TONIGHT: Debut Of HBO's DADT Film

This morning I attended a press screening of the above title at HBO's midtown headquarters. Servicemembers Legal Defense Network head Aubrey Sarvis and DADT activists Major Mike Almy and Colonel Victor Fehrenbach joined the filmmakers for a Q&A session after the film, which debuts tonight at midnight. Highly recommended! DADT officially ends tomorrow.

The Strange History Of DADT

Discussing the coming documentary from HBO.

Maddow On DADT Ruling

With Col. Victor Fehrenbach.

USAF Lt. Colonel Victor Fehrenbach To Retire With Full Rank And Pension

Openly gay Lt. Colonel Victor Fehrenbach has been advised that he will be allowed to retire in October with his full rank and pension intact. The Air Force didn't ask and Fehrenbach didn't tell, but he was outed in 2008 by a man he met online. His case highlighted the idiocy of DADT.

"It was a great sense of relief. I didn't expect it," said Fehrenbach, 41, a 1991 University of Notre Dame graduate, in a telephone interview Tuesday from Mountain Home Air Force Base in Idaho. For nearly three years, Fehrenbach has been in a battle to save his career because of the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy — a policy that was overturned in late 2010. With no further explanation, the military in January sent Fehrenbach new orders: Effective Sept. 30, he will be retired from active duty at his current rank and with his pension. He'll serve out the remaining months of his military duty at his current desk job at the base in Idaho.

A highly-decorated F-15 fighter pilot, Fehrenbach flew numerous combat missions in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Kosovo. Upon his retirement this fall, he plans to write a book.

Lt. Col. Victor Fehrenback On DADT Signing

Rachel Maddow's Special DADT Segment

Filmed before a live audience at NYC's 92nd Street Y.

Lt. Col. Victor Fehrenback: John McCain Was The Reason I Joined The Military

Democratic Senators Hold Press DADT Conference: We Will Get This Done

Maddow On DADT: Why Aren't We Holding Off On The Ruination Of Careers?

Last night Rachel Maddow devoted nearly her entire show to the repeal of DADT, interviewing several of its most high-profile victims, including Lt. Colonel Victor Fehrenbach, who has just filed suit to stop his dismissal. Here's how Maddow closed out the show.

Lt. Col. Victor Fehrenbach: I Still Don't Know If I'm Being Kicked Out

Col. Victor Fehrenbach On DADT Hearing

Instinct Magazine's Leading Men Of 2009

Lt. Dan Choi and Col. Victor Fehrenbach take the cover of Instinct Magazine's Leading Men Of 2009 issue. Here's their online teaser for the story.

Most know the basics of Dan’s story: A West Point graduate with a degree in Arabic who served an extended tour in Iraq from 2006-2007, Dan spent 10 years in the military before he was discharged. But Dan is trying to be more than Mr. Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. He envisions gay rights activism—and he takes pains to note that being labeled an “activist” is something he’s only recently become comfortable with—as an “in-the-streets, egalitarian affair. Out of the cocktail parties and knocking on anti-gay congressmen’s doors!” he asserts.

Lieutenant Colonel Victor Fehrenbach is still a member of the United States Air Force, and he would like things to stay that way. But after 18 years of service as a decorated pilot (he’s won nine Air Medals, including one for heroism), Victor’s future in the military is uncertain at best. In May 2009, Victor faced a dilemma. He was being kicked out of the military for admitting to civilian investigators a year earlier that he had had sex with a man. At first he decided to go along with the discharge, but then he had a change of heart. “The military was taking everything away from me, but the one thing I realized they couldn’t take from me is my sense of right and wrong,” he says. So he decided not only to fight the discharge but to go public with his case on The Rachel Maddow Show. With the exception of the few officers handling his case, no one else on his base knew he was being separated from the military for being gay until he was on MSNBC. Chuckling, he says, “It certainly created quite a stir.” A “stir” might be an understatement. At 40, Victor has become one of the most visible faces of the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, while still fighting to retain his career and pension—courage and conviction that make a leading man.

To get the full story, you'll have to pick up the magazine. Somehow your truly is also one of this year's "leading men" - there's no link to my bit available - but below are a couple of paragraphs from the the article. Hopefully I don't sound like too much of a tool.

So Joe turned to his passion for gay activism—a passion that was ignited by the 1993 March on Washington. “I was a 33-year-old disco bunny who went because there were going to be circuit parties,” he says. “It was something to come up that escalator in the Dupont Circle Metro station and see hundreds and hundreds of our brothers and sisters clapping and applauding our arrival. I was crying. It was the most unexpected and transformative moment of my life.” But it is his attention to the facts, with his own brand of humor and commentary thrown into the mix, that has made Joe a reliable and popular source for gay news. “I was reading the New York Daily News the other day and got to page 8 before there was any real news,” he says. “The rest was gossip. I thought that’s pretty parallel to how traffic runs in the blogosphere. The thing with blogging is that you’re not so much a writer as you are a gatekeeper,” he adds. “You look at 300 stories in a day and think, ‘Okay, which 10 are pertinent to the movement? And of those, which ones will the readers find interesting?’”

Lt. Col. Fehrenbach: I Lived By DADT Law And I Still Got Fired

Olbermann: Obama Stonewalling On DADT

Dan Savage appeared on Olbermann last night to say that he found it "shocking" that Obama received "polite applause" at the White House LGBT cocktail party, when everybody in the room knew he could end the discharges immediately if he wanted to.

Lt. Col. Fehrenbach: My Squadron Treats Me The Same Since I Came Out

DADT Rolls On: Time Running Out For Lt. Col. Victor Fehrenbach

Over 200 gay soldiers have been kicked out of the military since Barack Obama took office. And time is running out for Lt. Col. Victor Fehrenbach.

The winner of nine air medals for distinguished service in flight, including one for heroism the night U.S. forces captured Baghdad International Airport in 2003, Fehrenbach is in the process of getting kicked out of the military a year after an acquaintance told his bosses he was gay. He thought he could hang on until the government eliminated the military's policy forcing gays and lesbians to keep their sexual orientation secret, but now he isn't so sure. Obama "was someone who had experienced discrimination firsthand and that's why I had a lot of faith," Fehrenbach said. "I thought, OK I can fight this, and maybe by January Obama could be inaugurated and this won't matter. That hasn't happened."

Fehrenbach says he was never asked, he never told. Somebody else ratted him out. "For 18 years, I played by the rules and I kept my private life private."

What DADT? U.S. Military Uses Openly Lesbian Joan Jett to Promote Fleet Week

I find it more than a little annoying that while the Obama administration continues to kick out highly skilled soldiers like Lt. Dan Choi and Lt. Col. Victor Fehrehbach, the U.S. Navy has NO problem using openly lesbian rocker Joan Jett to promote NYC's Fleet Week.

Over on the website of the Commander Navy Region Mid-Atlantic, you'll find several photos of Jett (whom I adore, by the way) in flight gear and posing for photos with soldiers from several branches. Why, it's almost like they realize that Joan Jett is a lesbian icon and would be a great recruitment tool for young lesbians considering military service.

Rachel Maddow: Another High Ranking DADT Discharge

After 18 years of service, highly-decorated Lt. Colonel Victor Fehrenbach is being discharged for being gay.