A FEW FEWER GOOD MEN

Slain Gay Soldier's Case Slows a General's Rise (THE NEW YORK TIMES, 5/18/03)

The chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee has delayed for the second time a vote on the promotion of an Army general who commanded a base where a gay soldier was beaten to death by a fellow soldier. The delay gives the committee more time to consider the general's responsibility for what happened.

Maj. Gen. Robert T. Clark was commander of Fort Campbell, Ky., in 1999, when Pfc. Barry Winchell, 21, was bludgeoned to death in his barracks at the end of a beer-soaked evening.

The committee had been expected to vote on General Clark's promotion to lieutenant general as early as next week, Senate aides said. Senator John W. Warner, the Virginia Republican who is chairman of the committee, postponed the vote after meeting with Private Winchell's parents. [...]

The Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, a gay rights group that monitors military justice, is leading the effort against General Clark's promotion. The group has been joined by the Democratic National Committee, the Human Rights Campaign, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, the National Organization for Women and People for the American Way.

"Diversity and tolerance should be the pillars that hold this nation together," said Terry McAuliffe, chairman of the Democratic National Committee.

The organizations seeking to block General Clark's promotion contend that Private Winchell's slaying was a hate crime rooted in homophobia, and that the Pentagon's "don't ask, don't tell" policy has left gays and lesbians in the military to suffer in silence or leave. [...]

Other soldiers at Fort Campbell said Private Winchell had been called names and subjected to an inquiry into his private life, although such inquiries are supposed to be forbidden by military policy. Opponents of General Clark's promotion contend that the taunts directed at Private Winchell were part of a culture that the general should not have allowed to develop at the base.

An investigation by the Army's inspector general exonerated all officers, including General Clark, and said no climate of homophobia existed at the base. But the investigation also found that some members of the unit in which the killing took place, a company within the 101st Airborne Division, held antigay attitudes.

In 1999, Calvin Glover of Sulphur, Okla., a private at Fort Campbell, was found guilty of premeditated murder in the case and sentenced to life in prison.

Ever get the feeling that the purpose of reality is to confirm
Tom Wolfe? Posted by Orrin Judd at May 21, 2003 7:55 AM