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    YouTube: Airman tells dad he is gay as ‘don’t ask’ policy disappears

    The military's ban on openly gay service officially ended at midnight, and already one member of the Air Force has shared a video of his personal journey out of the closet.

    A 21-year-old servicemember who had been keeping an anonymous vlog about his quest to come out to his girlfriend, family, and comrades posted a video of his call to his father this morning to tell him he is gay. His father pauses before saying, "I still love you son. Doesn't change our relationship."

    You can watch Randy Phillips talk to his dad below in this ABC Good Morning America segment.

    Soldiers past and present have shared their experiences serving under the now-defunct policy in a new book called "Our Time: Breaking the Silence of 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell.'" The book is edited by 1st Lt. Josh Seefried, who organized a group of 4,000 closeted servicemembers called "OutServe" to anonymously advocate for repeal. He shed his pseudonym for the first time today in a New York Times profile.

    A second lieutenant in the Marines writes in the book about how a fellow officer, who knew he was gay, saved him from an awkward encounter in a bar. His fellow Marines were pressuring him to hit on a woman at the bar, when his friend, Adam, intervened. "As more and more of our friends started calling me out, I felt myself reaching a point that felt something like panic," he writes. Adam deflected the attention by going to talk to the woman himself. "It's difficult to describe how happy I felt to have made a friend like that."

    Jonathan Cagle, a combat medic in the Army National Guard, remembered how painful it was to come home after a deployment in Afghanistan and not be able to embrace his boyfriend. "My boyfriend just had to stand there, a family friend, and politely shake my hand," he writes.

    "Coming home from deployment can be a horrible time for a gay soldier," writes Kenneth Sprague, who has been deployed with the Army twice. "While everyone else has friends, family, loved ones there to greet them, your circle of gay or lesbian friends can't really attend, can't run up and hug you and give you a kiss and tell you how much they love you and missed you and are so glad you came home safe. You're so paranoid, you don't even want them there, to make sure nothing slips."

    The parents of Army Corporal Andrew Wilfahrt, who was killed in action earlier this year, shared how supportive their son's unit was. "People in his unit knew that he was gay, the wives knew, the girlfriends knew--people knew, nobody cared," his mother, Lori said. "He proved himself first that he was a hard worker and he was a loyal friend, and he was going to take care of them when he could and when he needed to. The other part just didn't matter." His father added, "Being gay was the least interesting thing about him."

    You can watch the original video below, sensitive readers be warned that Phillips uses a small amount of profanity toward the end.

     
     
