Dan Choi

The same day, the confirmation went public.

A man by the name of Dan Choi, an Iraq War veteran and Arabic linguist discharged under the old policy just months earlier, walked into a recruiting station in Times Square in New York City and asked to re-enlist.

He told recruiters plainly that he was gay and intended to serve openly.

the recruiters processed his paperwork.

You know, it reminds me, and this is going to seem like an aside, but I'll connect it back.

Years ago, maybe... before the issue of marriage equality and before You know the end of don't ask don't tell policies in the military There was a really high-profile Cadet I believe at West Point named Dan Choi and he was this young man who came out of the closet while at West Point and there were some other cadets who came out I think Katie Miller was one of them and they became very high-profile people right and And so they did a lot of speaking engagements and all this kind of stuff.

And there was an article about Dan Choi about like how he was really kind of suffering with the stress of being such a public figure.

And then there was these questions about people getting upset with him because he wanted to charge speaking fees.

And someone did a profile of like, you know, kind of him really struggling.