Availability re: 5th Anniversary of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" Repeal, openly gay Iraq vet, author and journalist Rob Smith available for comment/interview
New York, NY (PRWEB) September 13, 2016 -- September 20 marks the 5th anniversary of the historic repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” which finally allowed lesbian, gay and bisexual servicemembers to be part of the U.S. military in an honest and authentic way. More recently, we saw the lifting of the ban on transgender service.
But we still have a lot of work to do, and Rob Smith, an openly gay Iraq war veteran, journalist, and author of the #1 bestseller and award-winning “Closets, Combat and Coming Out: Coming Of Age As A Gay Man In The "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" Army, brings a unique and substantive voice to the issue and its history and is available for comment and/or willing to contribute a blog post at this historic moment.
Rob served for 5 years in the United States Army as an Infantryman and was deployed to both Kuwait and Iraq, earning the Army Commendation Medal and Combat Infantry Badge in the process. In 2010 he was arrested at the White House with 12 other LGBT activists in protest of the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” law which barred lesbian, gay, and bisexual soldiers from serving openly, and he was later a guest of President Barack Obama at the ceremony that repealed the law.
He has since spoken about veterans’ issues and LGBT rights and empowerment at dozens of college campuses, pride events, and corporate functions across the United States, including Vanderbilt University, Virginia Tech, the Reaching Out LGBT MBA Conference, the 2014 Midwest Bisexual Lesbian Gay Transgender and Allies College Conference and many more.
His book was recognized as the 2015 National Indie Excellence Book Award for LGBT Nonfiction and was also a nominee for the 2015 Lambda Literary Award for Memoir. He's been featured on HLN's The Daily Share, Huffpost Live, Dr. Drew On Call, and Arise Television. As a writer his work has been published at CNN.com, The Advocate, Salon.com, The New York Post, and Metro Weekly among many others.
In 2015 he received the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association (NLGJA) award for Excellence In Blogging. He recently received the 2016 Gay City News LGBT Impact Award for multimedia coverage of issues impacting the LGBT community, and his video journalism work has been seen on AOL, USA Today, and MSN among many other outlets.
As you approach stories about the anniversary of DADT repeal or if you would like a personal commentary from Rob, please do not hesitate to contact me. We would be thrilled to add Rob’s powerful voice to the on-going conversation and this important historical marker in progress for the LGBT community.
For more information, a full bio and video clips of Rob speaking about diverse issues impacting the LGBT community go to: http://www.robsmithonline.com/
I can be reached at [email protected] or 917-757-6123
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Cathy Renna, Target Cue, http://targetcue.com, +1 (917) 757-6123, [email protected]
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