Lesbian maj. seeks reinstatement in trial
By Gene Johnson - The Associated Press
Posted : Monday Sep 13, 2010 6:16:34 EDT
SEATTLE — Opponents of the "don't ask, don't tell" policy against gays serving in the military are hoping for another major legal victory as a federal trial begins Monday over whether to reinstate a lesbian flight nurse discharged from the Air Force Reserve.
The trial comes just days after a federal judge in California declared "don't ask, don't tell" an unconstitutional violation of the due process and free speech rights of gays and lesbians. While the ruling does not affect the legal issues in the case of former Maj. Margaret Witt, gay rights activists think a victory — and her reinstatement — could help build momentum for repealing the policy.
"There's already political momentum to do something to repeal this unfair statute," said Aaron Caplan, a professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles who is on Witt's legal team. "Judicial opinions from multiple jurisdictions saying there's a constitutional problem with this ought to encourage Congress to act more swiftly."
Witt was a member of a squadron based at McChord Air Force Base near Tacoma when she was suspended in 2004 and honorably discharged. She challenged the constitutionality of her dismissal, and a federal appeals court panel ruled in 2008 that the military could not discharge service members for being gay unless it proved that the firing furthered military readiness.
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Lesbian maj seeks reinstatement in trial
Showing posts with label don't ask don't tell. Show all posts
Showing posts with label don't ask don't tell. Show all posts
Monday, September 13, 2010
Friday, July 23, 2010
Lt. Dan Choi honorable, discharged by Army National Guard
Choi Discharged From Army National Guard
July 22, 2010 10:30 PM
ABC News' Luis Martinez reports:
Lt. Dan Choi has been discharged from the Army National Guard. The Iraq war veteran became one of the most outspoken critics of the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy on homosexuals in the military after outing himself as a gay soldier on national television.
Choi told ABC News that his battalion commander called him Thursday morning to notify him of his honorable discharge under the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy.
In a statement he said, "After 11 years since beginning my journey at West Point and after 17 months of serving openly as an infantry officer this is both an infuriating and painful announcement."
Choi is fluent in Arabic and served a tour as an infantry platoon leader in Iraq.
read more here
Choi Discharged From Army National Guard
July 22, 2010 10:30 PM
ABC News' Luis Martinez reports:
Lt. Dan Choi has been discharged from the Army National Guard. The Iraq war veteran became one of the most outspoken critics of the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy on homosexuals in the military after outing himself as a gay soldier on national television.
Choi told ABC News that his battalion commander called him Thursday morning to notify him of his honorable discharge under the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy.
In a statement he said, "After 11 years since beginning my journey at West Point and after 17 months of serving openly as an infantry officer this is both an infuriating and painful announcement."
Choi is fluent in Arabic and served a tour as an infantry platoon leader in Iraq.
read more here
Choi Discharged From Army National Guard
Thursday, September 3, 2009
Gay former sailor says hazing led to PTSD
Gay former sailor says hazing led to PTSD
Stars and Stripes
Pacific edition, Saturday, September 5, 2009
WASHINGTON — Former Petty Officer 3rd Class Joseph Rocha says he suffered post-traumatic stress disorder after being physically and sexually abused by fellow sailors over a two-year period. But after a Navy investigation into widespread hazing allegations within the unit, the only sailor discharged was Rocha, because he also admitted that he is gay.
According to documents released by Youth Radio this week, Navy investigators found dozens of hazing incidents over a two-year span at the Military Working Dog unit in Naval Support Activity-Bahrain. At one point, the documents show, Rocha was hog-tied, fed dog food and tossed into a dog kennel full of feces. Commanders also openly questioned his sexuality and forced him to simulate oral sex on other men.
Following the investigation, Rocha sought treatment for PTSD and later admitted he is gay, the news outlet reported. Shortly thereafter, he was discharged under the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, which prohibits homosexual troops from serving openly in the ranks.
However, the commander in charge of the unit at the time of the hazing did not lose his job, and was recently promoted to senior chief, documents show.
None of the alleged abusers was punished, according to the report.
read more here
Gay former sailor says hazing led to PTSD
Stars and Stripes
Pacific edition, Saturday, September 5, 2009
WASHINGTON — Former Petty Officer 3rd Class Joseph Rocha says he suffered post-traumatic stress disorder after being physically and sexually abused by fellow sailors over a two-year period. But after a Navy investigation into widespread hazing allegations within the unit, the only sailor discharged was Rocha, because he also admitted that he is gay.
