Jay Boda

Master Sergeant Jay Boda retired after 20 distinguished years in the U.S. Air Force on New Year’s Day, 2010.  At the stroke of midnight, the first thing he did was kiss his partner – in public.  The second thing was update his Facebook status telling the world he was gay.  A decorated combat veteran, Sergeant Boda worked as a computer systems manager and an interrogator.  He served 13 years overseas in locations across Europe, Africa, and the Middle East to include a year long deployment in Iraq.  Selected for assignments at both Headquarters Central Command and Headquarters Air Force Special Operations Command, Sergeant Boda earned the highest possible performance evaluations throughout his entire Air Force career.  He earned several awards to include three Meritorious Service Medals and the Central Command Communications and Information NCO of the Year Award.  In March 2005, Sergeant Boda volunteered for what would be his proudest year of service.  He retrained into a special duty assignment as a Human Intelligence Collector (aka interrogator) at Forward Operating Base Abu Ghraib and Camp Cropper, Iraq.  This duty was directly related to the U.S. Army being unable to meet its need in this critically-manned skill – aggravated further by DADT discharges. While serving in silence, Sergeant Boda anonymously worked behind the scenes for DADT repeal.  He contributed his experience to LGBT researchers Aaron Belkin and Nathaniel Frank.  And through organizations like the Human Rights Campaign and Servicemembers United (SU), he shed light on the many repercussions of DADT.  Sergeant Boda shared his career in the closet with the SU blog, “Don’t Ask Me by Todd Allen Knotts (a pseudonym)”.  After coming out to all of his friends on Facebook, he reports, “No one cut contact with me or gave me any negative feedback.  That’s including dozens of active duty servicemembers.  Several even said they’d follow me anywhere.”