Board: oust outed officer

SYRACUSE — A military administrative board recommended Tuesday that a National Guard officer and former Fort Drum soldier who publicly announced he's gay should be discharged for violating the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy.

Lt. Dan Choi would be the first New York National Guard member discharged for violating the policy against homosexual conduct, said Lt. Col. Paul Fanning, a spokesman for the New York Army National Guard.

Choi, 28, served at Fort Drum from May 2003 until May 2008. While at Fort Drum, he deployed to Iraq from August 2006 to November 2007 with the 2nd Brigade Combat Team — the only 10th Mountain Division brigade to be deployed during that time.

He joined the New York Army National Guard in June 2008 after leaving active-duty service. He now is stationed with the 1st Battalion, 69th Infantry Regiment, 27th Brigade Combat Team in New York City.

Choi appeared in Syracuse before a Federal Recognition Board, a panel of four military officers, which deliberated four hours before deciding to recommend the Army no longer recognize him as an officer. In essence, that amounts to a discharge, Fanning said.

Choi's hearing was in Syracuse because it's the headquarters of the 27th Brigade Combat Team, which overseas Choi's National Guard unit.

A combat veteran, Choi said it amounted to firing him "for nothing more than telling the truth about who I am."

"I'm a leader. A setback is an opportunity to keep fighting, and I'm going to do that through my actions," said Choi, who on Sunday was a celebrity grand marshal in San Francisco's Gay Pride Parade.

The recommendation must be approved by the First Army commander and the chief of the National Guard Bureau before Choi is discharged, a process that could take anywhere from a few weeks to a year, said Maj. Roy Diehl, who represented Choi. Until then, Choi remains an active member of the National Guard, he said.

"It's a recommendation, not a completed act," Diehl said, adding he hoped military commanders would reconsider Choi's value as a soldier.

Choi likely will receive an honorable or a general discharge and could lose some of his veteran educational benefits, Diehl said.

"They are taking effective troops ... and kicking them out, removing them from the force just as effectively as if al-Qaida was blowing them up," said Diehl, who claimed the military is more tolerant of drug abusers, malcontents and adulterers.

Also on Tuesday, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said he wants to make the law prohibiting gays from serving openly in the armed forces "more humane" until Congress eventually repeals it. He said he has lawyers studying ways the law might be selectively enforced.

The Pentagon general counsel is looking at potential avenues around full enforcement as a stopgap, Gates said.

For example, Gates said, the military might not have to expel someone whose sexual orientation was revealed by a third party out of vindictiveness or suspect motives. That would include, Gates said, someone who was "jilted" by the gay service member.

"That's the kind of thing we're looking at to see if there's at least a more humane way to apply the law until the law gets changed," Gates said, according to a transcript released by the Pentagon.

Choi, a 2003 West Point graduate, outed himself in March in the Army Times newspaper and on a nationally broadcast MSNBC show to protest the military's policy, which he said forces soldiers to lie.

"It's an immoral code that goes against every single thing we were ever taught at West Point with our honor code," Choi said at the time.

The "don't ask, don't tell" policy was put in place in 1993 by former President Bill Clinton. About 10,500 military personnel were discharged for violating the policy between 1997 and last year, the Department of Defense said.

President Barack Obama has pledged to work to end the policy, but he has made no specific move to do so since taking office in January. The White House has said it won't stop the military from dismissing gays who admit their sexuality.

Earlier this month, the U.S. Supreme Court turned down a challenge to the Pentagon policy forbidding gays and lesbians from serving openly in the military. The court refused to hear an appeal from former Army Capt. James Pietrangelo II, who was dismissed under the military's policy while in the Vermont National Guard in 2004.

Fanning, the New York Army National Guard spokesman, said the law is the law.

"The military has no choice but to follow it," Fanning said. "We don't pick and choose what regulations to enforce."

The Watertown Daily Times contributed to this report.