According to documents released by Youth Radio this week, Navy investigators found dozens of hazing incidents over a two-year span at the Military Working Dog unit in Naval Support Activity-Bahrain. At one point, the documents show, Rocha was hog-tied, fed dog food and tossed into a dog kennel full of feces. Commanders also openly questioned his sexuality and forced him to simulate oral sex on other men.
Following the investigation, Rocha sought treatment for PTSD and later admitted he is gay, the news outlet reported. Shortly thereafter, he was discharged under the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, which prohibits homosexual troops from serving openly in the ranks.
However, the commander in charge of the unit at the time of the hazing did not lose his job, and was recently promoted to senior chief, documents show.
None of the alleged abusers was punished, according to the report.
read more here
Gay former sailor says hazing led to PTSD
Monday, March 16, 2009
West Point Grads "Knights Out" of the closet
West Point grads form gay support group
By William H. McMichael - Staff writer
Posted : Monday Mar 16, 2009 21:08:13 EDT
Thirty-eight graduates of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., came out of the closet Monday with an offer to help their alma mater educate future Army leaders on the need to accept and honor the sacrifices of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender troops.
“Knights Out” wants to serve as a connection between gay troops and Army administrators, particularly at West Point, to provide an “open forum” for communication between gay West Point graduates and their fellow alumni and to serve in an advisory role for West Point leaders in the eventuality — which the group believes is both “imminent and inevitable” — that the law and policy collectively known as “don’t ask, don’t tell” are repealed by Congress.
“We’re publicly announcing our sexuality, our orientation,” said 1st Lt. Dan Choi, a National Guardsman with the 1st Bn., 69th Infantry, based in Manhattan. “It’s just one part of who we are in saying that we are standing to be counted.”
In forming Knights Out, its 38 members are following the example of similar support and education groups formed by graduates of the U.S. Naval Academy and U.S. Air Force Academy, known respectively as USNA Out and Blue Alliance. Most if not all of these groups’ members also belong to the Service Academy Gay and Lesbian Alumni social network, a group that Knights Out claims includes some active-duty commanders serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.
click link for more
By William H. McMichael - Staff writer
Posted : Monday Mar 16, 2009 21:08:13 EDT
Thirty-eight graduates of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., came out of the closet Monday with an offer to help their alma mater educate future Army leaders on the need to accept and honor the sacrifices of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender troops.
“Knights Out” wants to serve as a connection between gay troops and Army administrators, particularly at West Point, to provide an “open forum” for communication between gay West Point graduates and their fellow alumni and to serve in an advisory role for West Point leaders in the eventuality — which the group believes is both “imminent and inevitable” — that the law and policy collectively known as “don’t ask, don’t tell” are repealed by Congress.
“We’re publicly announcing our sexuality, our orientation,” said 1st Lt. Dan Choi, a National Guardsman with the 1st Bn., 69th Infantry, based in Manhattan. “It’s just one part of who we are in saying that we are standing to be counted.”
In forming Knights Out, its 38 members are following the example of similar support and education groups formed by graduates of the U.S. Naval Academy and U.S. Air Force Academy, known respectively as USNA Out and Blue Alliance. Most if not all of these groups’ members also belong to the Service Academy Gay and Lesbian Alumni social network, a group that Knights Out claims includes some active-duty commanders serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.
click link for more
Monday, November 17, 2008
Admirals, generals: Let gays serve openly
Admirals, generals: Let gays serve openly
More than 100 call for repeal of military's 'don't ask, don't tell' policy
updated 1 hour, 21 minutes ago
ANNAPOLIS, Md. - More than 100 retired generals and admirals called Monday for repeal of the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy on gays so they can serve openly, according to a statement obtained by The Associated Press.
The move by the military veterans confronts the incoming administration of President-elect Barack Obama with a thorny political and cultural issue that dogged former President Bill Clinton early in his administration.
