Crooks & Liars: Gaeta/Snell kiss a reminder that 13,686 service members were discharged due to DADT

[Amerigo Vespucci]

[div class="excerpt"[December 21, 2011 09:20 PM
A Military First: Same-Sex Couple Torpedoes DADT

By scarce



http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/scarce/military-first-same-sex-couple-kisses-ships

A reminder that an astonishing 13,686 service members were discharged (http://www.advocate.com/News/Daily_News/2011/03/25/261_DADT_Discharges_in_2010/) due to the stupid and asinine "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy. Hopefully scenes such as this one will become commonplace.

VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. (AP) -- A Navy tradition caught up with the repeal of the U.S. military's "don't ask, don't tell" rule on Wednesday when two women sailors became the first to share the coveted "first kiss" on the dock after one of them returned from 80 days at sea.

Petty Officer 2nd Class Marissa Gaeta of Placerville, Calif., descended from the USS Oak Hill amphibious landing ship and shared a quick kiss with her partner, Petty Officer 3rd Class Citlalic Snell of Los Angeles. The crowd screamed and waved flags around them.

Both women, ages 22 and 23 respectively, are fire controlmen in the Navy. They met at training school and have been dating for two years.

[gateley]

1. Thanks for this. Is there any chance of reinstating those who were dismissed solely due

to being gay? I'd love to see some compensation, but doubt that's feasible as the discharges weren't illegal.

[customerserviceguy]

2. Neither were the internment of innocent Japanese-Americans during WWII

But they eventually got some compensation. I just hope our society doesn't take anywhere near as long to get around to justice for DADT discharged service members.

It wouldn't be a stretch to give them status for a full military pension, presuming they would have continued to have served except for this policy.

[gateley]

3. Sounds reasonable to me. I'm hoping something like that is in the works

now. Thanks.