Sir: Alasdair Palmer's article on homosexu- ality and the Armed
Forces was a tremen- dous breath of fresh air on a topic that appears to have vigorously stirred up the palaeolithic prejudices of those who imag- ine themselves to be the journalistic mili- tary establishment.
I served as an army officer between 1985 and 1993 in Britain, Northern Ireland, Cyprus, Belize and Northern Europe, and I can remember no incident or case in which a homosexual relationship had any effect on discipline, morale or any other aspect of military conduct, although many of my comrades, male and female, were obviously homosexual. On the other hand, heterosex- ual relationships amongst service personnel were a constant source of trouble.
For what it is worth, it seems to me that the prejudice against homosexuals that exists amongst senior military officers stems from a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of homosexual relationships: to them, homosexuality appears to be synony- mous with effeminacy, pederasty, sodomy, promiscuity and rape. Although I am a het- erosexual, with no personal experience of homosexuality, my observations of my homosexual friends lead me to think that the vast majority of them are looking for the same sort of long-term commitment to and from their partners that I share with my wife. There does not seem to me to be any good reason to suppose that the aver- age homosexual is desperate for indiscrimi- nate sexual activity with any person of the same gender that they can lay their hands on.
Adrian Weale
39A Kelso Place, London W8
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