More Airmen Request DADT Discharges
According to the Stars and Stripes, three more members of the US Air Force have requested discharge due to their homosexuality:
According to the Air Force, during the past month two female staff sergeants and a male 2nd lieutenant made statements identifying themselves as gay and asked to be separated quickly from the service.
While these discharges were once non-events, they are now front page news because of their rarity and the fact the Secretary of the Air Force has to approve them.
As with the other recent case, the article indicates these Airmen wanted to be discharged, and to be discharged quickly, before the repeal of DADT. While homosexual advocacy groups have made much of the “victimization” of homosexuals in the military and the “lost skills” due to this “discrimination,” one statistic never tracked until now was how many of those people claiming to be homosexual wanted to be discharged.
The only relevant statistic released to date has been that 25% of all DADT discharges occurred within the first 120 days of entering the service — which lends some weight to the anecdotal evidence some people claimed to be gay just to get out of the military (because there is no other way to “quit” basic training). It seems even some homosexual advocates see other motives:
In a statement issued Monday, Alexander Nicholson, executive director of Servicemembers United, said it is shocking to see incidents of people “trying to force the Pentagon to let them out of the service obligation” because the law is still on the books.
As an aside, the Stripes included a picture of Dan Choi with their article. Choi was discharged under DADT but has continued to wear his former uniform at political protests.