Word: colonel
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1990-1999
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...drama was set in motion by a seemingly innocuous message, sent to Washington from Mogadishu. Colonel Peck had taken a break from his duties as chief spokesman for the U.S. military forces in Somalia to write the Senate Armed Services Committee with a request to testify in favor of the military ban on gays. When Scott learned of the pending appearance, he feared disaster. During the past year, while studying journalism at the University of Maryland, he had written several articles for a student publication, the Retriever, that, he says, "left no doubt that I was gay." Scott was afraid...
...last week Scott's closet door blew wide open in front of a Senate panel probing the legitimacy of the military ban on gays. For Scott, the feeling was bittersweet as Colonel Peck strove before the committee to reconcile his unwavering love for his homosexual son with his steadfast support of the ban. For the millions of viewers watching the televised hearing, the colonel's poignant struggle humanized a search for a compromise solution that has become shrill and riddled with stereotypes...
...Scott fought on, at one point coming "dangerously close to getting married." Finally, Scott gave up the battle. "A year ago," he says, "I pretty well concluded that I was gay." Like many other homosexuals, Scott hugged that realization close, fearful of what might happen if his father, Marine Colonel Fred Peck, found out. "So many of my friends have lost their families," he says. "That's what I thought was going to happen...
Four days later, the colonel called from his home in San Diego, and the father and son had an emotional two-hour conversation that swept away years of obfuscations and lies. "My dad found no moral problems with my being gay," says Scott. "He believes, as I do, it is a genetic factor, unchangeable, and not a matter for moral condemnation." By the time they hung up, their relationship, which had been shaky ever since Peck and Scott's mother divorced in the 1970s, was stronger than ever before. "I've been dealing with some stereotypes about Marines," Scott admits...
...Serbs of the Doboj bicycle path do not care if the whole world is poised against them. They share the determination of Colonel Lika to grab their destiny or die. "The time of living together is over," he says. "We may be able to live side by side but not together. Never again together...