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    10,510 comments

    • V  •  4 mths ago
      too bad for "Roquanda" the basis of it's morality, the bible, is such a plagiarized piece of fiction. all the Abrahamic religions are false founded on baseless Hebrew lies. their god? a pagan polytheistic poser who buried his wife Asherah out back in the garden of eden for the mantle of monotheism. their stories? written circa 600 BCE during the Babylonian Exile and falsely attributed to one "Moses" (Sargon of Akkad) ...as well as most of the stories themselves being rip offs of Babylonian, Sumerian and Egyptian writings and mythology, like the "Instruction of Amenemope" ... liars, murderers and thieves.
    • angela  •  5 mths ago
      Well it was nice to chat with most of you. But im busy with college so im done arguing over nothing now. Merry Christmas. Have a fun and safe holiday(: May we meet in another topic one day.
      • Stephen 5 mths ago
        Merry Christmas, Angela. My final exams are next week, so I'm betting yours are coming up soon as well, in which case good luck.
      • angela 5 mths ago
        Good luck to you as well.
      • Stephen 5 mths ago
        Thanks
    • angela  •  5 mths ago
      Roquanada, What topic do you mean? The article topic? Cause i know you haven't posted one thing related to it. Since the day it was posted you have had nothing even related to it. You keep posting the same thing over and over- How no one else is on topic. I pray you get some kindness in your heart and stop with all the name calling. Even though i know you're going to say something like I don't worship who you do, which is true, i don't worship satan. And now you'll probably complain about that i made a comment, spell some of my words weird, put words i didn't say, and call me some names. But it's fine, i really don't mind, you mean nothing to me.(:
    • Roquanda  •  5 mths ago
      Poor, dumb, lazy, immoral stephen writes "no one ever taught you to read...". Hmmm. My advanced degrees, awards and success speak differently. You, on the other hand, were doubly proved wrong. I read your pathetic, weak, whinefest, understood it perfectly and am responding...which you say I don't! Secondly by the clear evidence of my life and achievement, which you cannot even APPROACH. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA YOU LOSER!. The more stupid, degenerate liars (that's you, dummy) talk, the more they reveal the depths of their problems. Yours are unfathomable, really...
      • Stephen 5 mths ago
        What degrees and successes would those be? Based on the incredible number of times you have lied on this article, why should I believe you now? Where and how was I proven (correct spelling) wrong? Where is this, "whinefest," of which you speak? What evidence is there of your achievement, and how can I trust that it is reliable? Where have I shown myself to be a stupid, degenerate liar? What problems have I shown myself to have? Keep in mind that I am asking for specific answers here, not your usual shouting of, "I dun shown yer dum cuz yer dum!"
      • Stephen 5 mths ago
        And, for the record, if you're going to quote someone, you may want to quote them correctly (don't change what they said and still say the new version is what they said).
    • Stephen  •  Conway, United States  •  5 mths ago
      I'll ask again, Roquanda. Do you feel like proving anything (literally anything at all) that you've posted, posting anything other than an immature attack on the other posters, or even just posting something to do with your views on homosexuals serving openly in the armed forces (you know, the topic of this article)?
    • angela  •  5 mths ago
      Once again, Roquanda has posted the same kind of trash she has been posting, over and over, etc. Nothing original just the same "yer dim-wited. Nuthin iz on topic. Yer all dum!" See i can do that too. If you want to argue with us, come up with something original, stop putting words on comments that i never even said. You really do have something messed up if you want to yell at people for over 2 months. God bless you and merry Christmas. You can't fight with someone who doesn't want to admit to themselves how wrong they are.
      • Roquanda 5 mths ago
        Angela: read your post. YOU have no on-topic posts. Mine are all on topic. You simply took many, many lines to whine "yer dumm". The spelling is an affectation to pt out your simpleton nature, and lazy stupidity. I have posted FACTS supporting my views on homosexuality. Jerk is the ONLY one to even TRY to respond factually/rationally, and he failed miserably. Repeating propaganda does not make one erudite...just the opposite. You are stupid and lazy. It is your choice. Just like the rest of your degenerate "values" and actions.

        Homosexuality is NOTHING but an incorrect assignment of sexual feelings, not unlike bestiality or necrophilia. As homosexuality becomes more "accepted" by the lazy, immoral, uneducated masses (who also accept corrupt pols, inflation of 10% per year, schools that don't teach and police who don't police), so will the other degeneracies...it MUST follow. It will have the SAME, PATHETIC, IMMORAL argument: "who are you to judge if a man can have sex with a chicken? He was born that way! You should have a man-chicken-sex-pride parade!". Scumbags, one and all. As more people descend into degenerate behavior, or at least are afraid (cowards) to speak out, the Republic falls further and further into economic and social chaos. It is INEVITABLE. The message of social leftism is "do not restrain yourself and achieve a state of being higher than that of the basest animals! Whatever I want right now should be given to me, or I will take it w/o regard for others. "Good" is me getting what I want, when I want. Someone else needs to be responsible for your behavior. No one must judge anything (except us). We are for "rights" (which means behavior we want to see...all else must be suppressed.)".

        There is NO historical basis for the claims of leftists declaring "rights". They simply demand nonsense and vile behavior be accepted. NOT ON MY WATCH, SCUMBAGS. BACK IN THE CLOSET. Keep your sex and cursing out of public. Schools need to teach academics, not sexuality and social deviance. Found your own country. I will sadly watch as you devour yourselves and descend into FILTH.
      • Stephen 5 mths ago
        Read her post, Roquanda. She merely did the same thing you've been doing for the past two months. You've proven time and agin only that you are incapable of conversing at an adult level.
    • Jack  •  5 mths ago
      Whether you are unable or unwillinging to actually reason, debate, and discuss the topic and the posts made on the comment section, you've shown you have almost no interest in actual communication with the other posters here, Roquanda.

      You are constantly, whether intentionally or not, misunderstanding and/or distorting what others are saying in your crusade against homosexuality and homosexuals. You are constantly resorting to ad hominem attacks, and when you do post about homosexuals or homosexuality you tend to stick with slippery slope and strawman fallacies. When faced with truths about others, out of their mouths, you claim they are lying and you really know better than they do about themselves; your delusions of grandeur and omnipotoence are tired and old.

