News
and Commentary
LGBT
Veterans Memorial Service
Congressional Cemetery
Washington DC
November 11th, 2008 |
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The fifth annual
Veterans Day Memorial Service was held at the
Congressional Cemetery in Washington, D.C. on November
11. Sponsored by the Arlington Gay and Lesbian
Alliance, and led every year by retired Navy Medical
Officer and Vietnam Veteran Capt. Mike Rankin, the
service was covered this year for the first time by
the Washington Post and the Washington Blade.
The service included
singing of the National Anthem, readings by and about
gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender men and women
who died in all our nation’s wars, and laying a
wreath at the gravesite of Sgt. Leonard Matlovich, one
of the first to challenge the military’s exclusion
of GLBT people from the armed forces of the United
States. On Sgt. Matlovich’s grave are these words:
"They gave me a medal for killing two men and a
discharge for loving one."
Airman Tony Smith
spoke about our posthumous honoree, Major Alan Rogers,
the first openly gay casualty of the Iraq war to be
buried in Arlington National Cemetery with full
military honors.
The service
concluded with the sounding of Taps.
©
2008 Gay Military Signal
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