“It would be easy to pay the $2500 bill and be swiftly done with this diseased chapter of my life,” he wrote. “…But my obligation is to take a stand… I refuse to pay your claim.”

Choi’s DADT bill (click to enlarge)

The U.S. Military spent roughly $200 million on Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell since its implementation nearly two decades ago, recruiting, training, investigating and replacing gay service members. If Choi’s bill is any indication, the government has been, in effect, heaping on bureaucratic injury to insult by demanding discharged gay soldiers help foot the bill the whole time.

“By flagrantly and repeatedly violating an immoral law, I have flagrantly and repeatedly saluted the honor of America’s promise,” Choi wrote in his “screw you” letter to the White House. “At West Point, when we recited the Cadet Prayer we reminded ourselves ‘always to choose the harder right over the easier wrong.’”

Now that Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell has been repealed, will Choi and all of the other discharged gay soldiers still be forced to pay? Or will the government be made to pay reparations to the gay soldiers it discharged under the policy and whom it apparently billed for the pleasure?

Choi’s letter:

Dear Mr. President:

Today I received a $2,500 bill from your Defense Department Finance and Debt Services. Specifically, you claim payment for “the unearned portion” of my Army contract. Six months after my discharge under the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy I have tried to move forward with my life, and I was inspired by your clarion calls for our progress as one nation towards a more just society. I have served my country in combat and I have tried to live my life by the values I learned at West Point in continued service to our nation. To move forward in my own life I have finally sought treatment for Combat Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), Military Sexual Trauma (MST), Insomnia, and Depressive Disorder from the Veterans Affairs Department. But I still find myself on a domestic battlefield for basic dignity as an American citizen. I know I am not alone in this fight because of the desperate cries for help I get from discharged, unemployed, discriminated, and suicidal veterans. I have felt all of their same pains personally. Today I also witness the disgrace of a country that perpetually discovers methods to punish its own citizens for taking a moral stand.

By flagrantly and repeatedly violating an immoral law, I have flagrantly and repeatedly saluted the honor of America’s promise. At West Point, when we recited the Cadet Prayer we reminded ourselves “always to choose the harder right over the easier wrong.” It would be easy to pay the $2500 bill and be swiftly done with this diseased chapter of my life, where I sinfully deceived and tolerated self-hatred under Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. Many thousands have wrestled with their responsibilities and expedient solutions when confronted with issues of this magnitude. I understand you also wrestle with issues of our equality. But I choose to cease wrestling, to cease the excuses, to cease the philosophical grandstanding and ethical gymnastics of political expediency in the face of moral duty. My obligations to take a stand, knowing all the continued consequences of my violations, are clear.

I refuse to pay your claim.

Respectfully,
Dan Choi
Former Army First Lieutenant
West Point Class of 2003

Attached:
DFAS Account Statement 12/20/2010 (2 pages)

Hat tip to Pam.

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From Newsweek:

“I got a call about five minutes ago, and my commander said he wanted me to hear it directly from him. He was very supportive and said, ‘I know this was something you didn’t want to hear.’ I said to him, ‘Thank you for your leadership.’ He’s been nothing but supportive of me throughout this whole journey.” Choi says his commander told him it was clear that “change was in the air,” and inquired as to his personal well-being. “He’s always been kind enough to ask me how I was doing, whenever we had calls or legal proceedings to go over.” Choi says he was told he had received an honorable discharge [...] and was awaiting the arrival of official documents shortly. “This doesn’t change the foundation of what I’m doing. A piece of paper doesn’t define my worth or honor, and we have a lot more work to do.” He spoke to NEWSWEEK by phone from Las Vegas, where he was recently arrested in a DADT protest action.

Choi had been fighting efforts to discharge him since last year, after he came out on national television and became a leading critic of the policy. “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” has been the armed forces’ guiding policy for dealing with openly gay members of the military since 1993. In March, Choi criticized Defense Secretary Robert Gates for only relaxing enforcement of the policy rather than unilaterally ceasing enforcement. Earlier that month, he got himself arrested after chaining himself to a White House fence during a protest of the policy.

Efforts to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” continue to move through Congress and the military. The Pentagon is currently conducting a study into a possible repeal’s effects. A report on that study is supposed to be presented to President Obama and military officials by Dec. 1.

Update: The Gay City News actually reported Choi’s discharge on Tuesday, although Newsweek somewhat dubiously claimed the exclusive today.

Later update: Newsweek, having learned of the Gay City News scoop, has admirably taken down the “exclusive” label.

