The stories you want. The opinions that matter.
No, thanks
Tag: dont ask dont tell
Identities Revealed For All Six U.S. Troops Killed In Afghanistan Attack

Identities Revealed For All Six U.S. Troops Killed In Afghanistan Attack

By Barbara Goldberg

NEW YORK (Reuters) — A female Air Force officer who was one of the first openly gay U.S. service members to get married was identified on Tuesday as one of the six U.S. troops killed by a suicide bomber near Bagram air base in Afghanistan.

Air Force Major Adrianna Vorderbruggen, who was commanding the security patrol targeted in Monday’s attack, was the first openly gay U.S. servicewoman killed in action, the Daily Beast news website reported, citing a Department of Defense official.

Vorderbruggen, 36, was assigned to the Air Force Office of Special Investigations (OSI), the main law enforcement branch of the Air Force. She was also the first female OSI agent killed in the line of duty, Air Force spokeswoman Linda Card said.

She was commanding a routine security patrol on Monday in a village near Bagram air base when a man on a motorcycle drove into the middle of the group and detonated a bomb, Card said.

The attack was the deadliest on U.S. forces in Afghanistan this year.

Facebook postings on Tuesday by Vorderbruggen’s loved ones mourned her death and offered condolences to her wife, Heather, and their son, Jacob. The family lives near Washington, D.C., where the couple was married in June 2012, the year after the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy for gays was repealed.

“We do find comfort in knowing that Heather and Jacob are no longer in the shadows and will be extended the rights and protections due any American military family as they move through this incredibly difficult period in their lives,” said the posting from Military Partners and Families Coalition.

Bagram, around 40 km (25 miles) north of Kabul, is one of the main bases for the remaining 9,800 U.S. troops in Afghanistan after international troops ended combat operations last year.

The other victims of Monday’s attack included Air National Guard Technical Sergeant Joseph Lemm, 45, a 15-year veteran of the New York City Police Department who also volunteered in the Guard and was on his third deployment to war zones.

He served in the Newburgh, New York-based 105th Airlift Wing with Staff Sergeant Louis Bonacasa, 31, who also died in the attack, the Air National Guard said.

The other three killed were all U.S. Air Force staff sergeants who served with Vorderbruggen in the OIS – Michael Cinco, 28, of Mercedes, Texas; Peter Taub, 30, of Philadelphia; and Chester McBride, 30, of Statesboro, Georgia, the Air Force said.

The Taliban, who claimed responsibility for the strike, remain resilient 14 years after the start of U.S. military operations in Afghanistan. It has ramped up its attacks this year, inflicting heavier casualties on Afghan security forces.

The Pentagon warned last week of deteriorating security in Afghanistan and assessed the performance of Afghan security forces as “uneven and mixed.”

More than 2,300 U.S. troops have died in the Afghan war since 2001, but the pace of U.S. deaths has fallen sharply since the end of formal U.S. combat and a drawdown of American forces.

(Additional reporting by Joseph Ax in New York and Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Editing by Bernadette Baum and Alistair Bell)

Photo: Maj. Adrianna Vorderbruggen, Staff Sgt. Louis M Bonacasa, Staff Sgt. Chester J McBride (TopL-R), Staff Sgt. Peter W Taub, Technical Sgt. Joseph G Lemm, and Staff Sgt. Michael A Cinco (BottomL-R) are pictured in this combination of undated handout photos provided by the U.S. Air Force, December 23, 2015. REUTERS/U.S. Air Force/Handout via Reuters

Companies’ Pro-Equality Rhetoric Belied By Their Campaign Donations

Companies’ Pro-Equality Rhetoric Belied By Their Campaign Donations

Last week, corporate America appeared to take a rare stand on principle. After Indiana Gov. Mike Pence (R) signed a law permitting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, various companies expressed outrage and tried to position themselves as bold defenders of social justice.

There was just one little problem: Many of the same companies have been donating to the public officials who have long opposed the effort to outlaw such discrimination. That campaign cash has flowed to those politicians as they have very publicly led the fight against LGBT rights.

