Senators Kirsten Gillibrand (NY) and Claire McCaskill (MO) have become the faces and voices of outrage and action over the crisis of sexual assault in the military. The reason why two civilian female senators who never wore a uniform have done so is because, as members of the Senate Armed Services Committee, they had to. […]
Today President Barack Obama signs into law the repeal measure of the ban on allowing gays to serve openly in the military. In a historic vote on Saturday, Dec. 18, 2010, the Senate repealed the 17 year-old Clinton-era policy known as ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ by a count of 65 to 31. This is a […]
Earlier today, the Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen announced the results of the Pentagon’s Comprehensive Working Group Review of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”. The 10-month study led by US Army General Carter Ham and DOD General Counsel Jeh C. Johnson concluded that the repeal of the […]
Most news about West Point, my alma mater, makes me exceedingly proud. While the news about West Point being ranked #4 this year in Forbes list of top colleges, (down from #1 last year) is reinforcing and encouraging, last Tuesday’s news is not. It makes me sick and angry. Cadet Sergeant Katherine Miller from Findlay, […]
This is the tenth installment in the weekly Honored Role Series. At age eight, Brenda Sue Fulton entered her first American Legion essay contest defining patriotism as the love of country and willingness to stand up for the freedom of other citizens. She won the contest that year and for the next five. (more…)
This is the second installment in the weekly Honored Role Series. As a junior high student in Franklin, Tennessee, Becky Kanis remembers the excitement and awe of fellow parishioners when they learned a young woman from St. Philip’s Catholic Church received an appointment to a service academy. Carol Anderson, a high school senior and St. […]
Lt. Dan Choi and I co-authored an article published in The Daily Beast and Global Grind that gender and orientation are not relevant to the military mission. A soldier is a soldier. Despite a persistent “macho” mythos, it is becoming clear that neither gender nor sexual orientation is directly pertinent to a soldier’s ability to […]
1st Lt. Dan Choi, 2002 West Point graduate, Arabic linguist and Iraq War veteran, is being fired from the United States Army for publicly announcing that he is gay. In the Army equivalent of a pink slip received by postal mail on 23 April 2009, Choi was informed of his firing because of what he […]