Earlier this afternoon, Gen. Carter Ham — the co-chair of the Pentagon’s Working Group studying Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell — tweeted that just 41,000 of 150,000 military spouses (or 27.3%) responded to the military’s controversial survey about the policy. Incidentally, the Pentagon’s initial survey of troops garnered a similar response rate of 27.5%. Ham’s tweet:
Prior to sending out the survey, Pentagon sources had predicted that DADT will rank low on the list of families’ priorities and said that past focus groups have shown that family members have other, more pressing concerns. Indeed, the relatively low response rate could suggest that most simply don’t care about the policy.
The survey was sent out to military families in late August and immediately came under attack from LGBT organizations, who condemned it as “insulting and derogatory,” despite the Defense Department’s efforts to reach out to the spouses of gay and lesbian troops. The Working Group is scheduled to release its study in early December and so far, the results of the questionnaire are still unknown. Last week, during his confirmation hearings to become the Marine Corps’ 35th Commandant, Gen. James Amos did say that most Marines still supported the ban.
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