"As is the case with Great Britain, Israel, and other nations that allow gays and lesbians to serve openly, our service members are professionals who are able to work together effectively despite differences in race, gender, religion, and sexuality," the officers wrote.
go here for more
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27774058/
More than 100 call for repeal of military's 'don't ask, don't tell' policy
updated 1 hour, 21 minutes ago
ANNAPOLIS, Md. - More than 100 retired generals and admirals called Monday for repeal of the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy on gays so they can serve openly, according to a statement obtained by The Associated Press.
The move by the military veterans confronts the incoming administration of President-elect Barack Obama with a thorny political and cultural issue that dogged former President Bill Clinton early in his administration.
"As is the case with Great Britain, Israel, and other nations that allow gays and lesbians to serve openly, our service members are professionals who are able to work together effectively despite differences in race, gender, religion, and sexuality," the officers wrote.
go here for more
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27774058/
Sunday, August 10, 2008
Alan Rogers was a hero to everyone who knew him
A Soldier’s Legacy
Don’t ask, don’t tell, but Alan Rogers was a hero to everyone who knew him.
by Ben McGrath
In a handwritten letter to himself, dated December 13, 1990, Specialist Alan Rogers, a twenty-three-year-old African-American chaplain’s assistant, grappled with the issue of fear as he prepared for his first combat tour. Aboard Flight 104 from Germany to Saudi Arabia, as part of Operation Desert Shield, he wrote, “It seems like only yesterday that we were initially alerted that our unit would be deploying to the Persian Gulf to support the multinational force buildup already operating in the Middle East theater. Yet, in the midst of all the preparations and briefings, frenzied activity and excitement, there exists a general feeling of numbness. This really isn’t happening . . . this world crisis is not going to affect me. . . .” Rogers was an unusually soft-spoken and cerebral enlistee—he’d been voted “most intellectual” in his high-school class—and he found himself replaying the lyrics to Diana Ross’s “Theme from Mahogany” in his head (“Do you know where you’re going to?”).
Rogers went on to a distinguished military career. After earning two Kuwait Liberation medals with the 8th Battalion, 43rd Air Defense Artillery, which provided Patriot-missile support against Saddam Hussein’s Soviet-made Scuds, he returned home and, on an R.O.T.C. scholarship at the University of Florida, earned his bachelor’s degree, in religion. Then he accepted a commission as an intelligence officer. While stationed in Arizona, as an aide-de-camp at Fort Huachuca, he received a master’s degree in organizational management from the University of Phoenix, and later, after serving two tours in South Korea, and returning to the Middle East in 2002 for the initial phase of Operation Iraqi Freedom, he pursued a second master’s, in policy management, at Georgetown. The Georgetown stint was part of an élite Defense Department internship program offered to twenty captains across the services, and it included an assignment to the Pentagon—in Rogers’s case, as a special assistant to the Deputy Secretary of Defense, Gordon England. After the internship, he worked at the Pentagon as the lead biometrics officer in Army Intelligence—“the stuff that you see on ‘C.S.I.: Miami,’ ” as one of his friends put it, referring to the use of advanced fingerprinting techniques and retinal scans, which are particularly useful in counter-insurgency warfare, and in tracking the sources of improvised explosive devices, the primary killer of U.S. troops. Biometrics was a notorious mess, but Rogers excelled in the role, owing in large part to his facility for reconciling the technological demands of civilian contractors with the Army bureaucracy. “Every biometrics staff in the Pentagon and beyond—every single one, and I’m not joking here—contacted me and asked if they could borrow Major Rogers to help them work out their biometrics problems,” his supervisor later recalled. “Every meeting—fights, pandemonium—heads would turn to Alan.”
The measure of a soldier can fairly be said to consist of his ability to maintain the respect of his peers and his subordinates while earning it anew from his superiors. Rogers rarely talked about himself, which helped contribute to a widespread sense among his troops that he was there “solely for them,” as one Pentagon colleague said recently, but he was also fearless when it came to briefing two- and three-star generals.
click post title for more
Don’t ask, don’t tell, but Alan Rogers was a hero to everyone who knew him.
by Ben McGrath
In a handwritten letter to himself, dated December 13, 1990, Specialist Alan Rogers, a twenty-three-year-old African-American chaplain’s assistant, grappled with the issue of fear as he prepared for his first combat tour. Aboard Flight 104 from Germany to Saudi Arabia, as part of Operation Desert Shield, he wrote, “It seems like only yesterday that we were initially alerted that our unit would be deploying to the Persian Gulf to support the multinational force buildup already operating in the Middle East theater. Yet, in the midst of all the preparations and briefings, frenzied activity and excitement, there exists a general feeling of numbness. This really isn’t happening . . . this world crisis is not going to affect me. . . .” Rogers was an unusually soft-spoken and cerebral enlistee—he’d been voted “most intellectual” in his high-school class—and he found himself replaying the lyrics to Diana Ross’s “Theme from Mahogany” in his head (“Do you know where you’re going to?”).
