Source: 365gay.com
Author(s): 365gay.com Newscenter Staff
Date: January 8, 2007
(Washington) As the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network and other LGBT groups fight for repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell", the ban on gays serving openly in the military, the armed forces are frantic to attract people.
One method being used to bolster troops is re-upping - getting officers who have served and left the military to reenlist.
The Army recently sent out more than 5,100 letters to former servicemembers urging them to return to active duty.
But, 75 of the letters were sent to soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan and another 200 to servicemembers wounded in the war.
The mistake has left the military red-faced.
"Army personnel officials are contacting those officers' families now to personally apologize for erroneously sending the letters," the Army said in a statement.
According to the army the names and addresses were electronically compiled and the error was not caught in a vetting process.
More than 3,000 members of the US military have died in Iraq since the war began.
Yet while it searches for more troops, especially with mounting speculation that President Bush this week will call for an additional 20,000 troops to be sent to Iraq, the Pentagon says it is opposed to repealing the gay ban.
A study conducted last year for the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network concluded that the U.S. military could attract as many as 41,000 new recruits if gays and lesbians in the military were able to be open about their sexual orientation.
Since the ban on gays serving openly was implemented a decade ago more than 11,000 men and women have been dismissed under "Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell" according to the Government Accountability Office.
Rep. Marty Meehan (D-Mass.) has pledged to reintroduce legislation to repeal "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." early in the new session of Congress.
Meehan said that 112 Members of Congress from both parties have signed on to co-sponsor the bill, called the Military Readiness Enhancement Act.
A Zogby poll taken in October that showed three-out-of-four members of the military who are serving in Iraq or recently returned home don't care if someone in their unit is gay.
The poll, taken for the Michael D. Palm Center at the University of California, Santa Barbara, also found that nearly one in four U.S. troops say they know for sure that someone in their unit is gay or lesbian, and of those 59% said they learned about the person's sexual orientation directly from the individual.
Last week General John Shalikashvili, who served as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the Clinton Administration called for repeal of DADT in an op-ed article in Tuesday's New York Times.
Two days later Clinton's Secretary of Defense, William Cohen, called for an end to the ban.