Alex was born and raised in rural South Carolina in a town of only 2,000 people and two stoplights. The only son of a devout Southern Baptist and a career Army reservist, Alex grew up with strong expectations that he would join the military, be conservative, religious and straight. Fate, however, had other plans.

Alex, just 19 years old, enlisted in the Army in 2001 and trained as a human intelligence collector. As a multi-lingual recruit, his enlistment was considered quite a premium acquisition. Alex was serving at Ft. Huachuca, a small military intelligence base in southern Arizona, when the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 changed the course of American history. As the nation geared up for a new kind of war, the military intelligence community became an especially important point of focus, expansion and development.  It soon became clear that the terrorist attacks were largely the result of failures in the United States intelligence capacity and coordination.

Alex had just been chosen to cross-train in counterintelligence and source operations, in order to accelerate his deployment, when a colleague revealed confidential knowledge of his sexual orientation to others within their unit. When this information reached his unit’s command, Alex was quickly informed that his now known sexual orientation required his immediate removal from military service.  The decision was based on the ban of known gays and lesbians, commonly known as the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy.  Despite his extensive training and linguistic abilities, Alex was honorably but involuntarily discharged from the Army for “homosexual admission.”

After several years of shame, embarrassment and humiliation surrounding his untimely discharge, along with the corresponding burden of having let down his family and failed their traditional expectations, Alex finally broke his silence in 2005 by going public about his experience and the critical loss of skill and talent that the military suffered in the wake of September 11th.  In order to amplify his own voice as well as the voices of others who had been fired from the military for being gay or lesbian, Alex founded the organization Service Members United.  The organization supports those serving and suffering under the cloud of the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” law and to help reinvigorate the fight for the law’s repeal.

Alex is a principal subject in the award-winning documentary ASK NOT, which broadcast nationally on PBS and screened for members of Congress on Capitol Hill.  Alex is now one of the nation’s leading veteran activists in the movement to repeal the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” law. He has been featured in The Advocate, on CNN and in hundreds of radio and television spots representing the voice of the gay and lesbian military, veteran and defense community. The organization he founded and currently runs, Service Members United, is now the nation’s largest organization of LGBTQ troops and veterans.

You can order the powerful ASK NOT documentary with your FACES OF WAR promotional kit!