Unfriendly Fire Unfriendly Fire : How the Gay Ban Undermines the Military and Weakens America is an American 2009 political book by Nathaniel Frank that argues that the " Don ' t Ask , Don ' t Tell policy banning openly gay servicemen and women from the United States armed forces weakened military and national security . According to Frank , 12 , 000 people — 800 of whom had previously been deemed " mission critical " by the U . S . government — were discharged from the military between 1993 and 2008 , based on policies that Frank describes as " rooted in denial , and deception , and repression . " In the book , Frank argues military leaders imposed bans on homosexuals based on fears that their open service would tarnish the military ' s masculine ideals . " Unfriendly Fire " argues the Don ' t Ask , Don ' t Tell , policy , enacted in 1993 by President Bill Clinton in an attempt to advance homosexual rights in the military , actually significantly increased the amount of discharges and harassment among gays in the military , while standards have been lowered for accepting felons , ex - convicts and high school drop - outs . While Don ' t Ask , Don ' t Tell asked gay servicemen not to discuss their sexual orientation in order to maintain unit cohesion , Frank presents empirical evidence arguing that requiring those servicemen to lie or conceal their orientations actually had a negative impact on unit cohesion . According to the book , the RAND Corporation commissioned a 500 - page report showing open service wouldn ' t affect military readiness , but generals ignored it in favor of a video circulated by a Christian producer that graphically described gay sexual practices . According to Frank , military officials previously involved in creating restrictions on gay servicemen openly admitted during interviews with Frank that those policies were created based not on empirical data , but rather on their own prejudices and fears , as well as pressure from anti - gay activists and organizations . Frank , a senior research fellow at the Palm Center of the University of California , Santa Barbara , spoke with members of the Military Working Group , the 1993 panel of six admirals and generals that helped draft the Don ' t Ask Don ' t Tell policy . General Robert Alexander , who headed the panel , said the findings were completely subjective and not based on any actual data , and that the group did not fully understand what " sexual orientation " even meant . John Hutson , a retired United States Navy rear admiral who participated in the talks , told Frank the assessment of gay service was " based on nothing . It wasn ' t empirical , it wasn ' t studied , it was completely visceral , intuitive . " Another Military Working Group advisor , Lieutenant Colonel Robert Maginnis , said he questioned gay service in the military for " political reasons " because he knew this approach would be more effective than a moral campaign against equal treatment for gays . On February 28 , 2013 , at a pretrial hearing in his court - martial , United States Army Private First Class Bradley Manning testified that in early 2010 he had nicknamed his anonymous contact at WikiLeaks Nathaniel Frank , " after the author of a book I read in 2009 . "