Ex member of US navy files complaint against CIA alleging anti-gay bullying by workers

By Julie Watson, The Associated Press

SAN DIEGO – A former member of a U.S. Navy special operations force has filed a complaint alleging the CIA bullied him for being gay during a work assignment in Afghanistan last month.

Former Navy SEAL Brett Jones said he filed the internal complaint last week against the federal agency, saying he was forced to endure homophobic slurs and other inappropriate comments on June 11 in Afghanistan as a group of contractors and civil servants with the CIA watched news of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that legalized same-sex marriage.

Jones also said he was abandoned and forced to walk in 120-degree temperatures without water while he worked there as a CIA contractor.

Jones, 41, the author of “Pride: The Story of the First Openly Gay Navy SEAL,” said he feared for his safety and returned home early from Afghanistan.

The CIA said that it takes such complaints seriously but declined to comment on the allegations.

Jones said that during his time working in Afghanistan people he was working with called him an anti-gay name. Jones alleged in the complaint that his team later ditched him in 120-degree temperatures without water, making him walk part of the way back to their compound before they stopped to give him a ride.

“I heard a faint laughing followed by a distant, ‘He can walk back!’ The door closed and they drove out of sight,” Jones said in a statement to the Union Tribune newspaper, which obtained a copy of the complaint.

Jones also said a PowerPoint presentation shown during a staff briefing contained sexist, anti-gay and racist themes, and his call sign was changed from “Bad Monkey” to “Gay Gay.”

“It’s crazy that it still exists. But it does. It really does,” he said.

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