Army dismisses gay Arabic linguist (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060728/ap_on_re_us/gays_military_4)

JOHNSON CITY, Tenn. - A decorated sergeant and Arabic language specialist was dismissed from the U.S. Army under the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy, though he says he never told his superiors he was gay and his accuser was never identified.

Bleu Copas, 30, told The Associated Press he is gay, but said he was "outed" by a stream of anonymous e-mails to his superiors in the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, N.C.

"I knew the policy going in," Copas said in an interview on the campus of East Tennessee State University, where he is pursuing a master's degree in counseling and working as a student adviser. "I knew it was going to be difficult."

An eight-month Army investigation culminated in Copas' honorable discharge on Jan. 30 — less than four years after he enlisted, he said, out of a post-Sept. 11 sense of duty to his country.

Copas now carries the discharge papers, which mention his awards and citations, so he can document his military service for prospective employers. But the papers also give the reason for his dismissal.

He plans to appeal to the Army Board for Correction of Military Records.

The "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy, established in 1993, prohibits the military from inquiring about the sex lives of service members, but requires discharges of those who openly acknowledge being gay.

The policy is becoming "a very effective weapon of vengeance in the armed forces" said Steve Ralls, a spokesman for the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, a Washington-based watchdog organization that counseled Copas and is working to repeal "Don't Ask, Don't Tell."

Copas said he was never open about his sexuality in the military and suspects his accuser was someone he mistakenly befriended and apparently slighted.

More than 11,000 service members have been dismissed under the policy, including 726 last year — an 11 percent jump from 2004 and the first increase since 2001.

That's less than a half-percent of the more than 2 million soldiers, sailors and Marines dismissed for all reasons since 1993, according to the General Accountability Office.

But the GAO also noted that nearly 800 dismissed gay or lesbian service members had critical abilities, including 300 with important language skills. Fifty-five were proficient in Arabic, including Copas, a graduate of the Defense Language Institute in California.

Discharging and replacing them has cost the
Pentagon nearly $369 million, according to the Center for the Study of Sexual Minorities in the Military at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Lt. Col. James Zellmer, Copas' commanding officer in the 313th military intelligence battalion, told the AP that "the evidence clearly indicated that Sgt. Copas had engaged in homosexual acts."

Full story... (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060728/ap_on_re_us/gays_military_4)

:rofl: So ****in' stupid.

Eight-month Army investigation to find "evidence clearly indicat[ing] that Sgt. Copas had engaged in homosexual acts." :rofl:

General society accepts it.They're just being backwards

Guess the wonderful bill clinton shouldn't have done that whole "don't ask don't tell" thing huh?

Guess the wonderful bill clinton shouldn't have done that whole "don't ask don't tell" thing huh?
It's more tolerant than the previous policies that existed.
When the government is in dire need of Arabic speakers, it really makes no sense to fire one because of sexual orientation. Morality trumps reality with these people every time somehow.

Guess the wonderful bill clinton shouldn't have done that whole "don't ask don't tell" thing huh?- What's funny is that I've never seen anyone here post anything indicating that they're big fans of Clinton.

Who on earth are you talking to?

No,Fenian is right-this is all about Clinton's decision...

Well, prior to Clinton they were kicking homosexuals out of the military left and right. Clinton just tried to give the homosexuals a way to stay in the military, as long as they stayed quiet about it.
I'm not sure if it really helped anything, but I do think Clinton's policy showed more tolerance than the previously existing regulations on the matter.

Dismissing him makes perfect sense. A five-year veteran, let's assume he is an officer, probably a Captain (O3 for you Navy types). That puts his salary around 28k a year, and costs the armed forces probably in the neighborhood of 45k a year in salary and benefits.
Now, we the taxpayers get to spend about 240k - 300K a year on an Arab speaker with a security clearance on a no-bid contract from KBR. That's 195K of goodwill towards a company that will invest about 10-15% of that into getting GOP candidates elected.

There is a problem having homosexuals in the military and I have absolutely no idea how to solve it. I don't think it is worth going into in this thread because the ball we should keep our eye on is the use of policies to enrich contractors over improving the skillsets of servicemen to continue a failed political process.

ACK! moderator please remove duplicates!

