Rainbow Warriors are an asset to our military
Dropping gay ban makes military strongerBy Kelvin Wade
This week, Commandant of the Marine Corps Gen. James F. Amos said that he is very pleased at how smoothly U.S. Marines across the globe adapted to the lifting of the discriminatory “don’t ask, don’t tell” ban on gays in the military. Amos originally opposed lifting the ban, fearing it would harm the war effort. Those fears, he found, are unwarranted.
The truth is gay soldiers are like heterosexual soldiers except for that one thing. No matter what one thinks of homosexuality, it’s clear that years of a gay ban cost this country quality military personnel.
I’ll give you a local example. Anthony Woods was born at Travis Air Force Base to a single mother. He grew up in Fairfield and Vacaville. After graduating from Vanden High School in 1999, he attended West Point, where he served on the Honor Committee.
Volunteering for the Army, he was deployed to Iraq in 2004, leading a platoon of the West Virginia National Guard in Diyala Province.
He was deployed to Iraq for a second tour with the 3rd Armored Calvary Regiment and led a 64-man platoon, where he was involved in the Battle for Tal Afar. Tal Afar was an Iraqi town that was taken over by al-Qaida in Iraq and used to launch attacks on U.S. troops. The U.S. Army and Iraqi allies retook the town after intense combat.
Every man who served under Woods’ command came home alive.
Woods came home and went to school at Harvard University, earning a master’s degree from the Kennedy School of Government.
However, in his second year at the Kennedy School, he came out to his military superiors as a gay man. Woods was honorably discharged from the Army under the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy and had to repay the $35,000 scholarship for school.
Anthony Woods made multiple trips to New Orleans to help rebuild after Katrina. He bicycled across the country to raise money for Habitat for Humanity. And for mentoring low-income minorities, he received the Robert F. Kennedy Public Service Award.
In 2009, he ran for the congressional seat vacated by Rep. Ellen Tauscher and received 9 percent of the vote.
He now works for a nonprofit group in Washington, D.C.
I forgot to mention that Anthony Woods is black. Why does that matter? It doesn’t. And it shouldn’t matter that he’s gay, either.
How can anyone think Woods was not an asset to the military? What did the nation gain by forcing him out of the service?
We all should be proud of Fairfield native Anthony Woods and so many like him across the country. And we should be ashamed of a policy that for too long robbed us of quality military personnel who were willing and did put their lives on the line for our country.
It’s been two months since the ban has been lifted. We should be proud that our military has, by all accounts, seen this transition as a nonevent. If the troops on the ground can easily make this transition, then surely those of us thousands of miles away, tempted to pontificate on high, should hold our tongues. Peace.
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Additional Notes: I think it's obvious by now why I chose to write on this subject. My colleague wrote a truly horrible column equating gays with pedophiles and I wanted to respond. Since I'm prohibited from responding directly, I chose to do it this way. I wanted to tell this man's amazing story.
What I regret is the fact that I had to write it quickly and in my haste, I omitted the fact that Anthony Woods was awarded the Bronze Star. I regret the omission.
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