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Ah, February may be long gone but a day without “J.D. Smith” sending a Valentine to himself is, apparently, a day without sunshine.  Along with his usual, “I Stretched Forth My Rod and the World Changed ‘Smith’,” we’re privileged to read about the “More Shat Upon Than Thou, ‘Smith’,” It’s easy to be such a narcissist when one is willfully ignorant, as he clearly is, of so much. First, let’s clear up the impression that so many of his kind has that the ban against gays in the military began with DADT. Of course, no, like so many other things before that he thinks couldn’t have existed without him, the formal ban began during WWII and resulted in the discharge of some 100,000 before anyone had heard of DADT. In 1966, the Navy ALONE discharged over 1700—nearly 500 more than ALL the branches discharged in the worst year under DADT. There were almost as many discharged during Reagan’s 8 years as President as during the entire 17 years DADT has been on the books. DADT is certainly evil, too, but gays were typically treated far worse under the original ban. There were “queer stockades,” sometimes just fenced-in areas out in the open where gay troops were mocked en masse by their straight fellow soldiers. There were “mental wards” in military hospitals to which some gays were confined before being discharged. And any of the stories about suicides, murders, and having to hide the grief of losing one’s lover in combat “Smith” speaks of have been documented going back to at least WWII in books such as Allan Berube’s “Coming Out Under Fire” and Randy Shilt’s “Conduct Unbecoming.” Mr. “Smith” makes the mistake many self-adoring would-be authors do—he’s failed to read any books before he decided to write one.

If he had, another thing he would have learned is that FAR from having personally created “The First” that he keeps patting himself on the back about here, underground networks of gays in the services also date at least to WWII. And if they’d had the Internet then, instead of only letters, rare phone calls, and mimeographed newsletters passed hand-to-hand, their networks would have been just as big as the one “Smith” brags about. Unless he’s also claiming to have invented the Internet and Facebook, I think we can move on.

As for his “magazine,” its beauty is only skin deep, for its content is pockmarked with seriously damaging factual errors [e.g., NO, access to military family housing for gay couples is NOT banned by DOMA], as well as the self-inflicted wounds of applauding rather than protesting the months of needless “training” used by Pentagon bigots to delay repeal as long as possible, and, worse, a refusal to demand that the Pentagon reverse their announced post repeal policy of denying gay and lesbian service members equal access not just to those partner benefits not banned by DOMA but also the protections against harassment and discrimination IN the military, for instance, in performance evaluations, duty assignments, and promotions.

Finally, we come to Mr. “Smith’s” refusal to come out even now under a Circuit Court order banning any discharges and actual repeal being mere weeks away. Not only has this self-proclaimed “leader” “led” from the shadows, but upon the shoulders of gay service members like Leonard Matlovich, Skip Keith, Debbie Watson & Barbara Randolph, Perry Watkins, Miriam Ben-Shalom, Keith Meinhold, Tracy Thorne-Begland, Zoe Dunning, Justin Elzie, Robert Heigl, Kenneth Osborn, Steven Spencer, Richard von Wohld, Werner Zehr, Sandy Tsao, Dan Choi, Katie Miller, among others, who put their careers on the line to fight the ban over the decades while “Mr. Smith” continues to play the odds in his favor past the very last second.

Cowardice is not new, but we’re astonished to learn that there is at least an accusation that he’s gay already in his Air Force files. He fails to explain how he escaped discharge. He could have lied his way out of it, or simply been given a pass by a superior who liked him. But here he is, folks: free to strut his ego, his exaggerated claims to contributing to the end of the ban, and to start counting whatever pieces of silver his book will earn him. His scare might explain how thick his closet door is, but NOTHING justifies his still hiding behind it.