It’s Veterans Day—Salute Eight Of America’s Out Service Members
Today is Veterans Day, one of those minor holidays we usually forget about until we try to go to the bank or post office.
But it’s the first Veterans Day since Don’t Ask Don’t Tell was fully repealed, making it something of a momentous occasion for the gay community.
So we’re taking a look at some of the men and women who served this nation honorably but were discharged for being homosexuals; whose courage under fire helped to pave the way for open service. (Like Lt. Col. Victor Fehrenbach, whose handsome visage appears on the home page.)
There are thousands of such men and women, of course—from Prussian military genius Lieutenant General Frederick Von Steuben (who trained George Washington’s Colonial army) and WWII veteran John McNeill (who received a Purple Heart and spent six months as a German POW) to Second Lieutenant Sandy Tsao (who wrote to President Obama to lift the ban and received a personal response) and Staff Sergeant Eric Alva (the first Marine seriously injured in the Iraq War).
Maybe the gay community should treat Veterans Day like its own private holiday, when we celebrate a major victory over the forces of prejudice and hate.
We’ve already got the streamers and fireworks.
Images via Adam Bouska, USACE Public Affairs
How about saluting ALL veterans regardless of race, creed, gender, or sexual orientation. All veterans deserve our thanks.
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Dan Choi is hardly someone to respect at all, he’s a media whore, drama queen, and supports Republicans and is politically Conservative.
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Dan Choi has jumped firmly over the “activist” line and into extremism. I’m sick of seeing his face plastered everywhere. You’re not actually a hero for purposely outing yourself during DADT. In fact, most people see that as a way to get out of going to war. YMMV, I guess.
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First, thank you for remembering my late friend Leonard’s intentional pioneering challenge to the military. Just one criticism—as noted by “Conduct Unbecoming” author Randy Shilts, and in HBO’s recent documentary about the ban by Palm Center Director Aaron Belkin and DADT expert and “Unfriendly Fire” author Nathaniel Frank, he, not the honorable Ms. Cammermeyer, deserves the credit for bringing the subject of gays in the military to American living rooms as never before through the newspapers and TIME magazine issue you mentioned, as well as widespread TV news converage, and the FIRST made-for-TV movie about a living gay person 17 years before the one made about Ms. Cammermeyer. For further information, please see http://www.leonardmatlovich.com
@Michael: AND “Jess.” How easy it is for cowardly cockroaches like you to libel others by name without even signing your own. But it’s particularly disgusting today, and in a thread honoring those who did not have the luxury of risking their lives for our country anonymously. I’m proud to say that not only was Leonard Matlovich my close friend but I am also a friend of Dan Choi. None of us are perfect, but I’m confidant in saying that Dan is today’s version of Leonard who would admire him as much as millions do for having the same courage to sacrifice his own career for the good of others. [Uh, Jess Whatever Your Real Name Is, Dan had already served IN WAR before coming out, and is on disability for damage to his lungs in Iraq.] Of those in this otherwise admirable list, only one other, Tracy Thorne-Begland, also chose to out himself in order to fight the ban. They are members with very few others of that “First Battalion,” and in the absence of evidence that such critics have sacrificed as much one can only say that, well, they have a Constitutional right to demonstrate how stupid they can be.
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@MichaelBedwell@LeonardMatlovich.com and @Howard
Word.
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Patriotism, the last refuge of a scoundrel. — Samuel Johnson
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@Stace:
Igorance is the last refuse of the child. Johnson was talking about phony patriotism, and using it as an excuse for doing something self-serving.
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One guy QUEERTY missed mentioning was Keith Meinhold, who was dismissed from the Navy
before DADT became law, challenged the dismissal in court, and got reinstated, staying
in until he retired. He was never asked and had no reason to tell after DATD was passed: everyone already knew so he could be out without saying anything.
He ended up on the cover of Newsweek – he was one of the first to get national attention.
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I pretty much knew before I even clicked through that this list would be a bunch of white guys, maybe a few white lesbians, and Dan Choi.
How about next time you guys dig a bit deeper and find some of the bold African-American soldiers who have also successfully challenged or fought against DADT.
You can start with names like Lt. Anthony Woods and Cpl. Evelyn Thomas, and I assure you there are plenty more where that came from.
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@MichaelBedwell@LeonardMatlovich.com
Not that it matters to someone who is… what, accusing me of being a troll? I’m a US veteran on disability due to Actual War, too. Next time you try making a point, keep in mind that you’ll probably come off as less of a straws-grasping dickwad if you just say your piece instead of trying to call out others on their legitimacy.
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What about Friedrich Wilhelm August Heinrich Ferdinand von Steuben (aka Baron von Stueben)? He wasn’t American…but he helped shape the colonial army under George Washington, and is widely believe to have been gay. One of the founders of our military system as it is today.