Pence provides a perfect example. During his congressional career, he led the GOP’s fight against a federal proposal to extend civil rights protections to LGBT people, arguing that they are not “entitled to the protection of anti-discrimination laws similar to those extended to women and ethnic minorities.” He also supported a ban on same-sex marriage, voted against the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, and argued that legislation to prevent companies from discriminating against gay and lesbian employees would “wage war on the free exercise of religion in the workplace.”

In light of that record, his move as governor to sign Indiana’s so-called “religious freedom” bill permitting discrimination is not surprising. It is instead the culmination of his larger crusade waged over an entire career — one financed by many of the same companies now claiming they are outraged by the governor’s actions.

Take, for instance, Angie’s List. The company’s top executive, William Oesterle, was one of nine CEOs who signed an open letter to Pence demanding he revise the “religious freedom” legislation so that it does not allow discrimination. Oesterle also threatened to cancel plans for a $40 million expansion in Indianapolis if Indiana legislators did not change the law. “It’s very disappointing to us that it passed and was signed by the governor,” Oesterle said in an interview with The Washington Post.

Yet, Pence’s record didn’t stop Oesterle from giving $150,000 to his 2012 gubernatorial campaign.

Similarly, Indianapolis-based pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly’s CEO signed the letter bashing Pence’s bill, and a company spokesperson declared that “discriminatory legislation is bad for Indiana and for business.” But the company’s political action committee has given Pence’s congressional campaigns $50,200 and his gubernatorial campaign another $21,500. The latter contributions came after Eli Lilly publicly urged lawmakers to pass ENDA over the opposition of Pence and other Republicans.

In all, six of the nine corporate executives who signed the letter criticizing Pence’s legislation represent companies whose CEOs or political action committees donated to Pence while he was campaigning against LGBT rights.

Heather Cronk, co-director of the pro-equality group GetEQUAL, says the disconnect between the companies’ rhetoric and their campaign contributions is an illustrative example of hypocrisy.

“One of the key missing pieces in the conversation around Indiana’s (law) over the past two weeks has been the role of companies now slamming the bill in putting Gov. Pence in office to begin with,” she told International Business Times. “While it has been heartening to see companies defending fairness as a value,” Cronk said, the companies are “having their cake and eating it, too.”

Of course, many of the companies railing on Pence likely gave to him for reasons that had nothing to do with his position on discrimination — a lot of them probably donated because of his support for tax cuts, deregulation and other priorities on corporate America’s economic agenda. But that is hardly a valid excuse absolving those firms of their culpability in helping the fight against equality.

Perhaps more of those companies and others will now appreciate that truism — and better align their campaign donations with their purported anti-discrimination principles.

David Sirota is a senior writer at the International Business Times and the best-selling author of the books Hostile Takeover, The Uprising and Back to Our Future. Email him at ds@davidsirota.com, follow him on Twitter @davidsirota or visit his website at www.davidsirota.com.

AFP Photo/George Frey

Weekend Reader: ‘Soldier Of Change: From The Closet To The Forefront Of The Gay Rights Movement’

Weekend Reader: ‘Soldier Of Change: From The Closet To The Forefront Of The Gay Rights Movement’

Today the Weekend Reader brings you Soldier of Change: From the Closet to the Forefront of the Gay Rights Movement by Major Stephen Snyder-Hill, a leading LGBT activist and U.S. Army reservist who served two tours in Iraq. It was Snyder-Hill who infamously asked former senator Rick Santorum (R-PA) during a presidential debate if he would “circumvent the progress that’s been made for gay and lesbian soldiers in the military” following the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” The 24-year veteran was booed by the conservative audience for his question. 

Soldier of Change is Snyder-Hill’s personal account of being a gay soldier in the U.S. military — both before and after the repeal of DADT — and of his journey in the movement for equal rights.

You can purchase the book here. 

