Flag draped casket of US military's 1st post-DADT Gay soldier fatality being carried at Dover AFB

[Divine Discontent]

(Photo caption - The body of Andrew Wilfahrt – the first openly gay US soldier to die in combat since Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell was repealed – is returned to Dover Air Force Base, Delaware, in February. Photograph: Jose Luis Magana/AP)

On Sunday, Jeff and Lori Wilfahrt will travel to Hawaii to join other US military families welcoming back the third platoon of the 552nd military police company from Afghanistan. For the Wilfahrts, the unit's return from its deployment near Kandahar will be a sad and poignant occasion.

Their son Andrew Wilfahrt, a member of the unit, was the first openly gay US soldier to die in combat since Barack Obama repealed the military's Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy in December last year. Two months after homosexuals were officially allowed to serve, Wilfahrts was killed when an improvised device exploded under a bridge in Afghanistan.

"Even though we are acclimatised to his absence now," his father Jeff Wilfahrt told the Guardian, "it will still tear our hearts out."

Andrew Wilfahrt's story is an extraordinary one. Despite coming out to his parents at 16 and campaigning for gay rights at his high school, he decided he wanted to join the army when he was 29. He told a friend he wanted to join up so that a soldier with a wife and family would not have to.

More - http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jul/06/family-gay-soldier-andrew-wilfahrt-equality

Also - Army to suspend DADT releases - http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/army-suspend-dadt-discharges-accept-gay-recruits-184811496.html

[Starry Messenger]

1. recommend.

[Solly Mack]

2. k/r

[Dappleganger]

3. What a hero.

:patriot:

[Divine Discontent]

4. true. Salute! when I read his reasons for signing up, I thought how honorable.

[Rhiannon12866]

5. K&R.

This is so incredibly sad. This was an exceptional young man with so much ahead of him... We need to recognize his courage and service. :patriot: ;(

Thanks for posting this and sharing his story... :hi: :hug:

[GoldenOldie]

6. What an incredible sensitive young man.

My grandson has just returned from Afghanistan to a wife, baby girl, and entire tribe of family. He said that he and all of his comrades "could give a shit about the sexual preferences of their comrades and friends." They fought, ate, slept, and played together and in the process became friends. My heart breaks for his family and comrades and you better believe that he will not be forgotten by those that really knew him, and those that fought beside him will carry burning memories forever.

[FreeState]

7. K&R We would be so proud if Minnesota became the first state to reject a law defining marriage in te

"We would be so proud if Minnesota became the first state to reject a law defining marriage in terms of bigotry," added Jeff Wilfahrt on Wednesday night. "It would be a memorial to our son."