Senators Kirsten Gillibrand (NY) and Claire McCaskill (MO) have become the faces and voices of outrage and action over the crisis of sexual assault in…
Real Leaders | Real Life
Tag: Don’t ask, don’t tell
Today President Barack Obama signs into law the repeal measure of the ban on allowing gays to serve openly in the military. In a historic vote on Saturday, Dec. 18, 2010, the Senate repealed the 17 year-old Clinton-era policy known as ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ by a count of 65 to 31. This is a momentous day for our country and our military: the beginning of the end of a blatantly discriminatory law that for years has forced honorable gay men and women to live a lie.
Earlier today, the Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen announced the results of the Pentagon’s Comprehensive Working Group Review of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”. The 10-month study led by US Army General Carter Ham and DOD General Counsel Jeh C. Johnson concluded that the repeal of the 1993 ban on gays serving openly in the military might have some short-term, isolated disruptions; but there would be no long term or negative impacts on the military.
So why does the media, particularly MSNBC, continue to ask Elaine Donnelly for her opinion on issues affecting the US Military?
Most news about West Point, my alma mater, makes me exceedingly proud. While the news about West Point being ranked #4 this year in Forbes list of top colleges, (down from #1 last year) is reinforcing and encouraging, last Tuesday’s news is not. It makes me sick and angry.
Cadet Sergeant Katherine Miller from Findlay, Ohio, who ranked ninth in a class of more than 1100 future Army officers, tendered her resignation from the prestigious military academy that trains leaders of character for our Army and our Nation. A lesbian, she cited her inability to live up to and uphold the Army’s core values of honor and integrity as long as the policy known as Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell remains in place.
This is the tenth installment in the weekly Honored Role Series.
At age eight, Brenda Sue Fulton entered her first American Legion essay contest defining patriotism as the love of country and willingness to stand up for the freedom of other citizens. She won the contest that year and for the next five.
This is the second installment in the weekly Honored Role Series.
As a junior high student in Franklin, Tennessee, Becky Kanis remembers the excitement and awe of fellow parishioners when they learned a young woman from St. Philip’s Catholic Church received an appointment to a service academy. Carol Anderson, a high school senior and St. Philip’s parishioner was entering West Point that summer.
Becky Kanis was in 8th grade when she first met Carol and learned of West Point, the military college in New York. As the eldest of seven children, Becky’s parents insisted on two things: she had to attend college, and she had to find a way to pay for it. West Point offered full scholarships in return for five years of active duty military service.
Lt. Dan Choi and I co-authored an article published in The Daily Beast and Global Grind that gender and orientation are not relevant to the…
1st Lt. Dan Choi, 2002 West Point graduate, Arabic linguist and Iraq War veteran, is being fired from the United States Army for publicly announcing that he is gay.
In the Army equivalent of a pink slip received by postal mail on 23 April 2009, Choi was informed of his firing because of what he said. The Army wrote, “You admitted publicly that you are homosexual which constitutes homosexual conduct. Your actions negatively affected the good order and discipline of the New York Army National Guard.”