Tacoma man says threats at Army base made life 'hell'

Josh Bruder is a former soldier, now openly gay, who was stationed at Joint Base Lewis-McChord.

"I'm glad that it happened," the Tacoma man said Tuesday of a federal judge's injunction against the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy. "But for many cases like myself, it's too late."

Bruder, 28, said he received an involuntary discharge under honorable conditions earlier this year. The official reason, he said, was for "patterns of misconduct": being late to work, not refilling his medications for depression, hooking up his laptop to Internet service in the barracks.

But he said he believes he was discharged because he is gay. He said he never revealed his sexual orientation to others in the military but that he believes someone found out when they saw him with his then-boyfriend, also a soldier.

Bruder said people in his unit used anti-gay slurs and verbally threatened him.

"I felt out of place. I felt inhuman," he said. "I couldn't talk about things that happened at home like everyone else did, and I had to lie about my identity.

"I joined the military to fight for what I believed in," Bruder said. "But the way they treated me, I probably lost my patriotism because of it. ... There are people out there who are suffering a lot — people who are hurting because of how they've been treated in the military. It's a disgrace. It's just hell for people like me."