After DADT's Demise

I was intending to drive out to the sole USAF Recruiting Station in the Denver area later today (14187 E. Exposition Ave., Aurora, CO, 80012) to find out if the repeal of DADT also had provisions for the thousands of us who were separated before DADT took effect in 1993. But I figured I'd use the Air Force's website to find out as much as I could before making the drive.

When I input all of my personal information and submitted it, the Air Force computer declined my attempted application:

"09/22/2011

To: Gregory Sanchez

While we are excited to see that you are considering a career in the United States Air Force, based on the information you have provided, you are not eligible for the following reason:

You are over the age criteria for the program you selected."

They also have an effective chat function which I then utilized. "Dale" told me that I was not eligible for the Prior Service alternative because it has been over six years since I last served. Heck, DADT alone ate up approximately 18 years.

Obviously, these two responses were quite discouraging. After waiting 32 years for the military to allow gays to serve openly, now I am told I cannot reapply. When I was a missile combat crew commander at Minot, and an instructor of English at the Air Force Academy, I didn't need to be in the kind of shape I was in then. However, I have continued to stay in shape for the past 32 years, and I am in at least as good a shape as I have ever been in my life, and likely in better shape than many currently serving in the Air Force. If I had been allowed to take a physical, and had I not passed that physical for any number of valid reasons, I would not have an effective complaint. Had I been discharged under DADT in 1993, regardless of my age, instead of under a different system in 1979, I would be able to reapply.

There may be some out there who were discharged in 1992, just before DADT came into effect; but they will also not be able, under this repeal, to reapply. They are in the same situation as I, sadly.

As I said, if we were allowed to apply anyway, and take the required physicals, then we would at least have been treated fairly, given all that we lost in past and can now never get back.

This feels very much like it must have felt for the freed slaves to be told that, yes, after so many years in abject captivity, they are free but are not entitled to the forty acres and a mule compensation they felt they were promised when they were finally free.

Freedom without the means to directly benefit from that new freedom rings just a bit hollow for those of us who are not allowed to return to serving our country as we were once able to.

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