Word: matlovich
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With a chestful of ribbons (Bronze Star, Purple Heart, Commendation Medal from three tours in Viet Nam) and Airman's Performance Reports studded with ratings of "absolutely superior," Leonard Matlovich, 31, is the very model of a modern technical sergeant. He is also a professed practicing homosexual. As such, he has become a celebrity in the armed forces, which every year drums out hundreds of homosexuals on grounds that they "seriously impair discipline, good order, morale and security." Tall and redhaired, Matlovich has become, in the words of American Civil Liberties Union Lawyer David Addlestone, "a beautiful case...
Long Odyssey. He is doing just that. In March, Matlovich, a race-relations instructor at Virginia's Langley Air Force Base, wrote his commanding officer: "I have arrived at the conclusion that my sexual preferences are homosexual, as opposed to heterosexual." The Air Force began moving to give Matlovich a general-less than honorable -discharge. But Matlovich has fought the customary procedures by demanding that a three-officer board review his case, and says that he will take his fight to the Supreme Court if necessary...
...Matlovich's act was the culmination of a long personal odyssey. The son of a career Air Force sergeant, Matlovich grew up on military bases in such places as Charleston, S.C., Alaska and Guam. In 1963, after graduating from high school in England, he joined the Air Force. "I knew I was homosexual then," he says. "I had been since I was in the seventh grade...