Sunday, March 06, 2011

No One Cared He Was Gay Except The Pentagon - A Soldier's Memoriam

In light of the bullshit taking place at the Naval Nuclear Power Training Command near Charleston, South Carolina, a post done by my friend Lyndon Evans - one of the first LGBT bloggers I got to know when I started this blog nearly four years ago - is all the more poignant. It honors a gay soldier killed in Afghanistan. It also shows the toxic evil of allowing personal religious based bigotry to hold sway in the U. S. military such as is apparently the case of Capt. Thomas W. Bailey pictured in my prior post. Lyndon's post (which has been cross posted by Pam Spaulding as well) looks at the sacrifice made by Cpl. Andrew Wilfahrt age 31 (pictured at right). Here is Lyndon's post from Focus on the Rainbow in its entirety (the bold faced emphasis is mine):
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There were days I hated being a reporter or news/sportscaster as that was when I had to report on tragedy or death. All these many years later I have come full circle because today I hate my vocation as a journalist blogger.
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I could have ignored this story, wrote something more palatable to ones senses or not posted at all today. But that would have been the easy way and going against the mission of this blog to focus on one person, issue or event in the Rainbow a day at a time.
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Back then I would report such stories often with a damp eye. Today will be no different as I write this except you won’t hear my voice crack as I once spoke into a microphone.
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It was a week ago today in the Kandahar province of Afghanistan that Cpl. Andrew Wilfahrt age 31 was killed during an attack on his unit by insurgents with an IED. Wilfahrt was from Rosemount, Minnesota and this past Friday Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton ordered that yesterday all flags be lowered to half-staff to honor the state’s fallen son. A celebration of Cpl. Wilfahrt’s life was celebrated Friday at the Ft. Snelling Officers’ Club. He was a proud member of the 3rd platoon 552nd MP Battalion U.S. Army serving on patrol at the time of his death. But there is more to this story.
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Up until the time some two years ago when Wilfahrt decided to enlist he was an out and proud gay man. But with finding himself in the quandary of wanting to serve his Country and the policy of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell,
he decided for the sake of pursuing his wish to join the Army he would go back into the closet so he could protect the Constitution and all of us the American citizens. That is quite an irony. Protect the Constitution and a Nation which at best holds him as second class person and a military ready to kick him out.
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In a radio inteview the other day his mother Lori Wilfahrt spoke to reporter Cathy Wurzer of Minnesota Public Radio (you can hear the interview and read it
here) and when Wurzer asked her if she was concerned about her son being gay and in the military she replied, It did a lot. I think it concerned him as well. He spent a lot of time thinking about it and he came to terms with it. He knew he would have to go back in the closet, that he would have to keep that to himself. And he did, for at least part of his stay in the Army. But when I talked to him (or when he wrote maybe) when he was in Afghanistan, he said nobody cares. He said, ‘Everybody knows, nobody cares.’ He said, ‘Even the really conservative, religious types, they didn’t care either.’
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Nobody cared that Cpl. Andrew Wilfahrt was gay. Not the enemy, not his fellow soliders, only the Pentagon. Rest In Peace Corporal.
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It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather we should thank God that such men lived. – General George S. Patton.

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2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thank you for noticing.
Jeff Wilfahrt, Andrew's father. I have posted a comment at Lyndon's blog. I implore you to read it.
Respectfully and sincerely,
Jeff

Michael-in-Norfolk said...

The following is the comment that Jeff left on Lyndon's blog post:

Lyndon,

I am Jeff Wilfahrt, Andrew’s father. I cannot express my gratitude to you for your post.

Last Wednesday, the morning after my family’s return from Dover, DE. dignified transfer, I wrote the Twin Cities Gay Men Chorus requesting them to sing all attendees, including some pretty big military brass and the governor of MN, to sing us to and from our cars.

They have their reasons for declining, revealed or unrevealed, but I think the gay community of MN missed one hell of an opportunity to add great beauty to a most solemn of all events. Andrew’s sexuality is best remembered by his sister Martha’s remark, “of all Andrew’s qualities, being gay was the least interesting”.

We have three wonderful children, Andrew as our oldest had the terrible job that falls to all eldest children, he had to raise the parents. In many ways he was really lucky, to his mother and I it was never an issue, at least he didn’t have to fight the identity battle within the walls of his own home.

On behalf of the four us who remain, we are with you, we are vocal (see MPR interview), and we embrace the mosaic of lives there are in this world.

Respectfully and Sincerely,

Jeff

Jeff, my heart goes out to you and your family for your loss. Thank you for honoring me by taking the time to read my blog.