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Dan Choi vows to fight until repeal is official

Just one day before the US Senate repealed the US military’s controversial “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (DADT) policy, a gay rights activist and ex-US Army soldier who played an integral part in the fight against DADT was admitted to hospital.

Lieutenant Dan Choi was taken into hospital and diagnosed with combat post-traumatic stress disorder Dec 17, one day before US Senate voted 18-13 to end the policy that has allowed gay men and lesbians to serve their country, but only if they remain quiet about their sexual orientation.

Choi is best known for publically opposing DADT after receiving a discharge letter from the US military for coming out publically on the Rachel Maddow Show in March 2009. Last November, Choi handcuffed himself to the fence of the White House during a protest against DADT.

The former US infantry officer says his hospitalization is a result of the pain he felt while coming out combined with the trauma he experienced while on duty in Iraq. “I was suicidal and I finally dealt with it. I finally said that it got to be too much,” said Choi in an interview with dot429.com. “I am medicated,” Choi told the website. “I am on a medication to help me sleep and to deal with my anxiety attacks…. I have a recurring nightmare of Iraqi men with no hands and no heads asking me to help them out.”

On the day the US Senate voted to repeal DADT, Choi led a celebration via his Twitter account. “Today we stand taller declaring: ‘I am somebody,’” he wrote. Though he considers himself a grassroots activist in the fight against DADT, he says he has no plans to be at the White House when the repeal bill is signed. “I prefer not to be there at this point. It is not out of bitterness; it is really out of my soldier’s instinct. To seek recognition and fame is counter to the ideals of service,” Choi told dot429, noting that he would probably not be invited to attend anyways.

Choi graduated from the prestigious West Point Military Academy in 2003 and actively fought in the Iraq war from 2006 to 2007. In 2009, after receiving a discharge letter for publically coming out, the solider caused a stir for sending a scathing open letter to US President Barack Obama and the US Congress. In it, he described his discharge as a “slap in the face to me. It is a slap in the face to my soldiers, peers and leaders who have demonstrated that an infantry unit can be professional enough to accept diversity, to accept capable leaders, to accept skilled soldiers.”

Despite his activist efforts, which included a petition signed by almost 162,000 people, Choi was officially discharged from the US military in June 2010. He re-enlisted in October 2010 after a US federal judge ordered the Department of Defense to stop enforcing DADT.

"My role has changed a lot and it has confused a lot of people… my activism has turned into something of being a lightning rod for the attention to DADT nationally and internationally. I saw myself and my role as a media whore," Choi told dot429. "I would like to be seen as somebody who made enough trouble and agitated enough that people could not ignore the situation anymore.  That would be the feather in my cap."

Though the DADT repeal does not apply to trans soldiers, the landmark action is still being viewed as a major step in the fight for equality. DADT’s regulations are still in effect as the repeal is official once it is certified by President Obama and approved by the Pentagon, a process that reportedly could take months. "If this certification drags, I have no problem starting a Supreme Court case. I intend to go on the Federal level and augment the other cases,” Choi told dot429.

“We cannot let up on the pressure.”