Posted on 07/27/2006 7:39:00 AM PDT by SmithL
JOHNSON CITY, Tenn. (AP) - 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 admitted being 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."
While investigators were never able to determine who the accuser was, "in the end, the nature and the volume of the evidence and Sgt. Copas's own sworn statement led me to discharge him," Zellmer said.
Military investigators wrote that Copas "engaged in at least three homosexual relationships, and is dealing with at least two jealous lovers, either of whom could be the anonymous source providing this information."
Shortly after Copas was appointed to the 82nd Airborne's highly visible All-American Chorus last May, the first e-mail came to the chorus director.
"The director brought everyone into the hallway and told us about this e-mail they had just received and blatantly asked, 'Which one of you are gay?'" Copas said.
Copas later complained to the director and his platoon sergeant, saying the questions violated "Don't Ask, Don't Tell."
"They said they would watch it in the future," Copas said. "And they said, even specifically then, 'Well, you are not gay are you?' And I said, 'no.'"
The accuser, who signed his e-mails "John Smith" or "ftbraggman," pressed Copas' superiors to take action against him or "I will inform your entire battalion of the information that I gave you."
On Dec. 2, investigators formally interviewed Copas and asked if he understood the military's policy on homosexuals, if he had any close acquaintances who were gay, and if he was involved in community theater. He answered affirmatively.
But Copas declined to answer when they asked, "Have you ever engaged in homosexual activity or conduct?" He refused to answer 19 of 47 questions before he asked for a lawyer and the interrogation stopped.
Copas said he accepted the honorable discharge to end the ordeal, to avoid lying about his sexuality and risking a perjury charge, and to keep friends from being targeted.
"It is unfair. It is unjust," he said. "Even with the policy we have, it should never have happened."
Actually no its not. Marines think they are all bad ass and so much better then the other services. That is far from the truth. Members of all branches have discipline and stick by their fellow sailors, airman and soldiers. There are bad apples in every branch of service including the Marines. Marines are no better then anyone else in fact sometimes far from it.
If homos want to openly serve, be brave and heroic like the ACLU attorneys and get the nearest black robe judge to declare the UCMJ unconstitutional.
Just because you are against gays and don't support them doesn't mean you are a true conservative and just because I believe everyone who is able and want to should have the right to serve and defend their country doesn't make me a democrat. If that is the case then that means you are with the likes of Fred Phelps. Cause in your opinion he is a true conservative he hates gays. He doesn't think they should be in the military in fact he thinks the military is all pro gay. You to might just get along fine. But you do know he is a registered Democrat and a friend of Al Gore. He even hosted fund raisers for Gore and attended the 92 and 96 inaugurations. But hey you both despise gays so I guess either he is a true conservative by your definition or you are a Democrat like him.
Why did you not respond to post #165?
I think you assume that all gays have HIV. So I assume that if they don't have HIV you'd be okay with gays in the military? By the way there are ways to get HIV+ without being gay. I'd also not object to a HIV+ person interpreting plans to destroy us. We're talking about national security here.
I am pretty sure that faked asvab scores, faked documents showing age, and financial or family irresponsibillity all make up a bigger chunk of that "all reasons" than homosexuality.
But it is unfair that frogs don't have wings. Frogs are kept from their rightfull place in the skies by intollerant hillbillies. They can fly just as good without wings. It is only your unfair biggotry that keeps them down, Dog. Why do you want them to all die? What gives you the right to say they should all be in hell? You hippocrit!!!
Just skipping all the intermediate flame steps /sarc
Well, thanks for the short cut. It certainly clarifies the situation. Nonetheless, frogs still bump their butts.
It enables you to read the holy koran in the original, which...never mind.
Such as people positing that differences in physical appearance are equivalent to differences in behavior.
Making up your own "historical facts" on the fly weakens your arguments. Also denigrating honorable infantrymen and cavalrymen by denying their very existence pisses some of us off.
Semper Fidelis
Heh, heh. You outed him in a heartbeat.
I saw Lawrence of Arabia. They said he went native.
The only nerve you struck was that you never served in the US Military and what you just wrote about serving in a "foxhole" with a gayboy.
So does one need to be a Priest to decide if it's wrong to be a gay Priest lusting after little boys?!?!?!
So, by his actions as a gay man, he is disrupting the regular functioning of his unit (i.e. good order and discipline). He is no different than an officer sleeping with an enlisted man's wife. Both cause undue and extraneous (not related to the functioning of the command) stress within the unit, and should be cashiered pronto. Seems a simple and obvious case.
If anonymous emails accused a soldier of screwing one of the other soldier's wives, and he refused to deny it (because he actually did it), he'd be lucky to get an honorable discharge... in a perfect world...
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