Leaderboard

You OBVIOUSLY are not in the military. There are numerous militaries around the world that are fully co-ed and I wouldn't be surprised if the showers are also. If you are sooo worried about one of your troops checking you out in the shower then maybe it is YOU with the mental illness. I would be more concerned about you in the heat of a firefight because your mind is on the gay guys trying to check you out, you would be a danger to me, my soldiers, and the mission. I speak from experience here, when I had the opportunity to take a shower, the absolute last thing in my mind was who was looking at my junk. My concerns were if I was going to take a shower again or if I'd see my family again or if one of my guys OR girls were going to fall the next mission, NOT who was gay and looking at me. It's funny you seem to think that Homosexualism is a mental illness. If so the HATE is a mental illness. Hate for people who are not bothering you in any way shape or form but yet you still hate them. WELL DUH I guess that makes you as mentally ill as gays! Well we banged out women and gays, what's next ambulances for whites only and coloreds only???????? Sean

As someone who is not homosexual nor homophobic, I could give two shits who is checking me out. If you are so uncomfortable with your own sexuality that you are afraid that one of these big mentally ill queer monsters will make you gay by looking at you? If so, maybe you need to reconsider your own orientation. If you can be changed that easily, maybe you already are gay and are looking for a reason to come out. Either that or make sure you avoid the queer lasers beams they shoot out of their eyes. Again, provide proof that homosexuality is a mental illness and not just genetic variation such as eye color or hair color.

Are you truly in EMS? Have you spent time in the military, if so then you KNOW that there are already gays in the military and that there has been gays serving since BEFORE this country was founded. Homosexuality is not a mental illness in the same aspect as say, dementia or Alzheimer's, an illness that's progressive. People that are gay are born with it, hardwired into their brain. They don't wake up one morning thinking "hey, I don't want to date girls or guys anymore, I wanna be gay!" Sorry it doesn't happen like that and to think it does is just pure ignorant. I know of gays who are in charge of 4.5 million dollar, 72 ton M1A1 Abrams tanks, and guess what? They were damn good soldiers and I trusted them with my life. To the military folk out there. General Von Steuben, ex Persian General and a General officer in Washington's Continental Army. The man authored a training manual called the Blue Book, which essentially turned the troops from ragtag to formidable, his training is still used today.....yup he was homosexual......just something to think about! Sean

Care to back that up with some scientific evidence or are you just covering up your own homosexual arousal? It still amazes me that in this day and age this is still an issue. Sexual orientation does not make or break a soldier, how well you can shoot a gun does. Sexual orientation has no effect on a persons ability to shoot. It's funny how the people that are the most against gays serving in the military are the ones that are most boisterous about protecting people's rights and freedoms. Pretty hypocritical. They will fight for your rights and freedoms, as long as it doesn't disagree with their beliefs. Red headed people make me nervous, they shouldn't be allowed to serve either. Herbie, so are you saying that basic human rights shouldn't be a priority?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40715888/ns/politics-capitol_hill/ Pretty interesting moment in history. One akin to having homosexuality removed from the DSM, in my opinion... I personally don't care who's interested in whose bits as long as they're a good soldier! Wendy CO EMT-B

Excellent extra information there Kyle - this makes it easier to give you more advice. You need to make sure who you are crewed up with is aware of what you need and what you want to get out of your placement and what you need to be signed off on, don't run before you can walk though , what (if any ) experience in patient care and /or public facing roles do you already have ? Underdawg's post is good and there's a thread looking at it from the other side at the minute as well, ok it's called precepting new 'medics' but a lot of the principles apply regardless of the level the new person / student on placement is at. http://www.emtcity.com/index.php/topic/19280-precepting-new-medics/page__p__251090

Two good things will come from this. 1. More people can enlist without being concerned about their family situation. 2. Our armed forces can truly be fabulous now.

Wendy, I agree wholeheartedly – I don’t care who you are interested in, I care that you can perform the duties required in service to your country. There were some very interesting quotes and statements in the article… Obama said…. "It is time to recognize that sacrifice, valor and integrity are no more defined by sexual orientation than they are by race or gender, religion or creed." "As Barry Goldwater said, 'You don't have to be straight to shoot straight,"' said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., referring to the late GOP senator from Arizona. “The Pentagon study found that two-thirds of service members didn't think changing the law would have much of an effect. But of those who did predict negative consequences, a majority were assigned to combat arms units. Nearly 60 percent of the Marine Corps and Army combat units, such as infantry and special operations, said in the survey they thought repealing the law would hurt their units' ability to fight. “ With regard to the last paragraph quoted, I know we have a number of members on this site who serve in Marine and Army combat units. I would like to hear their opinions on this. Why and how would having a gay person in the unit hurt the unit’s ability to fight?

Man, I wish that I could give this post more than one point. It's awesome! +5 in spirit. Great post Ugly. I learn from you every time you post brother, you're more my teacher than me yours. Man, there have been a ton of great threads on the City lately!! Thanks to all for participating! Dwayne

It appears you have got some great, broad, ideas to begin. I would only add along the lines that have already been mentioned, it really depends on who you are a preceptor for. If it's a student, you will probably need to focus more on basics. If you have a new hire that perhaps worked elsewhere before, you want to focus more on your policies and procedures. The thing to remember is many services out there suffer what I call intellectual inbreeding. It might be something you and your co-workers don't even recognize... typically you don't in fact. But you continue to do something just because "that's the way everyone does it". Try to get out from under those paradigms and offer instruction in such a way that you never forget there are several ways to get a desired result, and the fastest isn't always the best. As for R-E-S-P-E-C-T... never lose sight of that. Dwayne made several great points. Use a mistake as a teachable moment. No reason to berate or belittle (although there is a time and place for that... think knuckle draggers who need to be policed and ran off). And finally... patience. It's hard for me to sit back and observe/assist but that is often what needs to be done when evaluating where someone is at. Get involved the second you need to, but allow them to grow. And growing is a process. Your humble Paramaximus wasn't born great... it took time.