From what I understood when I was in, it wasn't persued if a someone was percieved to be a homosexual. You could go to gay bars and nobody could touch you unless said gay bar was a designated off-limit zone. However action was taken if the person made a statement that they were a homosexual or the person engaged in homosexual acts. Basicly, you could go to a gay bar, but you better not get caught kissing anyone in there of the same sex. A lot of the time the policy was referred to as "don't ask, don't tell, don't persue"

From what I understood when I was in, it wasn't persued if a someone was percieved to be a homosexual. You could go to gay bars and nobody could touch you unless said gay bar was a designated off-limit zone. However action was taken if the person made a statement that they were a homosexual or the person engaged in homosexual acts. Basicly, you could go to a gay bar, but you better not get caught kissing anyone in there of the same sex. A lot of the time the policy was referred to as "don't ask, don't tell, don't persue"

My nephew is in the Marines, and graduated from Paris Island last fall. He told me that during a particularly tough drill another guy said

"Sir, I can't do this anymore!"

so of course the drill instrcutor went "Well why the hell not" (Although I'm sure it was quite a bit rougher than that)

and he said "Because I'm a homosexual, sir!"

and then he got sent to a "attitude adjusment" class. he said he never saw the guy for the rest of camp after that.

Probably not even gay. The weak spirited ones do that all the time to get out.

Probably not even gay. The weak spirited ones do that all the time to get out.

What he said.

Probably not even gay. The weak spirited ones do that all the time to get out.

I figured that much, i just like the idea of attitude adjustment class

I figured that much, i just like the idea of attitude adjustment class

We had an axe handle down in the 'gun park' that a Master Sergeant once brought up to us and said "who can identify this?" Someone said "axe handle" (you'd think Marines would learn, but they don't) and after appropriate punishment and chastising the Master Sergeant revealed the nomenclature to be an "M-58 Attitude Allignment Device".

You'd be amazed how many people become conscientious objectors in boot camp.

- What's funny is that I've never seen anyone here post anything indicating that they're big fans of Clinton.

Who on earth are you talking to?

I am talking about the policy that forced this guy out of the corps.

Barring homos from the military or any other thing is effing stupid.

Especially when they have skills that are so vital to national security.

We had an axe handle down in the 'gun park' that a Master Sergeant once brought up to us and said "who can identify this?" Someone said "axe handle" (you'd think Marines would learn, but they don't) and after appropriate punishment and chastising the Master Sergeant revealed the nomenclature to be an "M-58 Attitude Allignment Device".

You'd be amazed how many people become conscientious objectors in boot camp.

I liked that scene in "Jarhead" where Jake Gylenhall went "I got lost on the way to college sir!"

I imagine getting his head slammed into the wall was the least of his worries after that.

I am talking about the policy that forced this guy out of the corps.

Barring homos from the military or any other thing is effing stupid.

Especially when they have skills that are so vital to national security.

Prior to Clinton you were required to disclose, if you refused to answer you were denied enlistment or court-martialed (if you were already in), if you lied and were caught later you were court-martialed for fraud in your enlistment form. either way you were jailed then tossed. Now you are just tossed and usually honorably.

Let's do a quick refreshment on history.

When Clinton was elected one of the many things he promised was getting rid of the "no homosexuals" in the Army Albatross. As soon as he took the oath pressure was applied on him to "live up to his promise." He did not want his first agenda to have to be the gay issue. How does it look to have a new president fighting over a "minor" divisive issue? So he caved into pressure from both sides and an unwillingness to take a stand over it resulted in the "don't tell" policy.

This was not Clinton's desired policy. He had promised to end the discrimination. A combination of aggressive gay and hostile military pressure made the issue an early litmus test on his presidency. Being for gay rights was way down on his agenda, and his crew wanted to deal with it slowly and diplomatically, but with the pressure they decided to get rid of it.

Gays in the military is not a problem! Homophobia is!

He was a pol-he should have worked it out...

You know what I don't get???


We have soldiers serving multiple tours in Iraq, we have soldiers being stop lossed, yet we're still booting soldiers out for being gay???!!! Sorry, IMO it's a load of crap :not:

You know what I don't get???


We have soldiers serving multiple tours in Iraq, we have soldiers being stop lossed, yet we're still booting soldiers out for being gay???!!! Sorry, IMO it's a load of crap :not:

You me and Fenian agree-ain't that a trip?!

