Melvin Dwork, a World War II veteran discharged in 1944 after the Navy discovered he was gay, has had his discharge changed from "undesirable" to "honorable", the AP reports:
The decision to amend his discharge papers was made by the Board for Corrections of Naval Records in Washington.
In its Aug. 17 proceedings, obtained by The Associated Press, the board noted that the Navy has undergone a “radical departure” from the outright ban on gays that was in place in 1944. The board pointed out Dwork's “exemplary period of active duty” and said that changing the terms of his discharge was done “in the interest of justice.”
Dwork had been outed by his boyfriend at the time of his discharge, a fact that he only discovered last year, when the Navy unsealed his records. The former corpsman, now 89, "will now be eligible for the benefits he had long been denied, including medical care and a military burial."
