Box Turtle Bulletin
News and commentary about the anti-gay lobby“Now you must raise your children up in a world where that union of man and box turtle is on the same legal footing as man and wife…”
News and commentary about the anti-gay lobbyMarch 17th, 2010
On Thursday, the Senate committee will hear testimony from three prior service members.
Speaking in favor of excluding gay Americans from serving their country will be Jack Sheehan. (ArmyTimes)
Retired Marine Corps Gen. John “Jack” Sheehan, appearing at the invitation of the committee’s Republican staff, has never publicly addressed the issue of gays in the military; by expressing opposition to repeal of the ban, he will join forces with Marine Corps Commandant Gen. James Conway, who told the committee Feb. 25 hearing that he wants to “keep the law such that it is.”
Sheehan will be giving us the DADT perspective of old men who retired before it came into being.
Sheehan reached the top rungs of the military during his 35 years of service. Commissioned in 1962, he is a combat veteran of the Vietnam War and 1991’s Desert Storm and a recipient of the Silver Star and two Purple Hearts. He capped his career as Supreme Allied Commander Atlantic and commander of U.S. Atlantic Command — now U.S. Joint Forces Command.
Following his 1997 retirement, Sheehan joined Bechtel International, an international engineering, construction and project management company, as a senior vice president.
Speaking in opposition to the ban will be two people whom the Military lost due to its policy.
Former Air Force Maj. Mike Almy and former Navy Lt. j.g. Jenny Kopfstein both lost their careers over the ban on gays and will testify in favor of repeal.
Almy’s story is particularly compelling because he says he was “outed” by an improper search of his belongings after rotating out of Iraq.
“The search was conducted without ever once consulting with a lawyer,” Almy told MSNBC talk show host Rachel Maddow on March 3. “My private e-mails were forwarded to my commander, who called me into his office and demanded that I give him an explanation. I refused.
” ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell’ failed me despite the fact that I lived up to the premises of this law and never disclosed my private life,” Almy said. “Never once in my 13-year career did I make a statement to the military that violated ‘don’t ask, don’t tell.’ ”
…
Kopfstein graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1999 and, during her first deployment as a surface warfare officer aboard the Japan-based cruiser Shiloh, told her commanding officer that she was a lesbian. It was not an effort to get out of the military; as she told the Washington Post in 2005, “I didn’t want to have to lie about myself.”Her commanding officer requested an investigation but nothing happened for a year, and Kopfstein underwent a second six-month deployment on Shiloh in support of the war in Afghanistan.
According to SLDN, Kopfstein’s discharge board was convened 19 months after her initial admission. Both her former and current commanding officers testified on her behalf, but she lost her commission.
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Edwin
March 17th, 2010
All those old generals & admiralsneed to just get out of the way and let the real world in. Yes I am of the same age as some of them . But I never did believe that that this stupid law need to go into effect. Those old guys probaly knew a few gay soliders when they were younger. i was in during the viet nam was but if you didn’t want to get killed by your own people you kept quiet and lived the lie that the service forced on you.
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