08.15.06
Fort Campbell kicked out
Fort Campbell kicked out 49 soldiers under the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy against gays, putting the Kentucky post second on the list for most discharges.
That number grew from 19 in 2004 and represented the single biggest increase in discharges anywhere, according to Defense Department documents shared with the Associated Press by the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network.
It was at Fort Campbell that Pfc. Barry Winchell was bludgeoned to death in 1999 by a fellow soldier who believed Winchell was gay. Gay discharges from the post went up sharply on the heels of that murder, but later subsided.
The Pentagon has said overall there were 726 military members discharged under the policy last year — up 11 percent from the year before — but the Pentagon did not publicly release base-specific information.
The Pentagon policy, which went into effect in 1994 following passage of congressional legislation, prohibits the military from inquiring about the sex lives of service members but requires those who openly acknowledge being gay to be discharged.