Rogers went on to a distinguished military career. After earning two Kuwait Liberation medals with the 8th Battalion, 43rd Air Defense Artillery, which provided Patriot-missile support against Saddam Hussein’s Soviet-made Scuds, he returned home and, on an R.O.T.C. scholarship at the University of Florida, earned his bachelor’s degree, in religion. Then he accepted a commission as an intelligence officer. While stationed in Arizona, as an aide-de-camp at Fort Huachuca, he received a master’s degree in organizational management from the University of Phoenix, and later, after serving two tours in South Korea, and returning to the Middle East in 2002 for the initial phase of Operation Iraqi Freedom, he pursued a second master’s, in policy management, at Georgetown. The Georgetown stint was part of an élite Defense Department internship program offered to twenty captains across the services, and it included an assignment to the Pentagon—in Rogers’s case, as a special assistant to the Deputy Secretary of Defense, Gordon England. After the internship, he worked at the Pentagon as the lead biometrics officer in Army Intelligence—“the stuff that you see on ‘C.S.I.: Miami,’ ” as one of his friends put it, referring to the use of advanced fingerprinting techniques and retinal scans, which are particularly useful in counter-insurgency warfare, and in tracking the sources of improvised explosive devices, the primary killer of U.S. troops. Biometrics was a notorious mess, but Rogers excelled in the role, owing in large part to his facility for reconciling the technological demands of civilian contractors with the Army bureaucracy. “Every biometrics staff in the Pentagon and beyond—every single one, and I’m not joking here—contacted me and asked if they could borrow Major Rogers to help them work out their biometrics problems,” his supervisor later recalled. “Every meeting—fights, pandemonium—heads would turn to Alan.”
The measure of a soldier can fairly be said to consist of his ability to maintain the respect of his peers and his subordinates while earning it anew from his superiors. Rogers rarely talked about himself, which helped contribute to a widespread sense among his troops that he was there “solely for them,” as one Pentagon colleague said recently, but he was also fearless when it came to briefing two- and three-star generals.
click post title for more
Monday, July 7, 2008
Study: Gays don’t undermine unit cohesion
Study: Gays don’t undermine unit cohesion
The Associated Press - The Associated Press
Posted : Monday Jul 7, 2008 18:42:54 EDT
WASHINGTON — Congress should repeal the “don’t ask, don’t tell” law because the presence of gays in the military is unlikely to undermine the ability to fight and win, according to a new study released by a California-based research center.
The study was conducted by four retired military officers, including the three-star Air Force lieutenant general who in early 1993 was tasked with implementing President Clinton’s policy that the military stop questioning recruits on their sexual orientation.
“Evidence shows that allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly is unlikely to pose any significant risk to morale, good order, discipline or cohesion,” the officers states.
To support its contention, the panel points to the British and Israeli militaries, where it says gay people serve openly without hurting the effectiveness of combat operations.
click post title for more
The Associated Press - The Associated Press
Posted : Monday Jul 7, 2008 18:42:54 EDT
WASHINGTON — Congress should repeal the “don’t ask, don’t tell” law because the presence of gays in the military is unlikely to undermine the ability to fight and win, according to a new study released by a California-based research center.
The study was conducted by four retired military officers, including the three-star Air Force lieutenant general who in early 1993 was tasked with implementing President Clinton’s policy that the military stop questioning recruits on their sexual orientation.
“Evidence shows that allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly is unlikely to pose any significant risk to morale, good order, discipline or cohesion,” the officers states.
To support its contention, the panel points to the British and Israeli militaries, where it says gay people serve openly without hurting the effectiveness of combat operations.
click post title for more
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