Army Lieutenant, Westpoint grad, Arabic translator, Tustin native and gay activist Dan Choi received notice
that he's been honorably discharged from the Army National Guard under
“Don't Ask Don't Tell.”
The Iraq war veteran, who came out more than a year ago on MSNBC's The Rachel
Maddow Show, called the Army's decision “infuriating and
painful.”
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The Orange County Register has the scoop.
The Departments of the Army and Air Force issued a memo stating Choi's admission of being gay violates Army regulations.
That prompted a statement on Twitter from Choi:
“From the first moment we put
on our nation's uniform and swore our solemn oath, we committed
ourselves to fight for freedom and justice; to defend our constitution
and put the needs of others before our own. This is not an oath that I
intend to abandon. Doing so at such a time, or remaining silent when
our family and community members are fired or punished for who they
truly are would be an unequivocal moral dereliction that tarnishes the
honor of the uniform and insults the meaning of America.“Our fight is just beginning.”
Choi had been training monthly with his National Guard unit in upstate New York for a potential deployment to Afghanistan, the Register reports.
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.