"Why Do People Have To Push Me Like That?"

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Winchell, airlifted to Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, died 30 hours after the attack. He never regained consciousness. That same day, Glover--by then in the Fort Campbell jail--allegedly confessed to a fellow prisoner. Glover claimed he had left the party to escape Winchell's homosexual passes. "He ran into the guy again, and that's when he beat him down," Private Kenneth Buckler said. "He said he didn't want to kill him--he wanted to teach him a lesson. But he could tell he was dead after he did what he was doing." Nonetheless, Glover pleaded not guilty to the murder charge last month.

He faces the possibility of spending the rest of his life in the U.S. Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth, Kans. Fisher, scheduled to face a court-martial next week, could receive the same sentence. Their fate, and Winchell's, suggests that "Don't ask, don't tell" is an unfulfilled promise, not a functioning policy.