Prior to Clinton you were required to disclose, if you refused to answer you were denied enlistment or court-martialed (if you were already in), if you lied and were caught later you were court-martialed for fraud in your enlistment form. either way you were jailed then tossed. Now you are just tossed and usually honorably.

Geez!

So what?

Injustice anywhere is injustice everywhere.

I am talking about the policy that forced this guy out of the corps.

Barring homos from the military or any other thing is effing stupid.

Especially when they have skills that are so vital to national security.- hup, well, I guess I have excuses for not being as knowledgeable about US politics in the past :p

Of course we agree

Geez!

So what?

Injustice anywhere is injustice everywhere.

Well. You said it was Clinton's fault. Clinton actually improved the situation. Now you are saying Clinton didn't do enough for gay rights so it was Clinton's fault. The policy needs to be looked at and worked with. Clinton tried to do something better, before him this guy would have been jailed. I think that's an improvement.
and you know what, a country that is so gay-phobic as to have voted us into this mess in Iraq doesn't deserve this guy working for them. This is the realisation of the politics that the Republican party represents. don't get outraged, this is how you voted.

The country might or might not deserve him but he's out of a job-he has to suffer-Clinton should have risen to the task-He was no better than Bush-he made a bunch of money for the techies and perved with an intern-that's all he had to show..

The country might or might not deserve him but he's out of a job-he has to suffer-Clinton should have risen to the task-He was no better than Bush-he made a bunch of money for the techies and perved with an intern-that's all he had to show..

He came closer to a permanent peace deal between Israel and Palestine than anyone before him. He gave us 8 years of peace and prosperity. He was better than Bush in about 6000 ways, but the only ones that count are this:
the number of dead US citizens and soldiers under his command and whether or not you had more buying power, more job stability, were healthier, and were more secure and more free. That's it. The rest is bickering, finger pointing, and nonsense. Are those things more true today than in 1999. When you are captain, you don't get to blame the iceberg you hit on the guy that was running the ship last year.

Clinton had a lot of things to his advantage.Bush hit an iceberg that Clinton didnt hit. I think Clinton's the smarter man and I AM a liberal-but I see he made a lot of money for a lot of people and did very little to redress the grievous wrongs sewn into the system by the GOP. The welfare system still sick-still a lot of racism still a lot of class antagonism-he was supposed to be a good guy...
as to his efforts in the ME-He talked to Arafat who was a contemptible malcontent-he bullied Israel into talking to him-it wasnt heroic and it meant nothing...

Clinton had a lot of things to his advantage.Bush hit an iceberg that Clinton didnt hit. I think Clinton's the smarter man and I AM a liberal-but I see he made a lot of money for a lot of people and did very little to redress the grievous wrongs sewn into the system by the GOP. The welfare system still sick-still a lot of racism still a lot of class antagonism-he was supposed to be a good guy...
as to his efforts in the ME-He talked to Arafat who was a contemptible malcontent-he bullied Israel into talking to him-it wasnt heroic and it meant nothing...

If you ever want the tribes to stop killing each other, you have to bully them a little without antagonising or attackinging them. it's a tightrope, but the only way to peace there. The tribes hate each other, and would happily exterminate the others because they think the others are out to exterminate them. Neither one sees it as genocide, they both see it as self-defense. And standing up to Israel and making them play like adults is heroic in this day and age.
Clinton did amazing things overseas. We all thought he was a complete jackass at the time with limited engagements, deploy small tactical forces all over the damned planet only to pull out again. But in hindsight he used the military like a scalpel, he could often accomplish with diplomacy and two platoons what could not have been done with 12 regiments on the ground. He got the budget on track despite congress being run by borrow-and-spend republicans. He was actually a lot more republican than Bush, probably why I grew to like him.
And all this while stymied by inteligence groups and military groups that served the 'Party' instead of the nation or President. Clinton did good. History will treat him well if we don't abandon education completely in the next 10 years.

The country might or might not deserve him but he's out of a job-he has to suffer-Clinton should have risen to the task-

If it hadn't been for Clinton he never would have had a job in the first place!
"Don't ask, don't tell," is, agreed, a stupid policy, and marginally better than the first one, but let's not blame it on a President who made a political compromise. Blame it on a system that wouldn't change, and would have fought tooth and nail to fight change that was shoved down it's throat! All politicians have to compromise on issues, and fighting for one that affected a few thousand people was deemed political suicide.

