Focus On The Rainbow Returns

Dear Friends,

Much has happened this year since March and not all for the better I'm afraid.

In March as some may know and remember I was in a car accident in which I severely injured my right hip and leg which took two surgeries the second of which involved a hip replacement. Then in August I suffered a heart attack due to a blood clot.

In regards to the heart attack as many have pointed out including my doctors, what made the difference between my being here and going to the great beyond was dialing 911, having EMTs coming to the house and getting to the hospital as quickly as I did.

But to be very honest all of this had taken a great toll on me, both physically, medically and psychologically. To the point that while on yet another medical leave during September because of the heart attack and while suffering from brief bouts of depression (from all the anesthesia during the surgeries, angioplasty and then my unknowing future post-heart attack) I did something I have come to regret when I deleted the popular blog Focus On The Rainbow at Wordpress.com .

Adding to the above has been, and as a writer and former journalist something almost intolerable, my losing some of my ability to concentrate when writing including but not limited to using and putting words into sense making writing, misspellings and having my writing and thoughts interrupted when my mind goes completely blank thus losing my train of thought. Frustrating is too simplistic a word to describe how I have felt these past months when at one time I was posting once a day, sometimes more, every day for the better part of two years when publishing Focus On The Rainbow, first at Hearst Newspapers, then a website called OutLoudBlogs and then as a stand alone. And with frustration came the lack of desire to continue writing and publishing a blog.

But as with all things, time helps to heal and even though I'm still having some of the aforementioned problems I am finding the desire to write again and circumvent my "handicap".

So it is I have decided to give it another go. While posting may not occur daily as I was once capable to crank out and even though some issues have been settled in regards to the LGBT community, there is still more news and people to focus on in our community and the rainbow world at large.

I hope you will again join me as a reader on this new version of Focus On The Rainbow as I put a spotlight and focus oft with commentary on all things LGBT.

Sincerely,

Lyndon Evans
Publisher

Remembering Cpl Andrew Wilfahrt

The posting below was originally written on an earlier version of Focus On The Rainbow.

As we celebrate and remember those who have served and died for our country this posting is even more timely as we can now remember those who thanks to the fall of DADT are able to serve openly in regards to their sexual orientation.

As we remember Corporal Andrew Wilfahrt who died on February 27, 2011 and his sacrifice for his Country, let him be a representative to all those in the military who have given the ultimate sacrifice and in particular remember those who for decades and even centuries had to hide their true selves so they could serve us and our Nation.

No One Cared He Was Gay Except The Pentagon - A Soldier's Memoriam

There were days I hated being a reporter or news/sportscaster as that was when I had to report on tragedy or death. All these many years later I have come full circle because today I hate my vocation as a journalist blogger.

I could have ignored this story, wrote something more palatable to ones senses or not posted at all today. But that would have been the easy way and going against the mission of this blog to focus on one person, issue or event in the Rainbow a day at a time. Back then I would report such stories often with a damp eye. Today will be no different as I write this except you won’t hear my voice crack as I once spoke into a microphone.

It was a week ago today in the Kandahar province of Afghanistan that Cpl. Andrew Wilfahrt age 31 was killed during an attack on his unit by insurgents with an IED. Wilfahrt was from Rosemount, Minnesota and this past Friday Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton ordered all flags be lowered to half-staff to honor the state’s fallen son. A celebration of Cpl. Wilfahrt’s life was celebrated Friday at the Ft. Snelling Officers’ Club. He was a proud member of the 3rd platoon 552nd MP Battalion U.S. Army serving on patrol at the time of his death. But there is more to this story.

Up until the time some two years ago when Wilfahrt decided to enlist he was an out and proud gay man. But with finding himself in the quandary of wanting to serve his Country and the policy of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, he decided for the sake of pursuing his wish to join the Army he would go back into the closet so he could protect the Constitution and all of us the American citizens. That is quite an irony. Protect the Constitution and a Nation which at best holds him as second class person and a military ready to kick him out.

In a radio inteview the other day his mother Lori Wilfahrt spoke to reporter Cathy Wurzer of Minnesota Public Radio (you can hear the interview and read it here) and when Wurzer asked her if she was concerned about her son being gay and in the military she replied, "It did a lot. I think it concerned him as well. He spent a lot of time thinking about it and he came to terms with it. He knew he would have to go back in the closet, that he would have to keep that to himself.

And he did, for at least part of his stay in the Army. But when I talked to him (or when he wrote maybe) when he was in Afghanistan, he said nobody cares. He said, ‘Everybody knows, nobody cares.’ He said, ‘Even the really conservative, religious types, they didn’t care either."

Nobody cared that Cpl. Andrew Wilfahrt was gay.

Not the enemy, not his fellow soliders, only the Pentagon. Rest In Peace Corporal.

It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather we should thank God that such men lived. – George S. Patton