The choice is clear: He can let go of any chance at a soul mate, a life partner, or else let go of his lifelong dream. And he doesn't have Drake's luxury of another year or two of soul-searching. May 31 was the form-completion deadline, and in the end he made his decision a few weeks early.

"What happened was, I was sitting around one lazy Saturday afternoon, and the stupid CD-ROM was sitting on my desk staring at me," he said. "I'm like, 'Fuck, I've got to do this! I might as well knock it out.'" He popped in the CD, logged onto the secure Web site and froze up at the keyboard. "I sat there, stared at it for a while, and then I finally started filling it out," he says. "When it came to actually sending it off -- to this is my final answer -- at that point, I was like, 'God, I hope I am doing the right thing. And I hope I'm going to be happy with the decision that I've made.' And that was it."

He didn't call his dad or his mentor, Col. Hagen; he didn't tell Drake or Alex or anyone else. He went to the gym and pumped up his arms. "Just normal business," he says. Monday morning, he walked into the office and told his commander. That was the first time he actually said it out loud. "Anytime you're thinking about something, but you don't finally put it on paper, or something where it can be read by everybody and understood by everybody, that's when it really hits you," Brett says. "It's sort of like coming out, when you vocalize it, and you say, 'I am gay.' It's like that big final step."

We went clubbing in Denver the next Friday night, started with a leisurely chat over dinner, and he was his usual bubbly self. He didn't mention it until the next afternoon, when I happened to ask him about it over coffee. How did he finally make the decision? I asked.

The sham-marriage possibility was the first to go. "I sort of eliminated that option because it boils down to being honest," he says. "I don't think I could do that. It would be different if I did it before I knew [I was gay], and then you discover it, but it's a totally different story, knowing." And after months of agony, the final debate took only seconds. "My realistic side totally took over," he says. "I came to this very clear realization, like, Who am I kidding? I cannot pursue that [combat] side. It is not realistic."

Brett will never be MacArthur, but at least he can remain in the Army for the time being. "My profession is changing," he says. "The 'want' part of me was really gunning for [combat]." Instead, he sees himself transitioning from soldier to bureaucrat. "That's a big change." He called Col. Hagen a few days later to tell him about his decision and tried to convince his mentor that he was just playing it safe. "Is it worth it to risk the next 10 years trying to pursue [the combat] goal and have nothing to show for it?" he asked. "I have good opportunities to still have a successful career on the support side." That analysis did play a role in his decision, but it certainly wasn't the decisive factor.

Col. Hagen just couldn't make it all add up. "He goes, 'Well, that makes sense,'" Brett says. "'But I just don't understand why you would want to do that. If you're going to make the Army your career, wouldn't you want to give yourself the best opportunities of being a general?' And I go, 'Yeah,' and I'm thinking, 'I'll never be married. I'm not going to get married just for the sake of my career.' You need to. You've got to have a spouse."

I ask him the painful question. "So you gave up your profession as a soldier to be gay?"

His head drops. "I guess. I guess you could look at it that way." He trails off, then perks up with a laugh. "But I'm still a soldier, because I'm still defending my country, I'm still in a uniform."

He laughs some more, then grows more reflective. "I still think it's honorable. But [it was] not my original intent. It was my original intent to be a soldier, to stay a soldier, but, hey, something changed in my life." And he notes that this can happen to people who aren't gay, too. "It may be that, hey, you have a family, and you're more devoted to your family so you want to get out of that [combat] role, or you're going to get out of the military, period.

"Lots of things. People go through changes in their lives. As they mature, value systems change. At one point your military career was everything, but now you realize it's your family. And for me, now, it's like, yeah, at one point, the military was everything, but now I'm a little concerned about my life and my personal well-being and my personal happiness. And that's more important to me than being a general. And that's the bottom line."

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