You know what, this is stupidly off topic now.

This guy has a security clearance and speaks Arabic, trust me there is work out there for him paying 5-10 times what he made in the Army.

just a side note, clinton's 8 years were not peaceful.

just a side note, clinton's 8 years were not peaceful.

Who was the last President besides the current one to have had a US serviceman die for every day he was in office? Clinton's 8 years were peaceful by our standards of soldiers engaged in conflict overseas. He didn't bring world peace, not that a red-state-partyman would think even that was noteworthy.

Well. You said it was Clinton's fault. Clinton actually improved the situation. Now you are saying Clinton didn't do enough for gay rights so it was Clinton's fault. The policy needs to be looked at and worked with. Clinton tried to do something better, before him this guy would have been jailed. I think that's an improvement.
and you know what, a country that is so gay-phobic as to have voted us into this mess in Iraq doesn't deserve this guy working for them. This is the realisation of the politics that the Republican party represents. don't get outraged, this is how you voted.

Look if you want to hang off Clinton's nutsack that is fine with me.

Who was the last President besides the current one to have had a US serviceman die for every day he was in office? Clinton's 8 years were peaceful by our standards of soldiers engaged in conflict overseas. He didn't bring world peace, not that a red-state-partyman would think even that was noteworthy.so i guess somalia, bosnia, and haiti were just figments of my imagination?

so i guess somalia, bosnia, and haiti were just figments of my imagination?

Somalia was a limited deployment and actually an extraction of a failed deployment from a previous administration. The final action in Somalia was actually done in defiance of White House orders, but Clinton decided to play that down because he had to work with these guys for 4 more years.

Bosnia was my biggest issue during both his administration and my tour of duty. I never understood why we weren't on the ground in great numbers there, given this was pretty much the birthplace of two world wars. Clinton wanted this policing to be done under the UN umbrella, though. And largely it was.

Our presence in Haiti was limited, our mission specific, and our extraction expedient. This was like Grenada, it is the kind of expeditionary effort that allows the military to be an extension of diplomacy.

Don't stop there though, we had two dozen attacks on terrorist groups, we bombed Iraq and destroyed their weapons-making capacity.. the military was used, the world had its conflicts. The US was not directly involved in any wars. The body count of US soldiers killed in action was extremely small. Despite this, hawks gave Clinton nothing but grief for being too limited in scale in his engagements and the media accused him of making up wars as a distraction.

One per day of his administration, last president... who was it? I'm pretty sure he was also a Texan.

Look if you want to hang off Clinton's nutsack that is fine with me.
Look if you want to use up your final warning on such a post that is fine with me. Time you cool your heels for a while.

Somalia was a limited deployment and actually an extraction of a failed deployment from a previous administration. The final action in Somalia was actually done in defiance of White House orders, but Clinton decided to play that down because he had to work with these guys for 4 more years.

Bosnia was my biggest issue during both his administration and my tour of duty. I never understood why we weren't on the ground in great numbers there, given this was pretty much the birthplace of two world wars. Clinton wanted this policing to be done under the UN umbrella, though. And largely it was.

Our presence in Haiti was limited, our mission specific, and our extraction expedient. This was like Grenada, it is the kind of expeditionary effort that allows the military to be an extension of diplomacy.

Don't stop there though, we had two dozen attacks on terrorist groups, we bombed Iraq and destroyed their weapons-making capacity.. the military was used, the world had its conflicts. The US was not directly involved in any wars. The body count of US soldiers killed in action was extremely small. Despite this, hawks gave Clinton nothing but grief for being too limited in scale in his engagements and the media accused him of making up wars as a distraction.

One per day of his administration, last president... who was it? I'm pretty sure he was also a Texan.
so, how could you possible suggest that clinton's years were peaceful? or is your contention that unless ameicans are dying, it doesn't count as a conflict?

so, how could you possible suggest that clinton's years were peaceful? or is your contention that unless ameicans are dying, it doesn't count as a conflict?

My contention is that they were peaceful for Americans. How many times did you put your flag at half-mast or hang yellow ribbons? How many troops did we send on long fighting deployments, how many did we lose? Compare and contrast with other administrations. It was peaceful.

An Arabic fudge pusher booted out of the Army! Oh no, the sky is falling. I'll alert
Amnesty, somebody call Kofi!

Don't ask don't tell should be policy in private business as well.