| Topic: |
Politics > Politics-USA |
| User: |
"Harry Hope" |
| Date: |
03 Dec 2003 09:51:08 AM |
| Object: |
Oh those dangerous gay linguists. |
From The Washington Post, 12/3/03:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A29683-2003Dec2.html
The Military Needs Linguists, But It Doesn't Want This One
By Anne Hull
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, December 3, 2003; Page A01
Cathleen Glover was cleaning the pool at the Sri Lankan ambassador's
residence recently when she heard the sound of Arabic drifting through
the trees.
Glover earned $11 an hour working for a pool-maintenance company,
skimming leaves and testing chlorine levels in the backyards of
Washington.
No one knew about her past.
But sometimes the past found her.
Glover recognized the sound instantly.
It was the afternoon call to prayer coming from a mosque on
Massachusetts Avenue.
She held still, picking out familiar words and translating them in her
head.
She learned Arabic at the Defense Language Institute (DLI), the
military's premier language school, in Monterey, Calif.
Her timing as a soldier was fortuitous:
Around her graduation last year, a Government Accounting Office study
reported that the Army faced a critical shortage of linguists needed
to translate intercepts and interrogate suspects in the war on
terrorism.
"I was what the country needed," Glover said.
She was, and she wasn't.
Glover is gay.
She mastered Arabic but couldn't handle living a double life under the
military policy known as "don't ask, don't tell."
After two years in the Army, Glover, 26, voluntarily wrote a statement
acknowledging her homosexuality.
Confronted with a shortage of Arabic interpreters and its policy
banning openly gay service members, the Pentagon had a choice to make.
Which is how former Spec. Glover came to be cleaning pools instead of
sitting in the desert, translating Arabic for the U.S. government.
In the past two years, the Department of Defense has discharged 37
linguists from the Defense Language Institute for being gay.
Like Glover, many studied Arabic.
At a time of heightened need for intelligence specialists, 37
linguists were rendered useless because of their homosexuality.
________________________________________________________
Never mind your steenkin' national security, they're gay and that's
what counts.
Harry
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| User: "Roedy Green" |
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| Title: Re: Oh those dangerous gay linguists. |
10 Dec 2003 04:21:28 AM |
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On Wed, 03 Dec 2003 15:51:08 GMT, Harry Hope <rivrvu@ix.netcom.com>
wrote or quoted :
At a time of heightened need for intelligence specialists, 37
linguists were rendered useless because of their homosexuality.
It is the funniest thing. Americans profess to hate homosexuals, but
they carefully make sure they are never killed in wars by exempting
them from military service, even when they are foolish enough to
enlist.
They treat them with the same loving care that sons of senators and
the super rich get.
--
Canadian Mind Products, Roedy Green.
Coaching, problem solving, economical contract programming.
See http://mindprod.com/jgloss/jgloss.html for The Java Glossary.
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