New Yorker article here.
While working in biometrics, after completing the thesis, Rogers had his first extended exposure to civilian contractors, and realized that not only did they make twice as much money for doing similar work, in many cases, as that of active-duty officers; they had their private lives to themselves. Shortly after accepting his third tour of duty in Iraq, last year, Rogers began telling friends that he planned to retire from the Army when he reached the twenty-year mark, which would have coincided with his stateside return. He was beginning to worry that he would never get a chance to settle down and enjoy a long-term relationship. One of the people he called on the night before his death was his friend Tami Sadowski, who works as a real-estate broker in Maryland. They had made arrangements to go house hunting in the D.C. area during his two-week leave.
“He followed every rule he believed in,” a close friend and colleague who got to know Rogers well while they were both living in Atlanta, near the headquarters of the Third U.S. Army, in 2003, told me. “He believed in the Army. It was so important to him. This is probably the perfect case study of somebody who was gay and accepted the Army’s values—and how it doesn’t work at the end of the day. If he hadn’t died in Iraq, the Army would have lost him.”
Wikipedia article here.
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