      You will most likely respond to this post by stating I'm simply opining and have no facts to support my post, when a simple browsing of the comment section here shows this post is factual and true. So do what you do best, continue with your ranting and raving, voicing your opinion as fact and claiming your lies are truth, it will make no difference. You are a voice of the minority, fighting the shifting sands of time. Paradigms shift, times change, prejudices die... I know you're just fighting to preserve your paradigm of hate and discrimination from failing, like a caged animal fighting for survival. It will be OK, Roquanda.

      Despite your lies to the contrary, I do not wish harm nor ill will upon you. I sincerely hope that, one day, you will come to terms with whatever happened to you that has left you with so much hate and anger and can live at peace with yourself and others.

      However, here, on this board, I'm done with you. I wash my hands of your ignorance and hate, because, frankly, it appears you wish to remain ignorant and hateful.

      So I bid you an "adieu" and a "Merry Christmas," Roquanda.
      • Roquanda 5 mths ago
        Sorry, jerk, but again, you prove yourself a liar and an anti-intellectual. I have written EXTENSIVELY on my positions, as they relate to this article and the topics included. You, on the other hand, repeat propaganda you saw, then post 10-1 with content of "you are stupid...you are irrational....", without being able to back it up. YOU are irrational. I have taken your comments, piece by piece, and shown them to be witless fraud, like this last. When will you grow up? When will you EVER become a man? Never, most likely. If you put the energy you use in attacking those who do not accept degeneracy into an education, you'd be a scholar in short order. Nah. You'll witlessly opinion "you're wrong because there are a bunch of people here who agree with me.". Congratulations. You are a flat-earther. You HATE those who disagree with you...it is part and parcel of your degenerate nature. You've CHOSEN it. Choose something different.
      • Stephen 5 mths ago
        Where are the posts of which you speak? Quote them here, if they exist.
    • Roquanda  •  5 mths ago
      Stephen, why spam me with your nonsense? All of your posts are EXACTLY the same: you make unsupported, anti-Roq comments. That's it. "ewe dii'nt proove nething an yer dumm" is not on-topic or even vaguely intelligent. That is the sum total of your being, BY CHOICE. I posted a long missive explaining fact, fiction, and opinion, as you dolts CLEARLY do not understand the difference. Proving me correct, you whine "nah-ah", denying black and white reality. You are stupid and lazy. A typical leftist. Like Stalin, you are an angry, uneducated simpleton. You are not even interesting. I berate you as warning to others of the wages of lazy stupidity. Grow up, you degenerate #$%$
      • Stephen 5 mths ago
        Where, Roquanda? Where have I supposedly said these things, or shown myself to hold these values? Specifically which posts show me to be the person you say I am? Are you an honest, mature person, or are you not?
    • angela  •  5 mths ago
      Wow! I had the power to that all on my own?! :D Thank you for rambling on about nothing. I have not yelled at any point. I mean, wow, it's like you know all about me or something the way you talk about me. Thanks hunny(;
    • Roquanda  •  5 mths ago
      Jerk: Once again, you OPINE as if fact. You state "I proved you wrong", and yet you haven't. Had you, you would have been able to list what I have posted that you proved FACTUALLY wrong. You can't. You opine, then whine "that's a fact". I wrote a long missive (on topic, relative to the lack of understanding related to the article) on fact, fiction (lies) and opinion. You could neither debunk it, nor are you able to tell the difference amongst the three! HAHAHAHA. You are SO weak, it is pathetic.
    • Roquanda  •  5 mths ago
      Angela: being stupid and unable to understand your native language causes you MANY problems. I have posted MANY on-topic posts, all of them based on fact and classical logic. You don't understand this, because as an uneducated degenerate, you learned only to yell "nah-ah". "You keep posting the same thing over and over...". No, that would be you. For example, I've not typed the above before, but you Have TYPED YOUR MESSAGE OF "you haven't posted anything on-topic" before. This means you are projecting your incompetence and lack of values out at others. EVEN JACK has not disputed my posts are on topic, and he HATES me. He hopes, beyond all hope, that something evil will befall me, and he doesn't even deny it.. You are pathetic, and the cause of the fall of America from moral, educated, 1st world country, to a deeply indebted, stupid, immoral, 2nd world society.
    • Roquanda  •  5 mths ago
      Poor, dumb stephen: he read my treatise, spammed me with "thatz dumm", now denies the post's existence! WOW! A new low. Keep talking stephen, you do all the heavy lifting, dumb guy!
    • Roquanda  •  5 mths ago
      Dopey stephen, the loser who HAS YET TO POST A SINGLE, ON-TOPIC POST AFTER OVER A MONTH, now simply repeats his stupid, weak accusations. I prove something through statements of fact and REAL, CLASSICAL LOGIC, and little baby stevee-pooh whines "nah-ah, yer dumm....geyes bloing eech othur iz awsum an art", then whines "ewe kain't proove nuthin.". How droll.

