fisher (soldier) mergefrom

Note: I have performed the merge and redirect of Justin Fisher (soldier) to this article. -- User:RyanFreisling @ 17:52, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

After a review, I see the same content appears cut-n-pasted in this article and the Justin Fisher (soldier) article. I propose a merge, and the removal of the Justin Fisher (soldier) article. Thoughts? -- User:RyanFreisling @ 14:51, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm bringing the following details here from the Justin Fisher (soldier) article. They may be too tangential or non-notable for this article. Discuss. -- User:RyanFreisling @ 17:47, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Fisher was charged with four offenses. In a plea bargain, he pled guilty to two counts of obstructing justice, three counts of false swearing and providing alcohol to a minor. He admitted that he

• made false statements under oath to Army investigators concerning Winchell's death; and
• obstructed the investigation (for example, by wiping the blood from the baseball bat used to kill Winchell).

Under the terms of his plea agreement, the Army dropped the charges that Fisher

• participated as a principal to premeditated murder by encouraging Pvt. Calvin N. Glover to strike Winchell; and
• acted as an accessory after the fact. [1]

[edit] Question

This article says the murder caused a "review", a "re-examination", and "caused some people to discuss the effects" of the Don't ask, don't tell policy. This is so vague as to verge on weasel wording. What was being reviewed? What is being examined? Who are these people and what are they discussing? Why is this of any significance?

I can't tell if the LGBT community wants gays to be banned from the military again or if they want homophobic soldiers to be forced to like gays through some type of Clockwork Orange-style brainwashing. I don't think anyone is asserting that the officers or the training encouraged beating homosexuals to death with baseball bats. So what is the issue here? What exactly is the article trying to say? Kafziel ^Talk 18:01, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Added some refs for you. I hope you were being rhetorical or facetious with your false dilemma of desired outcomes. Jokestress 22:06, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't think it's a false dilemma. Is there a third option I haven't thought of? I don't have the Times articles to look at right now, but the CNN article doesn't mention any proposed solution to the situation aside from the idea of sensitivity training (the latter of my two original suggestions). There are basically three basic possibilities for gays in the military:

1. They can be banned completely (as it used to be)
2. They can be allowed in as long as they do their best to hide it (as it is)
3. They can be allowed to be open about their sexuality without fear of official reprisals (as it should be)

I don't see which one of those would have prevented two homophobic enlisted men from killing Barry Winchell. Is the goal to institute mandatory sensitivity training? (Admittedly, the soldiers will probably not be in strait jackets with their eyelids propped open.) If training is the goal, I just think the article should mention that. Kafziel ^Talk 02:55, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

The LGBT goal is of course the third option: to lift the ban preventing gays, lesbians and bisexuals from serving openly and honestly in the military. This is discussed on the wikilinks to SLDN and Don't Ask, Don't Tell in the article. Advocates don't say they want servicemembers to "be forced to like" GLBT people through "brainwashing," though similar rhetoric was once evoked to deride attempts at racial integration in the military. The goal is for everyone to be able to serve without discrimination and harassment. I'm not sure the larger GLBT goals are necessary to spell out in this article, though. Advocates argued that the climate on base led to the harassment and culminated in the murder, and that the policy was a contributing factor. However, all officers were cleared and the commanding officer was promoted after a delay, also mentioned in the article. We can certainly get more specific or add context if the connections don't seem clear, but what mainly came out of the incident were a few policy reviews, some training, an admission by Clinton that the compromise had failed, and another name to add to a grim list of statistics. Jokestress 04:54, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, first of all, a minor point: I think saying that Clinton "admitted" that the policy failed is biased; it implies that the policy's failure is a fact to be admitted, rather than the opinion that it is. Even if it was the opinion of the President, that doesn't make it a fact. I don't feel it failed, any more than I would feel racial integration had failed if a black soldier was murdered (which I'm sure has happened at least once). Evidently the majority of the government shares my opinion, since it's still in place. It's easy to second guess it and say it's no good when we compare it to some idealistic vision of perfection, but the gay friends I had in the service during those years were happy to have that small amount of personal freedom. It was a step in the right direction.

Anyway, back to the matter at hand: If we're going to say (at three different points in the article, no less) that the murder brought about a review, then we definitely need to say what the aim of that review was. Also, the article strongly implies that General Clark's promotion was unjust; if that's going to stay, there needs to be something indicating his culpability. I'm not trying to debate the merits of the positions—it seems that you and I are in complete agreement about how things should be—I'm just saying that this article is throwing around an awful lot of vague statements and unsupported implications, and it could really stand some expansion and clarification. Saying what came from the review would definitely be a good start. Kafziel ^Talk 05:41, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

"Admit" was the word the NYT used, per existing citation. Clark's promotion was delayed, but the article notes it went through despite vocal protests from advocates. Contextualization and expansion is always welcome! Jokestress 05:55, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, as I said, I don't have those Times articles to look at so I can't do much useful expansion myself at the moment. But I'll see if I can improve things in the next few days. Kafziel ^Talk 06:00, 1 March 2007 (UTC)