Like it or not; it is the truth:
BEAUMONT — Relatives of a slain sailor are calling the 29-year-old’s death a hate crime.
Rose Roy of Beaumont said her nephew, Navy Seaman August Provost III, had complained a year before about being harassed for being gay.
Roy said she advised Provost to report and document the incidents, but she said the military did little to help.
“He went to the Navy to serve and protect,” she said in an interview with Beaumont’s KFDM News, “he didn’t get protected at all.”
Roy told The Associated Press that the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy discouraged her nephew from asking for help.
“That phrase is just stupid because it tells them they have no one to speak to,” she said.
The 29-year-old Houston native was found dead Tuesday at Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, north of San Diego. Roy said the family was told that Provost was shot three times, had his hands and feet bound, his mouth gagged, and body burned.
The family plans to hold funeral services July 10 in Houston.
Democratic Rep. Bob Filner of San Diego said Thursday he wants a Defense Department investigation into the death, after leaders of the city’s gay community asked him to intervene.
Investigators have called the sailor’s death a random act unrelated to the his sexuality and have taken a “person of interest” into custody. No charges have been filed.
Roy said Provost joined the Navy in March 2008 to pay off college debt.
via Family of gay Houston sailor found dead faults military | Chronicle | Chron.com – Houston Chronicle.
Had he not been in the Navy; he would still be alive. The Armed Forces is not a place for Homosexuals. It is a tragic thing; but it his own fault. Gay blades do not belong in the Armed Forces; it is just that simple. This is why this person is dead. Most likely he came onto some officer and they did not like it and they killed him. Do I think it was right, that he was killed? No, I do not. But, if he had not been in the Navy and most likely not shot his mouth off, he would still be alive.