In the same statement, Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) said the policy was now “somewhat more humane” but urged Gates to go further and simply “suspend discharges based solely on sexual orientation” until a Pentagon-ordered study of how to repeal the ban is complete. Sen. Roland Burris (D-Ill.) was more sanguine in the statement, calling Gates’ move “a major shift in thinking, and tangible progress toward the elimination of this discriminatory policy.” Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) added that the group “won’t rest until ‘Don’t Ask Don’t Tell’ is repealed.”

In the House, a man who wants to join them, Rep. Joe Sestak (D-Pa.) — a Senate hopeful and retired three-star admiral — said in a separate statement that while he was encouraged by Gates’ revisions,

“it is my firm conviction that these new procedures do not go far enough.  If unfortunately we are to spend a year studying the impact of repeal, our military and troops cannot be left in limbo throughout this process. President Obama should sign an executive order — relying on the same ‘stop-loss’ authority used to extend tours of duty — to halt all dismissals under this policy.”

For Choi, the issue comes down to integrity. “What’s inhumane about ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ is the fact that soldiers have to lie,” he said. “It’s the only federal policy that enforces shame, particularly because these are soldiers willing to risk their lives to protect America.” The measure of the Obama administration’s seriousness to repeal, Choi argued, is its unwillingness to place a provision repealing it in the Defense Authorization Bill and daring senators to filibuster the Pentagon’s funding vehicle.

“What will pave the way for full repeal is a recognition and cognizance on the part of the administration,” Choi said, “that the fundamental reason to get rid of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ is that it sacrifices, violates and compromises the integrity of all soldiers, not just gay soldiers.”

Choi was arrested after leading a protest to the gates of the White House last week to pressure President Obama to live up to his pledge of ending “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” this year. At a Human Rights Campaign dinner last fall, Obama encouraged equal-rights activists to “continue to pressure leaders — including me,” and Choi said he took Obama’s words “as an order.”

Across town, Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) held yet another hearing on “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” this one featuring the accounts of two young officers who, like Choi, were forced out of the military for their sexual orientation despite their sterling military records. Levin commented:

Cases like these make it clear to me why we should repeal this discriminatory policy.  I did not find the arguments used to justify Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell convincing when it took effect in 1993, and they are less so now, as made evident by the experiences of Mr. Almy and Ms. Kopfstein.  What matters is a willingness and ability to perform the mission – not an individual’s sexual orientation.

1LT Choi has NOT been ordered back to active duty. It would be difficult to order him “back” to active duty, being that he serves in the New York National Guard, not on active duty, unless he had been mobilized.  What has happened is that, with the support of his command, 1LT Choi drilled with his National Guard unit this past weekend for training on critical infantry tasks with his Soldiers.

My mistake; I assumed from the original Advocate story that his Guard unit had been activated. I should have checked with the New York National Guard. My apologies for this post. Still, there’s a Don’t Ask Don’t Tell lesson here. Richard points out the implications of a published photograph of a uniformed Lt. Choi in his bunk:

Here is a photo of 1LT Choi living in an open bay, not being beaten up by his comrades, not uncontrollably attempting to have sex with men, and not threatening good order and discipline (strange, since repeal opponents told me that such things would happen invariably)

Update: Zack Roth and Rachel Slajda at TPM reports out the backstory.

And so one of the things we’re looking at is is there flexibility in how we apply this law in terms of — well, let me give you an example. Do we need to be driven when the information, to take action on somebody if we get that information from somebody who may have vengeance in mind or blackmail or somebody who has been jilted….

In other words, if somebody is outed by a third party, we have to — does that force us to take an action? And I don’t know the answer to that and I don’t want to pretend to. But 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.

But doesn’t this kind of absurdity — we may have to discharge a soldier who’s being blackmailed — just argue for expediting the process of overturning “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”? Gates acknowledged that the law is “very prescriptive.” Doesn’t that just mean it’s time to get out of the straightjacket and let everyone who wants to serve in the military serve?

Something else that happened yesterday: Army Lt. Dan Choi, who is openly gay, lost his first battle with a military administrative board to contest his discharge. Choi’s West Point classmate is an Army veteran of Iraq named Anthony Woods, who’s also openly gay and is running for Undersecretary of State Ellen Tauscher’s congressional seat in California. Woods released this statement:

Today’s decision only highlights the fact that the “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell Policy” is undermining the strength of our military and the security of our nation.

Having served two combat tours in Iraq and brought all 81 of my soldiers home alive before being discharged under the policy last year, I understand what Lt. Choi is going through all too well.

Since 1993, the careers of tens of thousands of soldiers have ended prematurely because of “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” — at a cost of more than $400 million to taxpayers, the safety of combat soldiers deprived of experienced leaders and specialists, and the readiness of a force already stretched thin by two wars and repeated, extended deployments. More than 70% of Americans support its repeal because Americans understand that in a time of war, America’s security is far more important than political expediency.

That seems like the most humane way to deal with “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”