The proponents for lifting the ban argue that it discriminates against a large number of Americans, denying them equal opportunity to serve their country. Military chiefs like Defense Secretary Dick Cheney and Gen. Colin Powell say lifting the ban will gut the cohesion of combat units. Who’s right? What is the true nature of the fighting man? And is an executive order the smartest way to settle things when the executive, as a matter of conscience, stayed out of our last bloody war-and doesn’t have a clue about what goes on in a foxhole because he’s never been in one?

There seems to be no reason why a gay soldier shouldn’t serve in the 99th Maintenance Squadron or the equivalent. Where the question becomes heated is within ground combat units like the infantry, artillery and tanks. There, the issue is trust, not orientation. In a fire fight, if I say to the guy next to me, “Cover me,” while I crawl over to lob a grenade at someone who is trying to kill us both, I have to believe that my partner is going to cover me or die. There is no reason why a gay soldier can’t do that. But most straight warriors just don’t believe it. “Whatever the army makes right on gays, it won’t be right for the grunt,” says a squad leader from the 82nd Airborne. “If a dude has a flaw, he’ll fold.”

The mind-set may be illogical or wrong-headed, but it takes on its own reality: no neat little lectures on decency or civil liberties are going to make it disappear. In a combat unit, every individual has to click together, and what makes them click is trust. To survive in a killing field, a warrior has to believe he’s invincible, that he’s wearing golden armor; that he can buck 1,000-to-1 odds and live. To think that way, he has to be macho. Fairly or unfairly, gays threaten that macho. When it goes, the warrior starts thinking, “Maybe I won’t make it.” And, from that moment, the unit goes to hell. I admit this is not a politically correct argument. But how many people, gay and straight, can you afford to get killed, how many engagements can you lose, to settle who is right?

Up to now, gay activists have made their case more effectively than the Pentagon brass, careerists who zig and zag and do the Pentagon Shuffle around the “E Ring.” Farther down the line, I’ve never seen feelings run hotter. Shortly before the election I was on a base down South talking to a group of combat officers when the gay issue suddenly flared up. One of the officers muttered, “If Clinton is president and he walks on this base, he’s dead.” No good soldier is going to frag the commander in chief, of course, but Clinton needs to approach this problem with greater care.

In the ranks, young men from working class and “moral majority” families will tell you that U.S. Army or Marine Corps combat units don’t operate like 8-to-5 institutions such as the Chevrolet dealer, the Post Office or most of the United States Air Force. Many who fought in Desert Storm now say men and women were having sex behind every sand dune, harming morale and creating tensions that ripped units apart. All believed the problem would be far worse with gays. Hundreds of marine and army grunts and leaders have told me that if the ban is lifted, they’re walking.

Wouldn’t it make sense to defuse this anger and fear with the same sort of presidential commission that examined the equally explosive issue of women in combat? Can gays and straights train and fight together without a drop in combat effectiveness? Instead of assuming that they can or can’t, why not ask open-minded generals and sergeants, civilian psychiatrists and sociologists and gay leaders to investigate the matter openly for the first time? If I am wrong and the answer is yes, there is no problem. If, as I suspect, the answer is no, then we should consider which units gays can and should serve in. We also need to find out what effect and dollar cost the AIDS crisis will have within the services when the ban is lifted.

There is no reason why the head of such a commission should come from the military. But just as everyone would have trusted an Omar Bradley to take on such a sensitive task after World War II, why not ask Norman Schwarzkopf to do it now? A commission would get our president-elect out of the cross-fire and at the same time serve the values that America is founded upon. With the stroke of a pen, Bill Clinton could balance American ideals and keep his twin but contradictory promises. That would be the right sort of executive order.