770 Specialists Discharged for Being Gay

[Kadie]

770 Specialists Discharged for Being Gay

4 minutes ago Add White House - AP Cabinet & State to My Yahoo!


By BETH FOUHY, Associated Press Writer

SAN FRANCISCO - Even with concerns growing about military troop strength, 770 people were discharged for homosexuality last year under the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy, a new study shows.

The figure, however, is significantly lower than the record 1,227 discharges in 2001 — just before the invasions of Afghanistan (news - web sites) and Iraq (news - web sites). Since "don't ask, don't tell" was adopted in 1994, nearly 10,000 military personnel have been discharged — including linguists, nuclear warfare experts and other key specialists

snip...
Brian Muller, an Army bomb squad team leader who had advanced training on weapons of mass destruction and served on a security detail for President Bush (news - web sites), said he was dismissed from duty after deciding to tell his commander he's gay.


"I didn't do it to get out of a war — I already served in a war," Muller, 25, said in an interview. "After putting my life on the line in the war, the idea that I was fighting for the freedoms of so many other people that I couldn't myself enjoy was almost unbearable."

more... http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040620/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/military_gays_1