      Jerk is back, whith more of her "tee-hee you probably (insert stupid, false assertion here)". This is supposed to be "wit" and "genius". It is neither. It is pathetic. Further, you claim "you don't know logic", and yet you have failed, at every single turn, to show where my logic is "fallacious". That is because, as a classically educated adult, I am quite correct. You, on the other hand, are a PS "schooled", indoctrinated/brainwashed, leftist, immoral hack who chants stupidity, DESPERATELY trying to "dress it up" with words like "fallacious", while being unable to back your absurd claims. Once again, you have been BATTERED. When will you just admit you are nothing but an immoral, boy-humping, uneducated dolt? That IS what you are...if there's nothing wrong with it, why deny? Because there IS something wrong with your behavior, you try to hide your shame with bravado and denial. PATHETIC, COWARDLY LOSER!
    • Roquanda  •  5 mths ago
      LOL. I can't make up this kind of "stupid": stephen just replied, yet again, to a post of mine with "yer uh cool-ade drinkur". Typically stupid, lazy, thoughtless vain nonsense from a fellow degenerate of yours...you will yuck it up and "TU" his inane childishness...because you are equally brain dead. NOT....ONE....ORIGINAL....ON-TOPIC....POST. HAHAHAHAHAHA
    • Stephen  •  Conway, United States  •  6 mths ago
      Feel like proving anything yet, Roquanda? How about doing anything other than attacking posters? Better yet, how about a question that's a little more on topic: do you have a legitimate reason to keep homosexuals from serving openly in armed forces?
    • Mary Mary  •  6 mths ago
      I miss Jack.
    • angela  •  6 mths ago
      Roq: "Angela then feels the need to chime in with her typically dim-witted tripe. Dang! I didn't think Angela could comment for over 2 months with absolutely nothing to say. I WAS wrong about something after all!"

      I haven't been posting for 2 months. So you were wrong about that.
      And those are facts.
    • Roquanda  •  6 mths ago
      Sigh: once again, the dummies think they are "educating" when they are making my point for me. Yes, jerk. Polling data will continue to show a growth in pro-homosexual nonsense. Just as I said, clearly, over and over...it is due to attacking children (it's what was learned from the nazis...get them young, you can get them to buy ANYTHING...even that it is "good" to murder millions of people.) in schools and in the media. Schools can't teach kids to read, write or perform simplistic math correctly, but have plenty of time to read "my two mommies" and young children and DEMAND everyone watch al gore lie, just as he was part of the lie of calling theft of SS funds "balancing the budget". You, being stupid, can't be bothered with thinking, as you push your personal, deviant agenda at others. Pathetic. You will panic on your deathbed, I promise you. But then it's far too late. Change now. Hope you do.
    • angela  •  6 mths ago
      Dang, i didn't think this would last for over two months. Looks like someone has issues still.
    • Roquanda  •  6 mths ago
      Once again, jerk wants to cut down the forest so she can see some trees. You have NO experience in evaluating research. What you do is take something that reinforces your degenerate thoughts and say "that's good research". Homosexuality MUST be evaluated first and foremost as biologically incorrect behavior, as it CLEARLY is....like pica. Take pica, say "well, what's the harm in eating sand...other than that that guy's "normal"", then OF COURSE it is "not a mental disorder". You took the actual degeneracy, called it normal for no reason, then declared "problem solved". One can do this for nearly any mental illness. It is ABSURD and Orwellian. Jerk, being a degenerate, it dishonest at a basic level and shouts her mantra "#$%$ iz gud", hoping against hope that someone will agree. The ONLY people who agree, and it is a TINY minority, are other degenerates. Because people are immoral, lazy, stupid cowards today, speaking the truth is a "thought crime". Give them an ANONYMOUS poll, and they are OVERWHELMING in agreement that homosexuality is a degenerate sexual behavior that should be classified as such. OVERWHELMINGLY, not even close. If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck and looks like a duck, jerk demands you call it an eagle. Not here, nancy.
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