I didn’t have to respond to Rick Santorum. America responded. And it restored my faith in my country. Almost immediately after the debate Josh sent me links to many websites where responses kept pouring in. People were outraged, not just in America but all over the world. I was seeing my story on news stations in Britain and receiving emails from everywhere. At one point, Google emailed to ask where I wanted all this correspondence to go.

Over the next two weeks my life was under the microscope of the public eye. My most intimate secret was being talked about on every TV station in the world. The Daily Show with Jon Stewart had a clip that poked fun at my arm size; it reaired on CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, Headline News, ABC, even Real Time with Bill Maher. The kicker came one night at about midnight when we had a quick reaction force (QRF) drill. We were woken up in the middle of the night and had to get out to our guard post with all our gear on, a drill we did randomly in Iraq. I ran out and was guarding my post when a fellow soldier said to me, “I saw President Obama was talking about you.” I don’t think anyone ever thinks they will hear that in their life, but sitting in Iraq, it was my reality.

So I ran back to my room to see what he had said when he spoke at a dinner for the Human Rights Campaign. As I sat and watched, I started to tear up at his words. He condemned the candidates for not standing up for me. He said, “If you want to be the president of the United States, then you can start by standing up for our men and women in uniform even when it is not politically convenient.” To this day words cannot express how wonderful it feels to have President Obama’s support. I was proud to be deployed under the first African American president and especially to hear him defend me. Later I thought about his life and the things he had gone through and wondered if it was easier for him to relate to me. At one time his mother and father could not have married because of laws that prohibited them. At one time if he had served in the military, he would have been segregated. Either way that day made me very proud. Before all the chatter got any bigger than it already was, I walked into my commander’s office to let her know I was the booed soldier who was all over TV. I was nervous. First, what if she judged me for being gay? Second, what if she was pissed off about what I had done? I respected her and valued her opinion of me. My voice shook as I told her. And without blinking an eye, she said, “Captain Hill, I don’t care if you are gay; I would take ten of you if I could. I have no problem with what you did. I’m just glad you’re not bringing me something worse than this.”

Buy From Amazon.com

I don’t think she realized the enormity of the situation at the time. About thirty minutes after our discussion I received a page to come back to her office because a CCIR (Critical Incident Report) had come down from headquarters in response to what I had told her. She explained that the military’s primary concern was to make sure I was protected and that no one was messing with me. I was really touched by that and thought it showed a huge mindset change for the army. Just a month ago no one had responded to my complaint of the harassment training, and now they were concerned for my well-being. It made me extremely proud to be a soldier. The military took command and made sure this was being handled professionally and without incident. The command sergeant major also visited me personally to make sure everything was okay and that no one was making any comments or harassing me.

So many people in Iraq said they couldn’t believe all the controversy this caused. Lots of people told me what I had done was very brave, and I received a bunch of hugs. I got some negative reactions, but not many. Several of my soldiers told me they thought I had only said I was gay in my video because I was standing up for another gay soldier I might have known. I was known to speak out against bigoted comments about black people and women, so at first some people assumed that’s what I was doing.

One of my fellow soldiers in a high-ranking position told me that a few people from our command were not excited that I had appeared in uniform in the video, as it is against army policy to be in uniform at a political event. But they did note that since we were in a theater of war, we didn’t have civilian clothes. When I spoke to the military lawyers, I explained that I originally submitted the question without my identity or rank, and I made sure that I was in compliance with military protocol before doing so. They concurred that as an American I had every right to participate in the debates. A couple of them actually told me, “Good for you for standing up for what you believe in.”

I received a Skype message from a friend who connected me with a young soldier stationed on the same base as I was. The kid told me, “Sir, I don’t know you, but I want to thank you for what you did. I think it took an incredible amount of courage to do it. I will probably never tell anyone else in the army that I’m gay, but you stood up for us all.” He went on to tell me that someone kept using the word faggots during their training. That made me mad. I instantly shifted into “I want to protect him” mode.

I also received an anonymous email from someone pretty high up in the Pentagon. It read, “Your younger generation has an easier time coming out than our older generation does. I don’t know if I can ever come out, but if I do, you have made it easier for people like me.”

