Readiness or Rhetoric?

Last updated on 30 Mar 2025

What if readiness wasn’t about performance — but identity?

I've always believed in a strong, lethal fighting force. I still do. That's why this policy unsettles me more than I expected.

Executive Order 14183 doesn't only raise questions about readiness—it answers them with a hard line: anyone diagnosed with gender dysphoria is categorically incompatible with military service. No case-by-case evaluation. No performance review. Just separation.

That contradicts how the military manages other diagnoses like depression, diabetes, or early-stage cancer.

This policy doesn't ask whether someone can do the job. It decides for them.

But Exhibiting Signs?

The Department of Defense has taken the EO one step further: it goes so far as to say that anyone exhibiting symptoms consistent with gender dysphoria is incompatible with the high mental and physical standards necessary for military service.

Exhibiting symptoms?
Cue Cpl. Maxwell Q. Klinger.

Real Conversations, Real Questions

After posting the precursor to this blog on social media, I engaged in a bit of honest conversation. Not debates or attacks. Just people, whom I love and respect, with differing views and perspectives. People who care about readiness, strength, and standards.

Some of their questions really challenged me:

What happens when personal identity collides with unit trust?
Is it fair to expect cohesion when belief and biology don't align?

Those are not small questions. They're not automatically rooted in ignorance or hate. They're rooted in the reality that trust in the military is everything—especially in austere, high-risk environments where hesitation can cost lives.

But I kept coming back to this: trust isn't built—or broken—by diagnoses. It's shaped by leadership, by shared experience, by accountability. I've seen people with spotless records fracture unit morale. I've seen others come back from serious personal challenges and earn their unit's full respect.

If we say we're committed to readiness, we have to be honest about what actually builds it. It's not policy memos.

Diagnosis vs. Deployability

The military already knows how to handle complex medical conditions. There's a full system for evaluating whether someone is deployable, mission-ready, or medically unfit. It's never been about the diagnosis alone—it's about what the diagnosis means for performance.

We don't automatically discharge someone for depression. We don't separate people for being diabetic, asthmatic, or even HIV-positive—so long as their condition is stable, treatable, and compatible with their job and deployment status.

We assess. We document. We manage.

There are disqualifying diseases. Parkinson's disease is one of them. It's not disqualifying for the stigma, but because it's a progressively degenerative disease which raises safety concerns. That's the difference. Safety.

Gender dysphoria isn't progressive. It isn't contagious. It doesn't automatically impair cognition or performance. The treatment plan, especially once stabilized—may require accommodations, yes. But no more than the dozens of other conditions we already accommodate. In many cases, the individual is fully capable of deploying, functioning, and serving without issue.

So why the exception for this diagnosis?

What Klinger Got Right

This isn't the first time the military has had to navigate identity, performance, and perception. The tension between absurdity and sincerity isn't new. How we respond to it says everything about who we are. Oddly enough, I keep thinking about the 1970s sitcom and Cpl. Klinger.

He tried like hell to get out, and the Army said no.

Maxwell Klinger spent eleven seasons on MASH* trying to get out of the Army. He wore dresses, made noise, and pushed boundaries—but the Army said no.

The absurdity of his comedic attempts rested precisely on the fact that Klinger was, without question, entirely straight and merely pretending in increasingly exaggerated ways. Week after week, audiences laughed as the military stubbornly refused to take his antics seriously, keeping him enlisted no matter how spectacularly absurd his behavior became.

Klinger was fiction. This isn't.
The way we treat discomfort—then and now—still reveals who we are. In 2025, I think we've stopped asking the right questions about readiness, standards, and what actually weakens a unit.

This Isn’t Fiction

Fast-forward to today: Service members impacted by the EO and DoD directive have been handed a stark, humorless ultimatum—voluntarily separate or potentially face involuntary discharge.

Suddenly, Klinger’s absurd antics pale dramatically compared to the genuine, serious experiences of real service members facing gender dysphoria.

As of early 2025, approximately 4,200 active-duty service members—face career-ending chaos simply for trying to live life the best way they know how.

Those numbers are small by comparison, but they send a loud message.

What was once a comedic farce highlighting the military's stubbornness has become a harsh reality—though tragically less absurd and infinitely more consequential.

Between 2019 and 2023, more than 540,000 active-duty service members across all branches of the U.S. Armed Forces were diagnosed with at least one mental health disorder.

In 2023 alone, mental health disorders accounted for nearly one-third of all hospitalizations among active-duty personnel.

Had Klinger been around today, his antics might have appeared alongside serious and legitimate cases—highlighting a striking and unsettling contrast.

The Laughter Has Stopped

The irony is palpable, but now, there's nothing funny about it. Unlike Klinger, who made us laugh precisely because the Army refused to fall for his obvious ploys, these real-life service members have committed their lives and careers to the military. They've trained, served honorably, and worn the uniform proudly—only to find themselves abruptly labeled incompatible.

This isn't fiction or satire; it's real lives reshaped, real dreams crushed.

What does it say about our society when yesterday's comedic absurdity contrasts so sharply with today's painful reality?
What does it say about our priorities when dedicated military members are asked to quietly leave through a back door, simply for being who they are?

The laughter has stopped, and we're left with a question of humanity, dignity, and fairness—
and sadly, not even Klinger could find humor in that.

If this post make you uncomfortable — good. It should.
When ideology disguises itself as policy, silence becomes complicity.
If this made you think, pass it on.