Retired General John Sheehan has apologised to former Dutch army chief of staff, General Henk van den Breemen, for falsely claiming in testimony before the US Senate that van den Breemen had told him the reason the Dutch army couldn’t stop the massacre at Srebrenica was that they had openly gay soldiers. Sheehan now claims his memory was “inaccurate”.
Apologising to van den Breemen was obviously a correct thing to do, but he didn’t go anywhere near far enough: He should have apologised to the entire Dutch army for making up nonsense about them. He should especially apologise to gay Dutch soldiers for having so viciously defamed them. Anything less means his apology to van den Breemen is an empty, pro forma one said only because he’d become an embarrassment to the anti-gay crowd.
Actually, while he’s at it, he should also apologise to gay and lesbian Americans who are or want to be serving in the US military for trying to defame them, too. He made up stories about the Dutch army in order to show how bad openly gay people in the US military would be. Maybe he was so desperate to come up with something—anything—to use in defence of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” that he let his prejudice and apparent hatred get the better of him. Maybe he’s just a dipshit. But either way, a decent person wouldn’t stop making up for such a great wrong by choosing simply the easiest apology to make. It certainly isn't becoming of a military person to refuse to take full responsibility for his actions and their consequences.
It’s a very good thing he’s retired from the military.
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