May 25, 2007  |  By: PHIL LAPADULA  | COMMENTS     

Jason Knight is not the first gay person to serve openly in the U.S. military, but he may be the first to serve openly because of a clerical error or purposeful omission in his service record.

Due to an odd sequence of events, Knight says he was discharged after coming out to his commanding officer in 2005, reactivated, allowed to serve an eight-month tour in Kuwait and then discharged again for being gay.

A Navy spokesperson said this week that Knight completed his four-year enlistment in April 2005 and left the military. She said there was nothing in his record stating that he was discharged for being gay. But Knight insisted that he was told he would be processed out under the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy after coming out.

Knight, who is now 24 and living in San Diego, served in the Navy from April 4, 2001 to April 3, 2005, during his first activation. He spent two years in the ceremonial guard in Washington, D.C., and learned Hebrew at the Defense Language Institute. He then worked as a Hebrew translator at Fort Gordon in Georgia.

According to Knight, the odd turn of events that led him to come out, leave the military and then be reactivated started when he got married in July 2004. As Knight described it, his wedding night became a moment of reckoning.

“I realized on my wedding night that I was making a big mistake,” Knight said. “It was then that it hit me that being gay wasn’t a phase.”

Knight met his wife while both were serving in the ceremonial guard in D.C. The two dated for about a year but never had sex. “We both believed in not having sex before marriage,” Knight said. But even after the wedding, the marriage was not consummated.

“It just didn’t happen,” Knight said.

Annulment led to coming out

Knight and his wife decided to have the marriage annulled. After the annulment was official, Knight was required by Navy policy to inform his commanding officer that his status had changed from married to single. At that time, Knight also decided to tell his commanding officer that he is gay to explain why the marriage was annulled. He said the failed experiment with heterosexual marriage made him realize how important it was for him to be honest with himself and others.

“I thought I was doing the honorable thing by informing my commanders,” Knight said. “I was keeping to the Navy’s core values of honor, courage and commitment. It was liberating when I finally was honest with myself. I figured they would see that I was a good sailor and keep me, but that’s not what happened.”

Knight, who was considering re-enlisting at the time, said he was told that he would have to leave the military because he had violated the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, which prohibits gay soldiers from discussing their sexual orientation in public or revealing it to other service members.

But to Knight’s surprise, his military career was not over. In July 2006, Knight was called back to active duty. “After the initial shock, I realized I really wanted to go,” he said. “I enjoyed my time in the Navy and I felt proud to serve.”

Knight completed an eight-month tour in Kuwait. He worked with a U.S. Customs and border clearance unit that was in charge of inspecting any people, vehicles and equipment leaving Kuwait for the United States.

Served openly in Kuwait

During the Kuwait tour, Knight said he was open about his sexual orientation with co-workers.

“We joked about it,” he said. “It never seemed to be a problem. It was a non-issue.”

At the end of his tour, Knight sent a five-line letter to the editor to Stars & Stripes, a newspaper that serves the military community. The paper’s editors contacted Knight and said they wanted to do a full story on him.

After the story appeared, Knight was discharged under “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”

“They told me that the media attention was a ‘statement of homosexual conduct,’” Knight said.

Lt. Li Cohen, a spokeperson for the Navy, said there was nothing in Knight’s file indicating that he was discharged for being gay before his reactivation in 2006. She said the records show that Knight completed his required time and left the Navy voluntarily.

“His records show that he completed his enlisted time and did not re-enlist,” Cohen said. “That’s why he was allowed to remain in the inactive reserve.”

Cohen said the Navy leadership was not aware of Knight’s sexual orientation until the Stars & ...