Let's skip pointing fingers at individuals and generalize this: The higher-ups in the military are cool with invading an area that doesn't want to be and shooting away, unless that area is another man's ass. Selective Service has taken a whole new meaning:
The U.S. Air Force has spent an estimated $25 million training combat pilot Lt. Col. Victor Fehrenbach but is about to discharge him involuntarily because he is gay. Born of military-officer parents, Fehrenbach has earned 30 awards and decorations, with tours flying F-15Es in Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq, and was one of the elite fighters called on to patrol the air space over Washington, D.C., on Sept. 11, 2001. [Dayton Daily News, 5-28-09]
Also about to be discharged solely for being gay is Army infantry officer Daniel Choi, a West Point graduate and Arabic speaker, who would be (based on a 2005 Government Accounting Office report) at least the 56th gay Arabic linguist to be dismissed from the U.S. military since the first terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in 1993. [ABC News, 5-13-09; New York Times, 3-29-09]
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