Brett was born in a wealthy Manila, Philippines, suburb, and dreamed of growing up to be another Gen. Douglas MacArthur. His father fanned his aspirations, regaling him with tales of the crusty old general vowing to return in 1942, and recovering the capital in three glorious weeks of battle three years later.

When Brett was 9, the family emigrated to Seattle, but retained much of its native culture. Brett was the oldest son, and to this day his father looks to him to establish the family name and produce an heir. He led a platoon through the Gulf War, proved himself under fire and later commanded a combat company in Italy.

The Gulf War gave him a quick taste of the life he dreamed of. His platoon was whisked to the Middle East on a clandestine mission: No time for training, no briefings on how to react to a Scud missile attack. They rode all night in a darkened plane, stepped out onto the tarmac unsure what continent they were deploying into. The Scud-warning alarms blasted and they scattered on the airfield. "I just remember all these people running for cover and I was thinking, where are you running? There's no cover, there's nothing to protect you here," Brett said. "We were on a tarmac on an airfield -- if they hit us, we're goners. I was trying to keep them from panicking, and keep the unit together." He held the unit together through several attacks over the next few months, donning gas masks and protective suits for anticipated chemical warheads.

But early this March, the Army sent him a CD-ROM offering another path entirely. The "Career Field Designation" form arrives once a career, just before promotion to major. After a decade of specialization, officers are given a one-time chance to select a new branch, a true fork in the road. Combat officers like Brett must finally choose between continuing in combat, or taking an operational support role that's really quite different from "the profession of arms."

A common civilian misconception is that most of the Army mobilizes for the battlefield in the event of war. In reality, only a fraction of the force will ever engage in combat, principally soldiers in the infantry, armor and artillery branches. The vast majority of the service focuses on feeding, supplying, transporting and otherwise supporting the combat troops. Warfare requires a parallel society, complete with lawyers, accountants, cooks and mechanics. Those branches make up the bulk of the Army, but carry little of the prestige. Most of the generals and nearly all the powerful commanders are drawn from the three "combat arms." The problem for the professional soldier lies in the dearth of coveted combat command slots.

For an ambitious officer who dreams of leading hordes across continents, conquering evil empires, vanquishing the next Napoleon or Hitler, the Career Field Designation form is a no-brainer: He's going to continue on his path, aiming toward battlefield general. If he wasn't gay, Brett said, his form would have been completed in seconds.

Instead it tore him apart for months, beginning even before he received it. "Because I'm thinking about everything here," he said. "I'm thinking about who I am, what I want to be, what I want to do, how is this going to affect my career? Everything [is] kind of converging. Ugh. This is awful!"

Col. Hagen, the Brigade Commander at Brett's previous assignment in Italy, and a mentor ever since, was baffled at his hesitation. "My mentor was saying, 'Why would you want to pursue operational support?'" he says. "'You're limiting yourself. You've got the capability to be a commander, why would you even consider going support?' And I'm thinking, 'Because I'm gay! They'll never allow me to be a general.'"

He received the designation form in March and put it away until May.

Politics 2000: Unflinching daily political news, analysis and commentary.