AP Exclusive: Navy clears gay WWII vet's record

[krispos42]

AP Exclusive: Navy clears gay WWII vet's record

By JULIE WATSON
Associated Press
updated 9/16/2011 5:39:17 PM ET

SAN DIEGO — Nearly 70 years after expelling Melvin Dwork for being gay, the Navy is changing his discharge from "undesirable" to "honorable" — marking what is believed to be the first time the Pentagon has taken such a step on behalf of a World War II veteran since the repeal of "don't ask, don't tell."

The Navy notified the 89-year-old former corpsman last month that he will now be eligible for the benefits he had long been denied, including medical care and a military burial.

Dwork spent decades fighting to remove the blot on his record.

"I resented that word 'undesirable,'" said Dwork, who was expelled in 1944, at the height of the war, and is now a successful interior designer in New York. "That word really stuck in my craw. To me it was a terrible insult. It had to be righted. It's really worse than 'dishonorable.' I think it was the worst word they could have used."

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http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44555344#.TnPJktRhr0c

One would hope he's the first of many!