If you enjoyed this excerpt, purchase the full book here.

Excerpted from Soldier of Change: From the Closet to the Forefront of the Gay Rights Movement by Stephen Snyder-Hill, by permission of Potomac Books, an Imprint of the University of Nebraska Press. © 2014 by the Board of Regents of the University of Nebraska Press. Available wherever books are sold or from Potomac Books 800-775-2518 and at potomacbooksinc.com.  

Want more updates on great books? Sign up for our daily email newsletter! 

Do Ask, Do Tell

The young man was scared and exhausted as he faced the webcam in the wee hours of the morning and prepared to call his father.

He was sitting in his bedroom in Germany, where he is stationed at a U.S. Air Force base. A map of the world hung on the wall behind him, but he was focused on what awaited him in America.

“I’m probably about as nervous as I can ever remember being,” he said into the camera. “I’m about to call my dad in Alabama.”

The timing for his call Tuesday was intentional. The U.S. military had just put an end to its “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, which for 18 years had required gay and lesbian members of the military to keep their sexual orientation a secret.

For the first time in the life of this 21-year-old senior airman — later identified by The Washington Post as Randy Phillips — he didn’t have to worry about being lawfully persecuted for being honest about who he is.

Congress repealed DADT, but it can’t legislate a loved one’s heart. Phillips was scared to tell his father.

“I wish I wasn’t going against the grain,” he said in a YouTube video last spring, titled “I didn’t choose to be gay.” His face was partially obscured. “I wish this wasn’t something that wasn’t expected of me. I wish … I went along with what my parents planned for me and what they thought I would develop into. And it’s not.”

He was ready to go public, face-forward, and he wanted to do it by coming out to his father. It was clear he had no idea how this call was going to go.

He dialed his father’s number, set it to speakerphone.

“My heart is beating like crazy,” he whispered.

His father answered with a cheerful hello.

“Can I tell you something?” Phillips asked his dad. “Will you love me, serious?”

“Yes,” his father said.

“Dad, I’m gay.”

“Yikes,” his father said.

“Do you still love me?”

I could barely look at the screen; I was so scared for this boy, who’s younger than all of my kids.

Please. Please.

His father didn’t miss a beat.

“I still love you, son,” he said gently, as if he were sitting right next to him.

A few moments later, his father said it again.

“I still love you, and I will always love you, and I will always be proud of you.”

One down. Thousands of loved ones to go.

If you are close to someone who is gay, it’s likely you’ve heard his or her stories of abandonment by people who were supposed to love that person. These are heartbreaking narratives about mothers and fathers, siblings and used-to-be best friends. They are sometimes stories of forgiveness, too, in which the intolerant are beneficiaries of unearned grace.

UCLA’s Williams Institute estimates that 70,500 lesbians, gay men and bisexuals are currently serving in the U.S. military. Many of them will continue to live secret lives because a change in the law doesn’t change everything else that comes with being gay in America.

Still, it is possible to be hopeful and imagine those unfolding moments when, one by one, gay and lesbian members of our military finally feel free to be themselves.

To a point.

The repeal of DADT does not bring full rights to gays and lesbians who are putting their lives on the line for our country. The Defense of Marriage Act, another federal law, defines marriage as being between a man and a woman. This effectively prohibits same-sex partners’ access to military privileges afforded to heterosexual spouses. No trips to the base commissary, for example, or medical treatment at base clinics.

“We follow the law here,” Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in a news conference when asked about spousal benefits. “DOMA, that law, restricts some of the issues that you talk about. We’re going to follow that law as long as it exists.”

My, what we ask of our gay brothers and sisters in America.

How we count on them to forgive us, one rectified injustice at a time.

Connie Schultz is a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist and an essayist for Parade magazine. She is the author of two books, including “…and His Lovely Wife,” which chronicled the successful race of her husband, Sherrod Brown, for the U.S. Senate. To find out more about Connie Schultz (con.schultz@yahoo.com) and read her past columns, please visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

COPYRIGHT 2011 CREATORS.COM