Gays Still Being Booted From Military, Report Says

by Aaron Glantz

(IPS) LOS ANGELES -- For eight years, Army Staff Sergeant Brian Muller served his country. An expert in counter-terrorism, he was once selected to guard President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, and served tours of duty in both Bosnia and Afghanistan. He had celebrated his 18th birthday in Bosnia, had been to war and had twenty-one ribbons to show for it.

Today, Brian Muller is out of the Army, thanks to the U.S. military's "don't ask, don't tell policy" on homosexuality, implemented by former President Bill Clinton as a compromise with legislators who refused to totally repeal the ban on gay soldiers.

After years of listening to commanders say things like "all fags should get AIDS and die," Muller decided to come out of the closet as the United States attacked Iraq.

Muller's story is one of 30 contained in a new report called, "Gays and Lesbians at War: Military Service in Iraq and Afghanistan under 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell." Published by the Center for the Study of Sexual Minorities in the Military (CSSM), the study found gays and lesbians serve on the front lines in both countries.

"Many serve openly or are known to a majority of the troops in their unit," the report reads. "When gays are out, they report greater success in bonding, morale, professional advancement, levels of commitment and retention and access to essential support services."

But gays and lesbians continue to be purged from the military because serving openly is illegal. The author of the report, CSSM's Aaron Belkin, told IPS that gay servicemen and women continue to be fired in more than 161 specialties critical to the "war on terror," "such as Arabic language specialists; infantrymen; nuclear, chemical and biological warfare specialists; military police; security officials; engineers."

Over the last six years, Belkin says, the Pentagon "has actually fired more people in many categories for being gay than they are recalling now." He notes the military announced this summer that it was recalling about 5,600 service members who had already left the military and entered civilian life in a so-called "back-door draft."

"The Pentagon is short of talent in the Middle East," he says. "When you line up the people who they are bringing back involuntarily next to the job specialties that they've fired, you can see they could have avoided these involuntary recalls altogether if they had not been firing people all these years for being gay."

But despite the drain on the military, things are unlikely to change any time soon. The Republican platform and President Bush support continuing the "don't ask, don't tell" policy.

Democratic candidate John Kerry, meantime, has changed his campaign website to make his position on gays in the military less clear. The campaign made the move after the Orlando Sentinel newspaper reported that Kerry supports allowing gays and lesbians to serve. Before the change, the Web site said bringing gays into the military was one of Senator Kerry's "priorities."

The page on sexual equality had gone on to say: "John Kerry opposed the Clinton administration's 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' Policy. He was one of the few senators to testify before the Senate Armed Services Committee and call on the president to rescind the ban on gay and lesbian service members."

Kerry does not mention the issue in his speeches, and multiple calls to his campaign were not returned. The Democratic Party platform is mute on gays in the military.

Still, gay soldiers expelled from the military told IPS they don't mind the Democrats' silence. That's because it would take an act of Congress to repeal the policy -- which is not likely as long as the House and Senate are controlled by conservative Republicans.

"That's just the way it is," said Capt. Austin Rooke, who nonetheless hopes the policy will change sooner rather than later.

Rooke has just returned from the Middle East where he served a tour of duty in the Army's special operations unit. For six months leading up to the invasion of Iraq, he ran intelligence between Central Command and special ops. A burly man from Alabama, he confounded stereotypes so no one knew he was gay. He considers his experience a best-case scenario.

"The 'don't tell' part of don't ask, don't tell means don't tell anyone," he explains. "It means don't tell your mom, don't tell your dad, don't tell your best friend. So you're living in this quasi-legal status. So anyone who finds out has power over you."