Jeff Howe may have expected to be drummed out of the Army for being gay; after all, he had made a conscious decision to keep his sexual identity secret in order to serve in the military. But he probably didn't expect that blogging would cost him his job.
Howe, who was serving as a specialist with the 4th Battalion, 1st Field Artillery, part of a brigade currently attached to the 3rd Infantry Division in Iraq, says he was kicked out of the service last month in reprisal for posting the photo of a destroyed vehicle on his blog. According to Howe, he was halfway through his second deployment to Iraq when he was informed that he was being separated from the service for violating the military's “don't ask, don't tell” policy, which prohibits servicemen and women from being openly gay.
The reason? According to Howe, investigators unearthed a profile he had posted on a gay-community Web site, Connexion.org, during an investigation of his blog, which he maintained during his deployment to keep friends and family posted on his unit's progress.
Army officials were not able to respond to repeated requests for information on Howe's case. The public-affairs office at Howe's home station of Fort Riley (in Kansas) referred questions to U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), which oversees forces in Iraq. A CENTCOM spokesman, in turn, said, “From a Central Command perspective, that is not something we would own,” and referred questions back to Fort Riley. Further phone calls and e-mails to Fort Stewart, Georgia, the home of the 3rd Infantry Division, yielded no comment, and a public-affairs officer for the division in Baghdad did not respond to an e-mail.
“It's the quintessential Army conundrum,” Howe said in a telephone interview from his home in Illinois. “How much freedom do you allow soldiers without compromising OPSEC?”
Howe was referring to the problem of operational security, which has become a much bigger concern for the military in the age of the Internet. Blogs have become something of a phenomenon during the Iraq War, and the military has struggled to strike a balance between providing troops morale-boosting Internet access and preventing sensitive information from being put online.
Colby Buzzell, a soldier with the 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division Stryker Brigade Combat Team, is perhaps the most famous military blogger. His blog, “My War,” was immensely popular, but Buzzell landed in hot water and had to stop posting first-person diary entries following a supposed violation of operational security. After his return home, Buzzell won a book deal based on his blog.
In Howe's case, the specialist said he cleared all posts with his company commander before putting them online; the purpose of the blog, he said, was to provide upbeat news about his unit.
“I said nothing derogatory in my blog at all about the Army -- it was just a travelogue, basically,” Howe said. “ … There was nothing related to being gay, or anything personal on my blog at all. Just unit stuff, real happy-go-lucky.”
But the trouble began when he posted the photo of a vehicle that had been hit in a rocket attack on Camp Taji. The picture showed a Light Medium Tactical Vehicle -- a 2 and a half ton truck -- parked in what looks like a motor pool. There were no casualties in the incident, but the cab of the vehicle, which belonged to the 3rd Infantry Division's aviation brigade, was demolished.
“It was well within the established norms of what gets reported on the news,” Howe said. “I didn't provide any sorts of grid locations as to where the impact was. There was no way it was an OPSEC violation.”
Howe said that a few days later, however, he said he was told by his commander to take down the blog. According to his commanding officer, Howe was being investigated for providing aid and comfort to the enemy by posting pictures of the destroyed vehicle.
On July 4, Howe said he was summoned to the chaplain's office and informed me that he was being separated for being gay. During the course of the investigation, he was told, someone found the profile he had posted on Connexion.org. He was given 24 hours to pack, and left Iraq about 10 days later after his paperwork was processed.
Howe received an honorable discharge after his return. Deb Skidmore, deputy public-affairs officer at Fort Riley, where the 4-1 Field Artillery is stationed, confirmed that Howe returned from theater on July 22 and left the Army on July 28, but was not able to provide details on Howe's separation. She referred further inquiries on the case to CENTCOM.
“All actions were done in-country, so we had nothing to do with those,” she said.
Howe said he had made a conscious decision to stay closeted in order to enlist, post-September 11, at the age of 30. Ironically, he was due to leave the Army in November 2004, but was “stop-lossed” (involuntarily retained) before his unit rotated back to Iraq.
“I had my papers in my hand to get out, and starting to out-process,” he said. “And I was told, ‘The Army cannot live without you, Jeff Howe.'”
Nathan Hodge, a Spring 2004 Pew International Journalism Fellow, is a Washington-based military-affairs reporter. His work has appeared in the Financial Times, on Slate, and in a number of U.S. and U.K. defense journals.
