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Military Continues To Discharge Valuable Arab Linguists

Are gays in the military a greater threat than untranslated Al-Qaida cables?

Jim Burroway

May 23rd, 2007

Citing the recent discharge of three gay Arabic linguists under “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” 40 House members wrote to the House Armed Services Committee chairman Ike Skelton (D-Mo.) asking for a hearing on the matter. They say in their letter that 58 Arabic linguists have been discharged under the anti-gay policy, and  that this loss of “capable, highly skilled Arabic linguists continues to compromise our national security during time of war.”

One of the three recently dismissed linguists, Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class Stephen Benjamin, has come forward to describe his ouster:

“I’d always had been out since the day I started working there,” Benjamin said. “We had conversations about being gay in the military and what it was like. There were no issues with unit cohesion. I never caused divisiveness or ever experienced slurs,” said Benjamin, who was in the Navy for nearly four years.

Benjamin, said his supervisor tried to keep him on the job and urged him to sign a statement saying he was not gay. His sexuality became a problem when he was caught improperly using the military’s secret level computer system to send messages to his roommate in Iraq. He said others who weren’t gay kept their jobs even though they were sending inappropriate messages over the same system.

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