A disgusting policy, especially for a translator - how exactly is a gay translator endangering our military. How about asking those guys trying to police Iraq with no translator if they'd rather have a gay comrade or no way to speak to locals. They may be beyond caring, though.
The numbers seem pretty high to me. I wonder if some of these guys are pulling a Klinger after they're posted to miserable duty supporting indefensible behavior in Guantanamo.
Maybe they're afraid he'll gay up the translation and the macho army guys won't understand. Honestly, I have no idea what being gay has to do with translating. Or being in the army. I remember in a class my freshman year of school, I took a class on the hitory of warfare (not a history of class warfare); the prof said that homosexual soldiers would probably be better because they would care more about not letting their friends down. Don't know if that's a generalization itself, but either way, our country is stoopid.