SLDN Staff Honors Darren Manzella
As we prepare to celebrate the Fourth of July, we here at SLDN remember that this holiday is more than a celebration of summer and fireworks, but also a tribute to the brave men and women - straight and LGBT alike - who fight to keep America free. We can't help but think of former Army Sergeant and SLDN staffer Darren Manzella, who was forced out of the military under "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." Darren's courage can be seen both in his service to our country and in his appearance on CBS's "60 Minutes" in 2007. During this interview, he came out publicly and told his story of not only serving as a decorated combat medic in Iraq, but also of serving as an openly gay soldier. His statement ultimately lead to his discharge in June 2008. That same month Darren came to work for SLDN, and we finally had the pleasure of working with him. Each time he shared his story of courage with a new group, we could see the impact his words had in changing minds and bringing supporters on board.
Though Darren left SLDN last month to spend the summer with his family in New York while pursuing opportunities in pharmaceutical sales, his story continues to have an impact. The staff here remembers his dedication both to the military and to the repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," especially during this holiday celebrating freedom and service.
07-02-09 By Jessie Garth, Development Assistant and Aaron Tax, Legal Department Co-Director |
2 Comments
Comments for this entry are closed.Michael @ LeonardMatlovich.com on July 02, 2009 at 02.58 pm
BRAVO to Darren and all of those other men and women who have volunteered to fight the ban.
Today marks the 21st anniversary of the remarkable funeral of the first servicemember to do that.
After he passed on June 22, 1975, thousands of usually noisy revelers at the Pride Parade in Los Angeles that Sunday grew briefly silent when they saw a riderless horse being led behind someone carrying an American flag banner that read, “Sgt. Leonard Matlovich. Hero.”
And on July 2nd of that year, after the funeral of the person writer Malcolm Boyd once called “the Charles Lindbergh of the movement,” at which the DC Gay Men’s Chorus sang and ABC’s Charlie Gibson delivered a eulogy, residents of the nation’s capital were both startled and moved as they watched Leonard’s coffin born through the city’s streets on a horse-drawn caisson. Accompanied by an Air Force Honor Guard, followed by mourners carrying both American and rainbow flags, it came to Congressional Cemetery where the year before he’d dedicated a memorial to Navy veteran Harvey Milk, and stopped at the gravesite whose stone read,
“When I was in the military they gave me a medal for killing two men and a discharge for loving one.”
http://www.leonardmatlovich.com/images/831_MAT-COLOR-FUNERAL-w-noise-r.jpg
Three volleys were fired. Taps. And a member of the honor guard gave his mother and Air Force vet father the folded Red, White, & Blue.
34 years ago, after leaving his discharge hearing where he was told that his three tours of duty in Vietnam, his Bronze Star, his Purple Heart, the testimony of straight airmen who said they were eager to work with him again were irrelevant, Leonard held a Kennedy Bicentennial half dollar up to mesmerized reporters.
“It says ‘200 Years of Freedom’. Maybe not in my lifetime but we are going to win in the end.”
With similar courage and sacrifice of men and women like Darren Manzella, one of over 100,000 discharged since WWII, of 13,000 discharged since DADT, of 277 and counting since President Obama was sworn in, hopefully that victory will soon finally arrive.
It can begin with the Commander-in-Chief listening again to his better angels and freezing discharges now with an executive order . . . and with his becoming a “drum major for justice,” leading the way for Congress to fully repeal through a bill that should be named along the lines of the “Leonard Matlovich Freedom to Serve Act.”
When that day happens, I hope the President, joined by Darren and Victor Fehrenbach and Dan Choi and Margaret Witt and Sandy Tsao and Tracy Thorne and Jose Zuniga and Zoe Dunning and Keith Meinhold and countless others who have followed in Leonard’s footsteps, will place a wreath on his grave in appreciation of all he and untold numbers of other gay vets have done.
Dona eis requiem.
Marc Kapou in Portland, OR on July 02, 2009 at 11.43 am
Our country is going to be 233 years old, and we, the LGBT community, are treated as second class citizens despite the fact that we pay our taxes, most of us are law-abiding citizens, and like Army Sargeant Darren Manzella, we love our country. Sargeant Manzella is a patriot, and a pioneer in today’s America, fighting for freedom on behalf of every Americans, most especially us, the LGBT community. We, the LGBT community, are proud of you Dan, and we thank you very, very much in volunteering your time to answer our nation’s call to duty.